June 21, 2025 • 38 mins
To celebrate a new dawn at Tripology, Adam shares two of his greatest travel stories. Both set in Borneo, on the same action-packed adventure, we hear how he came face to face with an enormous male Orangutan whilst trekking through the Danum Valley rainforest, and the terrifying moment he almost drowned whilst scuba diving in Mabul.
Extreme ends of the travel spectrum but equally spectacular, this episode is not to be missed!
We'd love to hear from you! Send in your greatest travel story here: tripologypodcast.com/talesofatrip
Need travel insurance? We recommend SafetyWing! Click here to get started: https://safetywing.com/?referenceID=26035801&utm_source=26035801&utm_medium=Ambassador
Require an onward flight? Please use this fantastic flight rental service: https://onwardticket.com/tripologypodcast
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/tripologypodcast/
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/@tripologypodcast
Please rate the show and help us grow! Recommend the podcast to family & friends (all of them). It makes a HUGE difference. Thank you for your continued support. It means the world.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Adam's greatest travel story. I'm going big.
This episode of Tripology, the only travel podcast that takes
(00:22):
place actually on the road. I'm Alan.
I'm here with the ever orange Adam.
Orange, of course, the only colour that isn't associated
with an emotion. Yeah, I did a bit of French for.
You. Yeah, French is featuring in
many episodes. It's not a new thing.
We're not branching out. We're not trying to capture a
new audience. It's.
Because I've really come to think of you equally as a
(00:45):
Frenchman as I do as an Englishman.
Why is that? I just think you display the
cultural attributes of the French quite prominently in your
personality. Oh God, we won't go into any
detail. I have thought on many occasions
maybe my spirit was French. I think I identify more as a
French person than an English person.
Yeah, and I treat you as touch with contempt.
Oh I love everyone, including the French.
(01:06):
Yeah, we've got a bit of news this week, mate, haven't we?
Yeah, it's going to be a bloody big episode.
I'm going big, I'm not going home and I'm going to tell two
stories which hopefully you enjoy and I can't wait to get
into. It Yeah, we're going to talk
about your greatest travel talesand then on the next episode I'm
going to tell my greatest travelstory.
(01:27):
And then we've got huge announcements all coming soon.
So stay tuned, listen to Adam's greatest story, and we'll tell
you a bit more at the end. Yeah.
So the, I mean greatest travel story, I don't know what it
means for you, but it could be anything that's maybe
heartwarming, life changing, inspirational.
It's very difficult to pin down a story or two stories in this
case, which, which define my travels.
(01:50):
But I am trying to do that. Yeah.
So these are just moments in in my travel life, I suppose you
could say my travel history thathave stayed with me forever and
I would love to relive them withyou now.
I'm excited to hear about them. I've not heard these stories
before, have I? I've heard a word of them, like
a whisper on the wind, but you've never in detail described
(02:12):
them to me, so I'm going to be listening.
With a breath. That could only be described as
baited. I'm going to listen to the
stories. OK so the both of them actually
take place in Borneo, which has got a mention on the podcast
before. You haven't heard the episode
where I was in Borneo and I spotted a clouded leopard.
Incredibly rare. Yeah, it's one of the stories
that you've told that I'm most jealous of.
(02:33):
Really. Yeah, because I would love to
see a clouded leopard myself oneday.
Oh well, I'm honored because you've seen so many wonderful
things. I've seen more than 46 animals
up close and a clouded leopard ain't one so.
Yeah, so we're in Borneo, which of course for any wildlife lover
is a Mecca. I think if you haven't been to
Borneo, you absolutely should. It's not cheap, but it is good.
(02:57):
Yeah. Borneo being one of the largest
islands in the world, it's sort of half Indonesian, half
Malaysian, with a bit of Brunei as well.
And right up in the north, there's a place called Sabah,
which is one of the states there, and there's a place
called Dunham Valley Rainforest,which is a primary rainforest.
OK, is Dunham Valley where this story is set?
It is. It's also where the Clouded
Leopard story was set. OK.
(03:18):
So it was a yielded an incredibly high crop this Dunham
Valley for you in terms of. Storying.
Well, it's where a lot of peoplewill naturally go to see
orangutans, if you hadn't already realized where this
story is going. I did call him Orange at the
start of the episode. So yeah, you can see the clouded
leopard if you're incredibly lucky.
(03:38):
Incredibly rare to see that verylucky orangutans is why people
might go there. And then there's also pygmy
elephants in the region as well.Wow, so you can see the most
orange of the great apes? Yeah.
The most clouded of the felines.Yeah.
And the smallest of all the elephants all in one place.
Yeah. It's like a superlative based
(03:59):
animal haven. Yeah.
No, it is. It is.
I mean, it's absolutely outrageous.
The three days that we had there, I wouldn't change them
for the world because on day onewe saw the clouded leopard.
Yeah, Day 2, I'm leading up to it.
Day three on the way out we saw.All the clouded leopard and an
orangutan riding a pygmy elephant.
The sauciest animal encounter ofall.
(04:21):
We we saw we we were basically surrounded by a herd of pygmy
elephants about 20 kilometres away from the research.
All at knee height. Yeah, they were.
They were tiny. We could have taken them, but.
But no, that's a different storyfor a different day.
This one is about the orangutan.Wow.
Day 2. Day 2.
Jungle, and it's really important to add, you might be
able to relate to this, but whenyou put an animal up on a
(04:43):
pedestal like the orangutan. They don't like it, do they?
They get Vertigo. But the the orator, of course,
is up there with, with the panda, I think as as one of the
animals that people would would love to see once in their
lifetime. Incredibly difficult to see.
And also important to add that if you do see one in an
(05:06):
orphanage, it's great, but it's not, it's not the real deal.
Is it what you see like an orangutan that's had a troubled
past? But there's a place called
Sepuloc, which is awesome, and it's kind of 1/2 wild orphanage.
So the orangutans are wild. They do live in the jungle, but
they come there to get fed and they have babies there and that
kind of stuff. So you can get up quite close to
(05:26):
them. I mean, you might have even seen
videos on Instagram and stuff where people are walking along
these boardwalks through the jungle and the orangutans are
just sitting on the side. So it's like a pre release like
rehabilitation centre or it's like a Hospice kind of it's.
Not a space, but yeah, it's justa a sanctuary almost that's open
to the jungle and they can come down and get fed and they.
Do because it's a convenient wayto feed.
(05:48):
Yeah, and, and there are babies there and there's some medical
help and all this kind of stuff.So it's.
And they get some money on the side.
And it's not free. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Oh, we're looking after the
animals. They like it here $5.
They choose to be here. They will do if you continue to
feed them. No, I'm sure that it's, it's all
done, you know, from a good place.
And see that one there? He's an orphan, so give me $5.
(06:10):
Don't ask where is Mama's? We don't know.
We weren't involved. I probably.
But anyway, so you can do that. And that is what most people do
just to guarantee an orangutan sighting.
However, I wanted, I wanted to go a little bit further.
So we went to the Dannon Valley rainforest.
There's the field centre there, which is actually a research
centre. Yeah, but in the low season you
can, you can just hire as kind of a hostel.
You can book beds in the research centre.
(06:32):
And you know, if if I was to sayI was sharing a room with people
from National Geographic, I mean, it wouldn't be a lie.
Yeah, well, I remember, I remember this story from the
clouded leopard scenario when basically you posed as a
research scientist on a lab coatand like, went down there, got a
cheap price. No, it was really good.
It was really affordable. But there were a National
(06:53):
Geographic, there was a NationalGeographic film crew there that
was setting up traps, camera traps, not not traps to catch
the wild animals. Because the orphanage numbers
are getting pretty low basicallyon a top up mission.
Yeah, we will not be endorsing Natural geographic on this joke,
but But yeah, So what happens when you go to somewhere like
(07:13):
this, you build it up as if you're you're going to see one.
Yeah. You can't possibly go to the
Dannon Valley or anywhere in Borneo where you can see these
orangutans. And you can't imagine what it
would be like to not see one. So every rustle in the trees,
every rustle in the Bush, you hear like maybe some other
people two days before saw a wild orangutan.
Oh my God, we're going to see one tomorrow.
(07:34):
And every tree you walk past, you look up and you think, is
that one? Oh, I think that's what there's
obviously thousands of monkeys, thousands of birds.
It's incredibly, it's like a hive activity, activity and
buzzing. And you're, you've convinced
yourself that you you're going to see one before you have.
So receptive to the colour orange, I imagine in that
moment, yeah, someone holds up alike a sheet of orange paper and
(07:57):
you start weeping. Yeah, that's it.
I saw it tick it off. But we we got to the sort of the
end of the second day and we were feeling a little bit
disheartened because we just hadno news of any.
We hadn't heard that any groups had seen one.
The Rangers were saying that it maybe wasn't the best time.
And you can either see them really early in the morning or
really late at night. When they come out to feed in
(08:17):
the day, it's usually too hot. They just hide up in the trees
in the shade. So me and me and the people I
was with. I was with my ex partner who is
French in spirit and orange. She's not orange.
And a German guy who did featureon another episode.
Actually I. Remember him?
Yeah, he was famous for keeping Excel spreadsheets for his
budget. He's like, I'm not sure I can
(08:39):
afford this orangutan experience.
It's a it's €1000 a month and nothing more and nothing less.
I remember him. So the trip was on him.
No, and a Slovenian girl as well.
And we had, we had a bit of a laugh first fall.
We saw the clouded leopard together.
And then we, we ended up going to this one tree that had been
touted as a great place to see the orangutans because it was,
(08:59):
it was fruit that was ripe on that day or for a period of
days. And little tip for you guys, if
you want to go and see wild animals, just go to a tree where
there's some ripe fruit and you'll see loads of them.
Yeah, if the animal that you're trying to see eats fruit.
I was trying to see tigers recently in India and the ripe
tree technique didn't work. No, no, you've got to understand
it's diet. So we were all sort of huddled
(09:21):
around this tree with the other,I don't know, 20-30 tourists
there looking up, hoping to see a rain, sand, nothing doing.
And then we lost faith and we thought whatever, tomorrow's our
last day, fingers crossed we seesomething.
If we don't, you know, it's not the end of the world.
We'll just go back to Seppalock where the orphans are.
We. We were walking back down the
(09:41):
trail to the research centre andI said guys, just just hold up.
There was this trail that lookedreally overgrown.
I mean, it definitely was a pathat some point in history, but it
was overgrown. It was just like a dirt path off
into the distance, and in the distance I could see that there
was like an old rusty gate. So I was like, what colour's
rust? Is it a rusty gate or was it a
(10:01):
gate with an orangutan on it? Is that a hairy No, it was.
So I walked down the path and said guys, just hold up.
I'm just going to have a quick jog down here.
I'll see if there's anything doing.
So I went, I went to the end andat the at the very end, it kind
of opened up into this disused campsite.
I guess it was like very overgrown.
(10:23):
Things were in disrepair. Yeah, that campsite looks very
cheap. It it looked like it hadn't been
used for a really long time and I poked my head around the
corner and I could see in the clearing there was a Ranger who
was on his phone. Was it a Ranger?
It was a Ranger. A Ranger, yeah, it was on his
phone. And then he, he looked at me
(10:45):
immediately. He was kind of startled that
he'd seen me. And he said, oh, look, come
here, come here. He he waved.
He gestured for me to come closeto him.
So I hopped over the rusty fenceand then walked over to him.
He pointed just a little. I'm talking like maybe 20
meters, not even up to if you imagine a toilet shed, like a
toilet block. So we're talking like one small
(11:05):
floor up. Just above that, in the tree
directly behind this little shed, was an enormous male
orangutan. Wow.
I mean, it was, it was unbelievable.
It was incredible. So I ran back to the rusty gate,
put my head down this, this pathway, and I said, guys, guys,
guys, guys, come down here, comedown, come down here now.
So the three of them sprinted up, hopped over the fence with
(11:26):
me. And then we just stood and
watched this orangutan. And I've honestly never seen
anything like it. We were there for 45 minutes
watching this thing strip a fig tree.
It was about to get really interesting.
Yeah, I understood why it was your greatest travel story for a
moment. Then orangutan.
I mean, famously already naked, yeah.
(11:48):
So yeah, exactly. Start at the end.
The most remarkable thing about it was it was fully cloned.
OK, so tell me what that felt like.
Describe the orangutans aesthetic to me.
We already know he's orange. He's orange.
He's large, lovely shade of orange, very hairy.
Yeah, we were told by the Ranger.
Probably a 35 year old male. Wow.
(12:09):
He's a big no. It's age with accuracy then.
Oh, yeah, It was because of the cheek flaps.
OK, sitting up in this tree and I want to get this across to you
guys. So, so close.
So close that I felt afraid. That's how for.
Your safety. Yeah, for all of our safety,
yeah. I thought this the the power,
The thing is with orangutans andbig apes and you know, gorillas
would be the same. Orangutans, the most peaceful of
(12:30):
the great apes. Yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean, the old others are chimpanzees, bonobos,
gorillas, so. Yeah.
They kind of get they get easy rides to be the most peaceful.
Yeah, but incredibly intelligent.
You could just, he could obviously see that we were there
making eye contact with us and stuff.
But when he was reaching up and grabbing these branches, which
were, I mean, we're not talking about little twigs here.
(12:51):
No, we're talking about fully Fred branches.
Really thick branches and he wasjust grabbing them and pulling
them down towards his mouth and then stripping them of their
figs, putting all the fruit in his mouth and then just almost
comically spitting the pips out to one side.
It was amazing. So human like.
I was looking at the detail on his skin and I could not believe
that it wasn't a man in a suit. Did he look good for 35?
(13:14):
I would, no. I would say he looked older than
35. Yeah.
I'm no expert, yeah, but the. Yeah, he'd had a rough life, I
think. OK, now cheek flaps.
Of course. They're a secondary sexual
orangutan male characteristic designed to attract a mate.
Right. Rate them out of five.
The flaps, Yeah, it's cheek flaps.
(13:35):
OK, So if I was interested in orangutans and I wanted someone
particularly flappy. Yeah, well, you do, because it's
like in the orangutan world, that's a sign.
That's like having a really dense beard.
You know, it's a secondary sexual characteristic.
I love the way you picked him out of your own that.
Was a secondary sexual characteristic.
Okay, love it. Yeah, I mean, we'd be fighting
(13:57):
over him for sure. OK, nice.
So you like this flaps? I can imagine it was sorted
after. Wow man, I'm jealous of the
experience because I of course are constantly in pursuit of
orange animals, having tried five times to see a tiger in the
wild in India and failing miserably each time.
I've never seen an orange animalbefore, apart from maybe an
ocelot. I looked after a baby ocelot
(14:18):
once in the Amazon so he was quite orange, but other than
that I've never seen one. Yeah, I mean, the the difference
with an orangutan again, becauseit's something that is so rare
to see out in the wild and the given how human like this
orangutan was, I, I just want todescribe the emotions that I was
feeling. I was absolutely stunned and I
(14:40):
was actually experiencing emotions that I've never
experienced before in my life, but certainly not at the same
time because I was so awestruck that I was left speechless that
the other group, they were kind of milling around, the German
guy took 220 photos of this orangutan in in less than 40
minutes, which is quite incredible.
Is that above his budget or? Maybe he started a little
(15:04):
business, orangutan photo business where he was making
some of that budget up. But he features in the story in
the second-half of the episode as well.
Would you believe? And I, I was crying as well.
I was so moved by the whole thing, you know, floods of
tears. I wanted to be sick.
I was, I felt like I was going to vomit.
My stomach was was turning as well.
I was in absolute state of euphoria.
(15:26):
I mean, I don't think I've ever been as happy to this day as I
was when I was watching that orangutan.
And I was equally frightened. So a lot of things going on.
Hell of an emotional roller coaster to experience in such a
short amount of time. And then once we'd been there
for about half an hour, more andmore people started to show up.
I think the Ranger that was on the phone.
This is obviously the downside of wildlife is that when there's
(15:48):
wealthy people around, there arepeople that are willing to pay a
lot of money to guarantee wildlife sightings.
And the the word gets round fromthe Ranger that there's a male
orangutan in the vicinity. And then of course, you get the
really wealthy tourists show up with their private guide and
it's like, oh, there you go. There's that orangutan you paid
for. Let me quickly dart it for you
so if you have a closer look. You said it'd be eating a fig,
(16:10):
but but yeah, I mean, it was, itwas a bit of a shame when more
and more people came and that kind of cut the experience
short. However, that wasn't before we
got so close to the fence basically that the building that
it was above was inside this kind of disused campsite area.
And it was on a tree just outside of the perimeter.
But the branches from the tree that it was sitting on came into
(16:32):
our into the campsite and we gotso close that I like panicking.
And I said to the guys who were in front of me, they were so, so
close to the fence. And this thing was just the
other side of my guys. I'm not being funny.
This thing will fuck you up if it wants to.
And they were trying to get closer photos and get even
closer to it. And I just thought it was a real
misunderstanding of what this animal can do.
Because I for one, and I'm sure that you share this, is that the
(16:57):
the risk of scaring an animal ormaking it feel uncomfortable for
whatever reason is absolutely not the idea here.
I would rather see it from further away and and know or
have it know that I'm absolutelyno threat.
You don't want to distress a wild animal, Why would you just
get a closer? Look, I think a lot of people
think they love animals so much that it's like, oh, come on, it
(17:20):
will like, me too. I'll get closer.
I want to like, I love it so much.
I want to get. But you're just stressing it
out, really, aren't you? Yeah, but the orangutan didn't
show any signs of distress. It was chill.
No, it did. It left.
So it it basically climbed down to the same level and just as it
got above the fence, it did a sort of a, a move forward, a
jolt forward, almost like you would square up to.
Something really it did that. But but it was in control of the
(17:42):
situation. I mean, they all shat themselves
and run in the other direction, but they ran further away than I
was. And you know, I, I sort of, he
looked at me and I and you know.Oh, you shared a moment with the
Ranger. Shared a moment I said you know
mate, I've got you these guys are knobs he.
Gave 2 thumbs up. No.
And of of course, the people that I was with are great, but
(18:03):
but I just thought that was thatwas a little bit misguided or,
or not a great reading of the situation.
And when the orangutan did that,he was kind of like you.
He's just told you I could fuck you up if I wanted.
So, so back off. And he scooted down the other
side of the fence and he just sort of walked along the floor
and we never saw him again. I loved the story, mate.
It was really beautiful. I loved it because it's about
(18:24):
man's connection with the animalworld, and I think it's a
perfect example of what makes a great travel story.
Let's think about that as we go on a brief meditation break.
Alan, we should make a place where fans of the show can
listen to episodes, read articles and maybe contact us.
Done it What? Tripologypodcast.com.
Should we put a link in the description?
(18:45):
It's already there. You are good.
Like an orange primate with colossal facial flaps, allow
your conscious mind to return into your brain.
We're hearing Adam's Greatest Travel Stories as part of an
item we like to call Adam's Greatest Travel Stories.
(19:06):
Madam, what's your second greatest travel story?
Well, yeah, I mean, this is in no particular order.
I wanted to start off on the right foot, on the front foot
with it being something overwhelmingly positive and
hopefully something that's, you know, going to inspire more and
more people to go to Borneo. However, this story also
happened in Borneo, but is maybenot what you want to happen to
(19:27):
you because it involves diving, which as we know is pretty
dangerous. And I actually don't know if if
people give it credit for how dangerous it can be.
Yeah, I think recreational diving, which is by the way,
recreational diving has to be 30meters Max or 100 feet Max.
Is that correct? Yeah.
So if you do like an open water,you mean?
(19:47):
Yeah, your Paddy open water course.
I think that's relatively safe in in terms of the fact that you
can probably just do the Superman blow out and go to the
top and you'll probably avoid the bends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bends, I think it's actually
what I've been told. It's pretty difficult, but not
difficult to get the bends, of course, in the in the horrendous
(20:09):
circumstances that you do. But I think people think the
bends are much more common than they actually are in practice.
Hopefully. But yeah, I mean, Borneo itself
known as a world class diving location, especially up in the
Northeast, there's a place called Semporna.
Again, we're kind of in the Sabaregion, right in the north of
Borneo, place called Semporna. Use it as a jumping off point to
(20:30):
get to an island called Mabul. Now, Mabul is famous for micro.
Like, you know, all these littlethings you can say.
I mean, they're not. They're fucking tiny.
Yeah, yeah, you're diving with two microscopes like.
Yeah, it's amazing. You can do these dives with
diving structures and dive masters where you the guy's
like, you're underwater, obviously, and he's pointing at
something and you think, what's he pointing out?
(20:51):
There's nothing there. You get a bit closer and you're
like, it's just a piece of dust.And then you get even closer.
It's like, Oh my God, it's a fucking shrimp or something like
that. You know, this, this, this stuff
on this level is incredible and it's very, very famous for it.
So if you are interested in thatsort of stuff, then definitely
go there. But one of the reasons why
people go to this area is actually for an island called
(21:12):
Sipadan, which is much further. You have to get a speedboat,
usually a speedboat from Marble to get to Sipadan.
Now Sipadan is a protected area.It's protected Islands
Conservation Area used to be a resort or two on it.
Now there is not. They're basically trying to
rewild it and in order to dive on Cipidan and the kind of the
(21:32):
reefs around Cipidan, the dive sites around Cipidan, it's
pretty difficult and eye wateringly expensive.
You can buy packages in Borneo that allow you to do let's say a
few days diving in my ball and surrounds and if you're lucky, I
was told right. This is in Kotick and Bali where
I booked the whole thing in Kotick and Bali Remix that there
(21:55):
is a six month waiting list in some cases to get one of the 120
dive permits for Cipidan at any given time.
So I was incredibly lucky. I put myself on the cancellation
list and lo and behold, the following week when when I was
still in Borneo, they said there's a cancellation that's
come up. It's X amount of money and what
(22:16):
we recommend people do because Cipidan is such, I'm not going
to say technical because I don'tthink you need loads of
experience to dive there, but itis a serious dive site.
You can't go there and do like your open water.
If you've never done a dive before, you can't go and do a
refresher course at Cipidan. It's serious, serious stuff.
And the people that I was on theboat with were so much more
experienced than I was. You know, we're talking about 80
(22:37):
dives, 120 dives. These are people that go diving
5 or 6 * a year. They go on holiday specifically
to dive in the run up to go to Sipadan because this is, you
know, this is like the absolute pinnacle.
If you type in top ten dive sites in the world, usually
Sipadan will come up on the list.
I hadn't been diving for over a year.
Oh, so you have to do that swimming pool refresher course
(22:59):
though? Yeah, not always in a swimming
pool, but I did feel a little bit like that and the dive
resort. So I bought this package.
It was like 3 or 4 days diving in the lead up to the dive at
Sipadan and then the final day was 4 dives in one day at
Sipadan. So it's this great sort of
diving, four or five day packagestaying in a hostel on, on Mabul
(23:20):
that I had that I had organised.And the first port of call was
to basically do this refresher course I hadn't been diving for
for over a year. It was actually three years at
that point. So I mean, I'm not asking you
any questions. I, I want to do the refresher
course because you know, it's, it's dangerous and whatever,
it's important that I know what I'm doing underwater.
And the the girl that I got paired up with, or the woman
(23:42):
that I was paired up with to do a refresher course as well who
would also booked a similar package was a far more
experienced diver than I was. Do you like diving with more
experienced divers or do you think it's intimidating?
Well, it'd be interesting to getyour opinion on this in terms of
the community, because I would imagine it's similar to
climbing. It's probably similar to jiu
jitsu. Is that usually people who are
really experienced elevate? Yeah, They're super humble and
(24:05):
they're really encouraging. She wasn't at all Oh, she she
her last dive. She a Dutch lady, otherwise
quite nice. But because she had done her
last dive a year and a week and a half ago.
So it was like such an annoying amount of time.
And this was like her 86th dive or something.
(24:26):
So she she's pretty experienced.She was livid at the fact that
she had to pay for a refreshes course, especially with Muggins
over here. It's been 53 1/2 weeks so you're
going to have to wait. You know the cut off is
somewhere, right? If it's a year, a year and a
week, two years, six months is somewhere.
And they were very rigid. They said look for legal reasons
if anything happens to you. If you go diving and we know
(24:49):
that your most recent dive is actually over a year ago,
there's a policy. We have to stick to it.
You've got to do a refresh. Skilled degradation over time.
You know, no matter if you're the most skilled surgeon in the
world, if you've you've not caught anyone open in the 53 1/2
weeks, you're going to have to learn that bit again.
Exactly. So we were doing the refresher
and the entire time, you know mebetter than anyone else.
(25:10):
You know, I'm quite receptive. I'm sensitive.
And if if I'm with someone who'slike in a mood or frustrated or
sad or whatever, I like to thinkI'm quite empathetic and I feel
that energy. So, yeah, and usually think it's
about like it's because of something you've done or take it
very personally to you, yeah. Yeah, so we were on this boat.
She was already in a stinking mood and she made it absolutely
(25:30):
clear. I'm, I'm pretty sure from memory
she even said worse. The effect of, you know, I'm
not, I'm not like this guy pointing at me.
I mean, he's, he's done like 30 dives and it's 3 years ago.
Obviously he needs to do. I'm actually a master of.
This So quite frankly, it's embarrassing that we're even
being considered in the same breath.
But she was on the on the thing and we ended up doing for her.
(25:50):
I totally appreciate it was probably incredibly boring
because you're going through allthe hand signals at 5 meters and
all this kind of stuff on this refresher call that's dive #1.
She still hasn't done it in a year and a half, so a year and a
bit. And a year and a little bit just
trickled over, but the second dive was OK.
We went down a little bit deeperfor a bit longer and we're kind
of diving together and whatever.I'm still feeling quite bad and
(26:12):
I feel quite nervous in this situation because it's been such
a long time since I've done a dive.
So I'm already quite nervous andI'm trying to remember
everything I knew. Follow the Follow the Thing the
guide. Is she good under the water?
Is she like mermaid level? Like swimming about, looping
around you, that sort of shit. There's in terms of her ability,
there's no way she needs. To do a refresher.
OK, she's. An excellent diver.
(26:32):
She just didn't want to be therewith me.
I was really cramping her style.She hated it and she she made me
know that and she made the dive guide know that.
How does she make you know it underwater?
Does she like take a respirator out and blow angry bubbles at
you? You just give bubble beam.
Yeah, a little snarky look everynow and again, like go on, fuck
off, go and get lost. But then the third dive of the
(26:53):
day came, which anyone who's an experienced diver, I'm sure
there's loads of people listening to this far more
experienced than I am. The third dive of the day, you
do have to be a little bit careful because we've already
been underwater twice. We've obviously been underwater
with oxygen tanks, under the pressure, all this kind of
stuff. And typically I think it's safe.
Correct me if I'm wrong guys, but the third dive of the day is
(27:13):
often the shortest and the shallowest.
Why is that? For that reason, because you've
been underwater for so long at pressure.
Just to get them because you've got nitrogen build up in.
All that sort of stuff. So we went down to a depth of
about 1718 meters on the third dive.
But it was also the dive when we'd, you know, the preamble to
this was that we've been doing the signs, we've been refreshing
(27:35):
our memory and all this kind of stuff.
So we felt more comfortable on that dive.
It was just going to be the shortest.
Now we were swimming between tworeefs, unfortunately at the
beginning of the day, as is the same with lots of areas around
the world. When you dive the the water is
like quite calm, good visibility, all this sort of
stuff. But in the afternoon the clouds
were coming in, it was really kicking up.
It was getting windy, so the visibility was pretty shit.
(27:58):
Imagine it's just me and this Dutch woman who I know doesn't
want to be there and the dive guide, both incredibly competent
divers. And I'm third dive of the day,
absolutely exhausted. Still not a clue what the
fucking doing. It's been three years and then
the visibility is terrible and the current is whipping up and
I'm actually struggling to keep up with them.
You can feel the warm swell whenthe current starts waking up,
(28:20):
can't you? And, and we, we were swimming
along this wall, this reef, thiswall.
And I, we were 17 meters down. I completely lost sight of them.
And then I began, begun to panic.
And I can, even as I'm telling the story now, I can remember it
so vividly. I saw their flippers go off in
the distance, and I was trying to speed up swim as fast as I
(28:42):
could to catch up with them. Visibility, as I said, was
pretty poor. Lots of sediment floating
around. And then there was a huge
current, like a big forceful kind of wave, underwater wave if
you like. And it took my regulator clean
out of my mouth. Oh dear.
And I I panicked big time. So what are you supposed to do
when that happens? Is swim your right hand?
(29:05):
Engage the gills. Yeah, exactly like colossal
cheek flaps. You raise your hand behind your
back to collect the regulator because it's somewhere back.
There the hose, you would catch the hose if you do that motion,
that windmill motion, Exactly. Yeah, you're totally right.
Didn't do that there. Well, it's very easy to say that
now. And, you know, obviously I
(29:27):
didn't die because I'm here telling you the story.
Well, am I? But it's very easy to say that.
And in hindsight, and even like before, if you would ask me, you
know, to do that, that's pretty straightforward.
You may be blown out a little bit and you get those little
bubbles going. Well, you need to constantly be
breathing when you're underwater.
You can't hold your breath at that depth because if you change
(29:47):
your elevation a little bit, your lungs will expand or
collapse. So always if you're not got the
regulator in, you've got to be breathing out.
Yeah. And, you know, had I had more
time or been able to think clearly, I would have just done
the windmill motion, pop the regulator back in, purged, You
know, I got all the water out and then just started breathing
as normal and ended up probably catching up with them.
But that isn't what happened. I panicked.
(30:08):
I opened my mouth with it, you know, out, and I immediately
swallowed so much water. I think even in that scenario,
it's still possible to rectify the situation.
I think even then, if I'd done the windmill motion and still
purged, I think it probably would have been retrievable.
But I, I was, you know, I was thinking, Oh my God, I'm 17
(30:28):
meters down. I'm on my own.
I'm absolutely fucked. Can you see the surface of the
water above you? I mean, you can see that that it
is the surface. There's obviously more light
than than below. I wasn't necessarily
disorientated in terms of my like, whether I was, you know.
Your orientation, yeah. Yeah, up or down or whatever,
but. Up or down, OK or straight?
(30:50):
It's orientation. It's confusing down there under
the water. Good.
This tastes salty. But then then I was, you know, I
was thinking, well, I mean, I was just I thought I was going
to die. Obviously I thought I was going
to die. I was swallowing so much water.
Do. You keep on swallowing it.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, because you once you
swallowed it once, you've had tospit it out, Open your mouth
again, I mean. What do you what do you do?
Imagine being 17 meters underwater, which by the way, I
(31:12):
think is a couple of stories. You've already swallowed water.
You're not. You don't know what to do apart
from kick as fast as you possibly can to get to the.
Surface Once you've committed toswallowing water as a strategy,
you've either got to keep on drinking it until there's no
more say, or stop drinking immediately before you die.
Yeah, so I mean, it was, it was just awful.
(31:34):
I I had absolute survival mode mate, survival.
I thought just get to the top asfast as you can.
I wasn't necessarily contemplating whether I was
going to contract the bends or not.
That you contract. Or develop, whatever.
A mermaid swims up to you just halfway.
That you got the bends now, boy.OK, so you were like, you were
(31:54):
like, fuck the bends. I'm just getting.
I want to breathe sweet, sweet air again, baby.
Yeah, so I kicked as fast as I could, luckily managed to get to
the top. I got got to the top, broke the
surface, vomited immediately everywhere.
And I'm like. Splattering because of the salt
water. Yeah, waving, waving my arms
around. And then I could see the boat.
(32:16):
A couple of minutes later, the boat spotted me and and drove up
and got me in the boat. I'm still like vomiting off the
side in the boat. And then about a minute after
that, from memory, the guys cameto the surface as well.
We cancelled the dive. They got on the boat.
Obviously I wasn't that woman's best friend at that.
Point it was What did she say? But yeah, well, she was just
like. Did you see that mermaid halfway
(32:37):
up? That was me.
So if you're right, no, we just didn't really talk.
It was quite strange. The guy, the dive guide was
really looking after me and obviously knew that it was
pretty serious what happened. He did tell me that it was
unlikely that I've got the bends.
He said you you would know within, you know, a very short
(32:58):
time, 5-10 minutes or whatever if you're walking and talking.
It's something like that. You've got their ends.
Let's play Radiohead. So yeah, I was still panicking
because I didn't really understand the damage I could
have done. You know, it could be a bubble
on the brain, which I think is what Ben's is and all that kind
of stuff. But vomiting, I felt quite bad
that I'd had to. They'd had to cancel the dive as
(33:18):
a result of me doing that. I felt, you know, I was.
How long have the dive been going on for?
The dive itself, 12 minutes. OK.
So yeah, I'm in a bit of an oxygen guzzler, so 12 minutes
for me is approaching the end anyway.
Yeah, I mean, 12 minutes even for a dive of the day is pretty
short. It's quite, it's quite brief.
Yeah. I.
Don't know, maybe it cut her dayshort and she was happy.
(33:38):
But we got back to the dive site, back to the the resort
itself and I was feeling really down in the dumps because of
course I've got another four days diving coming up that I've
paid £850 for the whole package.It's really not cheap.
And now I'm absolutely shitting myself that I can never dive
another day in my life. You know the trauma of almost
(33:59):
drowning is significant. And the let down as well of
thinking that you could drink the whole sea and then not being
able to. It's disappointing yourself as
well, I imagine. Yeah.
Yeah, it was lose, lose. So anyway, I was having dinner
that night trying to keep a low profile.
Word got out that you know they'd cancelled the dive.
But you had an orientation crisis deep under the water.
(34:23):
It's not the time, not now. See you mad at me?
I got off with the mermaid that always contracted the fans.
So yeah, and look, the the dive resort manager came over and
said, mate, I heard what happened.
Your dive guide told me how you feeling.
I said, well, yeah, I feel awful.
Like I just, I'm worried of, of I'm not going to be able to do
(34:46):
any of the dives and all this sort of stuff.
He said, look, you're probably fine.
The fact that you're here now chatting to me, eating dinner
means that you're fine. I just want to know what, what
you want to do next. And I said, well, what would,
what would you do knowing my situation, knowing I've got the
dives coming up? He said tomorrow morning, 8:00,
you get back in the water. Oh, that's a good, that's a good
bloke. I was like, really?
(35:07):
He was like absolutely, absolutely.
Tomorrow morning, 8:00, I'll I'll get you out on a boat and
we'll we'll get in the waters together and you'll just do it
as if it like it never happened.Get back on the horse.
Get back on the horse. So Long story short mate, that's
what I did and I had the four best days diving of my entire
life. It was absolutely extraordinary.
And you know, I'm sure over the over the coming weeks, months
(35:29):
and years, I'll drip feed a few of those Tipidan diving stories
as well if I haven't been back there before that.
But highly, highly recommend Borneo for diving.
I mean, it is absolutely extraordinary.
So if you have a silly experience in Sibidan, then you
must get 2 back on the horse. Because if sometimes life throws
you a bitter lemon, you've got to turn that thing up and do it
(35:49):
again, baby, because that's partof what traveling and life's all
about in it. Get back on the horse.
Keep on trucking. Yeah, I'm sure there's a
seahorse joke in there somewhere.
But the The thing is, I'm, I'm someone that plays a lot with
their regulator in their mouth and maybe just don't do that.
I can feel myself chewing the little mouth guard thing.
I sometimes play around, I think, oh, what's the most
effective way to breathe? And I'm constantly monitoring my
(36:11):
gauge and that kind of stuff. So diving.
I mean, I know that there's thousands and thousands of
people that do it all over the world and there's absolutely no
problem. But if it does go wrong, it can,
can be serious. And I think I just got quite
lucky. Couple of lessons there for
everyone I thought was a great story.
Thank you for sharing it. Thank you Adam's greatest travel
stories. Wouldn't it be good if we, as
the tripological community, found a way that we can hear
(36:32):
other people's greatest stories from all over the world?
We have got that way. If you go to
tripologypodcast.com/tales of the Trip, there is a link in the
description of this episode. Wherever you're watching it,
you'll find a big red button, a button Rouge.
If you click on that, it will give you 3 minutes with which
(36:53):
you can tell your greatest travel story.
And going forward in Tropology, we're going to play one of you
listeners, greatest travel stories every single episode.
It's a new feature we're going to call Tales of a Trip.
Me and Adam will hear the best travel stories of people all
over the world. We'll talk about them, we'll
comment on them. It's going to be a way to bring
(37:14):
the tripological audience closertogether.
Yeah, it's going to be a great way of building community.
We're always inspired by other people's stories and experiences
and greatest travel story can beanything that's super
heartwarming. Like we say, life changing,
dangerous, maybe a near death experience, all of the above.
We know that there's some great stories out there and and we
hope you send them in. We can't wait to hear them.
Yeah, perhaps you met your best friend travelling and it was all
(37:35):
beautiful that that can be a greatest travel story.
Maybe like Adam, you nearly had a fist fight with an orangutan.
That's an amazing travel story. There's so many things that we
want to hear, from the emotionalto the beautiful to the
memorable to the dynamic. You've only got 3 minutes to
tell them you can re record, youcan have a practice, you can go
out that be a part of the tripological community.
(37:57):
We're going to go off to the Patreon section now, the Lost
and found patreon.com/tripology podcast.
We've got an exclusive Patreon T-shirt that's coming out.
We've got all sorts of brilliantthings going on.
So sign up to the Patreon now. Only a dollar a month.
Should we go there now? Yeah, I look forward to it,
mate. We'll see you next week.
We'll see you there. Bye.
(38:50):
None.
Adam's greatest travel story. I'm going big.
This episode of Tripology, the only travel podcast that takes
(00:22):
place actually on the road. I'm Alan.
I'm here with the ever orange Adam.
Orange, of course, the only colour that isn't associated
with an emotion. Yeah, I did a bit of French for.
You. Yeah, French is featuring in
many episodes. It's not a new thing.
We're not branching out. We're not trying to capture a
new audience. It's.
Because I've really come to think of you equally as a
(00:45):
Frenchman as I do as an Englishman.
Why is that? I just think you display the
cultural attributes of the French quite prominently in your
personality. Oh God, we won't go into any
detail. I have thought on many occasions
maybe my spirit was French. I think I identify more as a
French person than an English person.
Yeah, and I treat you as touch with contempt.
Oh I love everyone, including the French.
(01:06):
Yeah, we've got a bit of news this week, mate, haven't we?
Yeah, it's going to be a bloody big episode.
I'm going big, I'm not going home and I'm going to tell two
stories which hopefully you enjoy and I can't wait to get
into. It Yeah, we're going to talk
about your greatest travel talesand then on the next episode I'm
going to tell my greatest travelstory.
(01:27):
And then we've got huge announcements all coming soon.
So stay tuned, listen to Adam's greatest story, and we'll tell
you a bit more at the end. Yeah.
So the, I mean greatest travel story, I don't know what it
means for you, but it could be anything that's maybe
heartwarming, life changing, inspirational.
It's very difficult to pin down a story or two stories in this
case, which, which define my travels.
(01:50):
But I am trying to do that. Yeah.
So these are just moments in in my travel life, I suppose you
could say my travel history thathave stayed with me forever and
I would love to relive them withyou now.
I'm excited to hear about them. I've not heard these stories
before, have I? I've heard a word of them, like
a whisper on the wind, but you've never in detail described
(02:12):
them to me, so I'm going to be listening.
With a breath. That could only be described as
baited. I'm going to listen to the
stories. OK so the both of them actually
take place in Borneo, which has got a mention on the podcast
before. You haven't heard the episode
where I was in Borneo and I spotted a clouded leopard.
Incredibly rare. Yeah, it's one of the stories
that you've told that I'm most jealous of.
(02:33):
Really. Yeah, because I would love to
see a clouded leopard myself oneday.
Oh well, I'm honored because you've seen so many wonderful
things. I've seen more than 46 animals
up close and a clouded leopard ain't one so.
Yeah, so we're in Borneo, which of course for any wildlife lover
is a Mecca. I think if you haven't been to
Borneo, you absolutely should. It's not cheap, but it is good.
(02:57):
Yeah. Borneo being one of the largest
islands in the world, it's sort of half Indonesian, half
Malaysian, with a bit of Brunei as well.
And right up in the north, there's a place called Sabah,
which is one of the states there, and there's a place
called Dunham Valley Rainforest,which is a primary rainforest.
OK, is Dunham Valley where this story is set?
It is. It's also where the Clouded
Leopard story was set. OK.
(03:18):
So it was a yielded an incredibly high crop this Dunham
Valley for you in terms of. Storying.
Well, it's where a lot of peoplewill naturally go to see
orangutans, if you hadn't already realized where this
story is going. I did call him Orange at the
start of the episode. So yeah, you can see the clouded
leopard if you're incredibly lucky.
(03:38):
Incredibly rare to see that verylucky orangutans is why people
might go there. And then there's also pygmy
elephants in the region as well.Wow, so you can see the most
orange of the great apes? Yeah.
The most clouded of the felines.Yeah.
And the smallest of all the elephants all in one place.
Yeah. It's like a superlative based
(03:59):
animal haven. Yeah.
No, it is. It is.
I mean, it's absolutely outrageous.
The three days that we had there, I wouldn't change them
for the world because on day onewe saw the clouded leopard.
Yeah, Day 2, I'm leading up to it.
Day three on the way out we saw.All the clouded leopard and an
orangutan riding a pygmy elephant.
The sauciest animal encounter ofall.
(04:21):
We we saw we we were basically surrounded by a herd of pygmy
elephants about 20 kilometres away from the research.
All at knee height. Yeah, they were.
They were tiny. We could have taken them, but.
But no, that's a different storyfor a different day.
This one is about the orangutan.Wow.
Day 2. Day 2.
Jungle, and it's really important to add, you might be
able to relate to this, but whenyou put an animal up on a
(04:43):
pedestal like the orangutan. They don't like it, do they?
They get Vertigo. But the the orator, of course,
is up there with, with the panda, I think as as one of the
animals that people would would love to see once in their
lifetime. Incredibly difficult to see.
And also important to add that if you do see one in an
(05:06):
orphanage, it's great, but it's not, it's not the real deal.
Is it what you see like an orangutan that's had a troubled
past? But there's a place called
Sepuloc, which is awesome, and it's kind of 1/2 wild orphanage.
So the orangutans are wild. They do live in the jungle, but
they come there to get fed and they have babies there and that
kind of stuff. So you can get up quite close to
(05:26):
them. I mean, you might have even seen
videos on Instagram and stuff where people are walking along
these boardwalks through the jungle and the orangutans are
just sitting on the side. So it's like a pre release like
rehabilitation centre or it's like a Hospice kind of it's.
Not a space, but yeah, it's justa a sanctuary almost that's open
to the jungle and they can come down and get fed and they.
Do because it's a convenient wayto feed.
(05:48):
Yeah, and, and there are babies there and there's some medical
help and all this kind of stuff.So it's.
And they get some money on the side.
And it's not free. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Oh, we're looking after the
animals. They like it here $5.
They choose to be here. They will do if you continue to
feed them. No, I'm sure that it's, it's all
done, you know, from a good place.
And see that one there? He's an orphan, so give me $5.
(06:10):
Don't ask where is Mama's? We don't know.
We weren't involved. I probably.
But anyway, so you can do that. And that is what most people do
just to guarantee an orangutan sighting.
However, I wanted, I wanted to go a little bit further.
So we went to the Dannon Valley rainforest.
There's the field centre there, which is actually a research
centre. Yeah, but in the low season you
can, you can just hire as kind of a hostel.
You can book beds in the research centre.
(06:32):
And you know, if if I was to sayI was sharing a room with people
from National Geographic, I mean, it wouldn't be a lie.
Yeah, well, I remember, I remember this story from the
clouded leopard scenario when basically you posed as a
research scientist on a lab coatand like, went down there, got a
cheap price. No, it was really good.
It was really affordable. But there were a National
(06:53):
Geographic, there was a NationalGeographic film crew there that
was setting up traps, camera traps, not not traps to catch
the wild animals. Because the orphanage numbers
are getting pretty low basicallyon a top up mission.
Yeah, we will not be endorsing Natural geographic on this joke,
but But yeah, So what happens when you go to somewhere like
(07:13):
this, you build it up as if you're you're going to see one.
Yeah. You can't possibly go to the
Dannon Valley or anywhere in Borneo where you can see these
orangutans. And you can't imagine what it
would be like to not see one. So every rustle in the trees,
every rustle in the Bush, you hear like maybe some other
people two days before saw a wild orangutan.
Oh my God, we're going to see one tomorrow.
(07:34):
And every tree you walk past, you look up and you think, is
that one? Oh, I think that's what there's
obviously thousands of monkeys, thousands of birds.
It's incredibly, it's like a hive activity, activity and
buzzing. And you're, you've convinced
yourself that you you're going to see one before you have.
So receptive to the colour orange, I imagine in that
moment, yeah, someone holds up alike a sheet of orange paper and
(07:57):
you start weeping. Yeah, that's it.
I saw it tick it off. But we we got to the sort of the
end of the second day and we were feeling a little bit
disheartened because we just hadno news of any.
We hadn't heard that any groups had seen one.
The Rangers were saying that it maybe wasn't the best time.
And you can either see them really early in the morning or
really late at night. When they come out to feed in
(08:17):
the day, it's usually too hot. They just hide up in the trees
in the shade. So me and me and the people I
was with. I was with my ex partner who is
French in spirit and orange. She's not orange.
And a German guy who did featureon another episode.
Actually I. Remember him?
Yeah, he was famous for keeping Excel spreadsheets for his
budget. He's like, I'm not sure I can
(08:39):
afford this orangutan experience.
It's a it's €1000 a month and nothing more and nothing less.
I remember him. So the trip was on him.
No, and a Slovenian girl as well.
And we had, we had a bit of a laugh first fall.
We saw the clouded leopard together.
And then we, we ended up going to this one tree that had been
touted as a great place to see the orangutans because it was,
(08:59):
it was fruit that was ripe on that day or for a period of
days. And little tip for you guys, if
you want to go and see wild animals, just go to a tree where
there's some ripe fruit and you'll see loads of them.
Yeah, if the animal that you're trying to see eats fruit.
I was trying to see tigers recently in India and the ripe
tree technique didn't work. No, no, you've got to understand
it's diet. So we were all sort of huddled
(09:21):
around this tree with the other,I don't know, 20-30 tourists
there looking up, hoping to see a rain, sand, nothing doing.
And then we lost faith and we thought whatever, tomorrow's our
last day, fingers crossed we seesomething.
If we don't, you know, it's not the end of the world.
We'll just go back to Seppalock where the orphans are.
We. We were walking back down the
(09:41):
trail to the research centre andI said guys, just just hold up.
There was this trail that lookedreally overgrown.
I mean, it definitely was a pathat some point in history, but it
was overgrown. It was just like a dirt path off
into the distance, and in the distance I could see that there
was like an old rusty gate. So I was like, what colour's
rust? Is it a rusty gate or was it a
(10:01):
gate with an orangutan on it? Is that a hairy No, it was.
So I walked down the path and said guys, just hold up.
I'm just going to have a quick jog down here.
I'll see if there's anything doing.
So I went, I went to the end andat the at the very end, it kind
of opened up into this disused campsite.
I guess it was like very overgrown.
(10:23):
Things were in disrepair. Yeah, that campsite looks very
cheap. It it looked like it hadn't been
used for a really long time and I poked my head around the
corner and I could see in the clearing there was a Ranger who
was on his phone. Was it a Ranger?
It was a Ranger. A Ranger, yeah, it was on his
phone. And then he, he looked at me
(10:45):
immediately. He was kind of startled that
he'd seen me. And he said, oh, look, come
here, come here. He he waved.
He gestured for me to come closeto him.
So I hopped over the rusty fenceand then walked over to him.
He pointed just a little. I'm talking like maybe 20
meters, not even up to if you imagine a toilet shed, like a
toilet block. So we're talking like one small
(11:05):
floor up. Just above that, in the tree
directly behind this little shed, was an enormous male
orangutan. Wow.
I mean, it was, it was unbelievable.
It was incredible. So I ran back to the rusty gate,
put my head down this, this pathway, and I said, guys, guys,
guys, guys, come down here, comedown, come down here now.
So the three of them sprinted up, hopped over the fence with
(11:26):
me. And then we just stood and
watched this orangutan. And I've honestly never seen
anything like it. We were there for 45 minutes
watching this thing strip a fig tree.
It was about to get really interesting.
Yeah, I understood why it was your greatest travel story for a
moment. Then orangutan.
I mean, famously already naked, yeah.
(11:48):
So yeah, exactly. Start at the end.
The most remarkable thing about it was it was fully cloned.
OK, so tell me what that felt like.
Describe the orangutans aesthetic to me.
We already know he's orange. He's orange.
He's large, lovely shade of orange, very hairy.
Yeah, we were told by the Ranger.
Probably a 35 year old male. Wow.
(12:09):
He's a big no. It's age with accuracy then.
Oh, yeah, It was because of the cheek flaps.
OK, sitting up in this tree and I want to get this across to you
guys. So, so close.
So close that I felt afraid. That's how for.
Your safety. Yeah, for all of our safety,
yeah. I thought this the the power,
The thing is with orangutans andbig apes and you know, gorillas
would be the same. Orangutans, the most peaceful of
(12:30):
the great apes. Yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean, the old others are chimpanzees, bonobos,
gorillas, so. Yeah.
They kind of get they get easy rides to be the most peaceful.
Yeah, but incredibly intelligent.
You could just, he could obviously see that we were there
making eye contact with us and stuff.
But when he was reaching up and grabbing these branches, which
were, I mean, we're not talking about little twigs here.
(12:51):
No, we're talking about fully Fred branches.
Really thick branches and he wasjust grabbing them and pulling
them down towards his mouth and then stripping them of their
figs, putting all the fruit in his mouth and then just almost
comically spitting the pips out to one side.
It was amazing. So human like.
I was looking at the detail on his skin and I could not believe
that it wasn't a man in a suit. Did he look good for 35?
(13:14):
I would, no. I would say he looked older than
35. Yeah.
I'm no expert, yeah, but the. Yeah, he'd had a rough life, I
think. OK, now cheek flaps.
Of course. They're a secondary sexual
orangutan male characteristic designed to attract a mate.
Right. Rate them out of five.
The flaps, Yeah, it's cheek flaps.
(13:35):
OK, So if I was interested in orangutans and I wanted someone
particularly flappy. Yeah, well, you do, because it's
like in the orangutan world, that's a sign.
That's like having a really dense beard.
You know, it's a secondary sexual characteristic.
I love the way you picked him out of your own that.
Was a secondary sexual characteristic.
Okay, love it. Yeah, I mean, we'd be fighting
(13:57):
over him for sure. OK, nice.
So you like this flaps? I can imagine it was sorted
after. Wow man, I'm jealous of the
experience because I of course are constantly in pursuit of
orange animals, having tried five times to see a tiger in the
wild in India and failing miserably each time.
I've never seen an orange animalbefore, apart from maybe an
ocelot. I looked after a baby ocelot
(14:18):
once in the Amazon so he was quite orange, but other than
that I've never seen one. Yeah, I mean, the the difference
with an orangutan again, becauseit's something that is so rare
to see out in the wild and the given how human like this
orangutan was, I, I just want todescribe the emotions that I was
feeling. I was absolutely stunned and I
(14:40):
was actually experiencing emotions that I've never
experienced before in my life, but certainly not at the same
time because I was so awestruck that I was left speechless that
the other group, they were kind of milling around, the German
guy took 220 photos of this orangutan in in less than 40
minutes, which is quite incredible.
Is that above his budget or? Maybe he started a little
(15:04):
business, orangutan photo business where he was making
some of that budget up. But he features in the story in
the second-half of the episode as well.
Would you believe? And I, I was crying as well.
I was so moved by the whole thing, you know, floods of
tears. I wanted to be sick.
I was, I felt like I was going to vomit.
My stomach was was turning as well.
I was in absolute state of euphoria.
(15:26):
I mean, I don't think I've ever been as happy to this day as I
was when I was watching that orangutan.
And I was equally frightened. So a lot of things going on.
Hell of an emotional roller coaster to experience in such a
short amount of time. And then once we'd been there
for about half an hour, more andmore people started to show up.
I think the Ranger that was on the phone.
This is obviously the downside of wildlife is that when there's
(15:48):
wealthy people around, there arepeople that are willing to pay a
lot of money to guarantee wildlife sightings.
And the the word gets round fromthe Ranger that there's a male
orangutan in the vicinity. And then of course, you get the
really wealthy tourists show up with their private guide and
it's like, oh, there you go. There's that orangutan you paid
for. Let me quickly dart it for you
so if you have a closer look. You said it'd be eating a fig,
(16:10):
but but yeah, I mean, it was, itwas a bit of a shame when more
and more people came and that kind of cut the experience
short. However, that wasn't before we
got so close to the fence basically that the building that
it was above was inside this kind of disused campsite area.
And it was on a tree just outside of the perimeter.
But the branches from the tree that it was sitting on came into
(16:32):
our into the campsite and we gotso close that I like panicking.
And I said to the guys who were in front of me, they were so, so
close to the fence. And this thing was just the
other side of my guys. I'm not being funny.
This thing will fuck you up if it wants to.
And they were trying to get closer photos and get even
closer to it. And I just thought it was a real
misunderstanding of what this animal can do.
Because I for one, and I'm sure that you share this, is that the
(16:57):
the risk of scaring an animal ormaking it feel uncomfortable for
whatever reason is absolutely not the idea here.
I would rather see it from further away and and know or
have it know that I'm absolutelyno threat.
You don't want to distress a wild animal, Why would you just
get a closer? Look, I think a lot of people
think they love animals so much that it's like, oh, come on, it
(17:20):
will like, me too. I'll get closer.
I want to like, I love it so much.
I want to get. But you're just stressing it
out, really, aren't you? Yeah, but the orangutan didn't
show any signs of distress. It was chill.
No, it did. It left.
So it it basically climbed down to the same level and just as it
got above the fence, it did a sort of a, a move forward, a
jolt forward, almost like you would square up to.
Something really it did that. But but it was in control of the
(17:42):
situation. I mean, they all shat themselves
and run in the other direction, but they ran further away than I
was. And you know, I, I sort of, he
looked at me and I and you know.Oh, you shared a moment with the
Ranger. Shared a moment I said you know
mate, I've got you these guys are knobs he.
Gave 2 thumbs up. No.
And of of course, the people that I was with are great, but
(18:03):
but I just thought that was thatwas a little bit misguided or,
or not a great reading of the situation.
And when the orangutan did that,he was kind of like you.
He's just told you I could fuck you up if I wanted.
So, so back off. And he scooted down the other
side of the fence and he just sort of walked along the floor
and we never saw him again. I loved the story, mate.
It was really beautiful. I loved it because it's about
(18:24):
man's connection with the animalworld, and I think it's a
perfect example of what makes a great travel story.
Let's think about that as we go on a brief meditation break.
Alan, we should make a place where fans of the show can
listen to episodes, read articles and maybe contact us.
Done it What? Tripologypodcast.com.
Should we put a link in the description?
(18:45):
It's already there. You are good.
Like an orange primate with colossal facial flaps, allow
your conscious mind to return into your brain.
We're hearing Adam's Greatest Travel Stories as part of an
item we like to call Adam's Greatest Travel Stories.
(19:06):
Madam, what's your second greatest travel story?
Well, yeah, I mean, this is in no particular order.
I wanted to start off on the right foot, on the front foot
with it being something overwhelmingly positive and
hopefully something that's, you know, going to inspire more and
more people to go to Borneo. However, this story also
happened in Borneo, but is maybenot what you want to happen to
(19:27):
you because it involves diving, which as we know is pretty
dangerous. And I actually don't know if if
people give it credit for how dangerous it can be.
Yeah, I think recreational diving, which is by the way,
recreational diving has to be 30meters Max or 100 feet Max.
Is that correct? Yeah.
So if you do like an open water,you mean?
(19:47):
Yeah, your Paddy open water course.
I think that's relatively safe in in terms of the fact that you
can probably just do the Superman blow out and go to the
top and you'll probably avoid the bends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bends, I think it's actually
what I've been told. It's pretty difficult, but not
difficult to get the bends, of course, in the in the horrendous
(20:09):
circumstances that you do. But I think people think the
bends are much more common than they actually are in practice.
Hopefully. But yeah, I mean, Borneo itself
known as a world class diving location, especially up in the
Northeast, there's a place called Semporna.
Again, we're kind of in the Sabaregion, right in the north of
Borneo, place called Semporna. Use it as a jumping off point to
(20:30):
get to an island called Mabul. Now, Mabul is famous for micro.
Like, you know, all these littlethings you can say.
I mean, they're not. They're fucking tiny.
Yeah, yeah, you're diving with two microscopes like.
Yeah, it's amazing. You can do these dives with
diving structures and dive masters where you the guy's
like, you're underwater, obviously, and he's pointing at
something and you think, what's he pointing out?
(20:51):
There's nothing there. You get a bit closer and you're
like, it's just a piece of dust.And then you get even closer.
It's like, Oh my God, it's a fucking shrimp or something like
that. You know, this, this, this stuff
on this level is incredible and it's very, very famous for it.
So if you are interested in thatsort of stuff, then definitely
go there. But one of the reasons why
people go to this area is actually for an island called
(21:12):
Sipadan, which is much further. You have to get a speedboat,
usually a speedboat from Marble to get to Sipadan.
Now Sipadan is a protected area.It's protected Islands
Conservation Area used to be a resort or two on it.
Now there is not. They're basically trying to
rewild it and in order to dive on Cipidan and the kind of the
(21:32):
reefs around Cipidan, the dive sites around Cipidan, it's
pretty difficult and eye wateringly expensive.
You can buy packages in Borneo that allow you to do let's say a
few days diving in my ball and surrounds and if you're lucky, I
was told right. This is in Kotick and Bali where
I booked the whole thing in Kotick and Bali Remix that there
(21:55):
is a six month waiting list in some cases to get one of the 120
dive permits for Cipidan at any given time.
So I was incredibly lucky. I put myself on the cancellation
list and lo and behold, the following week when when I was
still in Borneo, they said there's a cancellation that's
come up. It's X amount of money and what
(22:16):
we recommend people do because Cipidan is such, I'm not going
to say technical because I don'tthink you need loads of
experience to dive there, but itis a serious dive site.
You can't go there and do like your open water.
If you've never done a dive before, you can't go and do a
refresher course at Cipidan. It's serious, serious stuff.
And the people that I was on theboat with were so much more
experienced than I was. You know, we're talking about 80
(22:37):
dives, 120 dives. These are people that go diving
5 or 6 * a year. They go on holiday specifically
to dive in the run up to go to Sipadan because this is, you
know, this is like the absolute pinnacle.
If you type in top ten dive sites in the world, usually
Sipadan will come up on the list.
I hadn't been diving for over a year.
Oh, so you have to do that swimming pool refresher course
(22:59):
though? Yeah, not always in a swimming
pool, but I did feel a little bit like that and the dive
resort. So I bought this package.
It was like 3 or 4 days diving in the lead up to the dive at
Sipadan and then the final day was 4 dives in one day at
Sipadan. So it's this great sort of
diving, four or five day packagestaying in a hostel on, on Mabul
(23:20):
that I had that I had organised.And the first port of call was
to basically do this refresher course I hadn't been diving for
for over a year. It was actually three years at
that point. So I mean, I'm not asking you
any questions. I, I want to do the refresher
course because you know, it's, it's dangerous and whatever,
it's important that I know what I'm doing underwater.
And the the girl that I got paired up with, or the woman
(23:42):
that I was paired up with to do a refresher course as well who
would also booked a similar package was a far more
experienced diver than I was. Do you like diving with more
experienced divers or do you think it's intimidating?
Well, it'd be interesting to getyour opinion on this in terms of
the community, because I would imagine it's similar to
climbing. It's probably similar to jiu
jitsu. Is that usually people who are
really experienced elevate? Yeah, They're super humble and
(24:05):
they're really encouraging. She wasn't at all Oh, she she
her last dive. She a Dutch lady, otherwise
quite nice. But because she had done her
last dive a year and a week and a half ago.
So it was like such an annoying amount of time.
And this was like her 86th dive or something.
(24:26):
So she she's pretty experienced.She was livid at the fact that
she had to pay for a refreshes course, especially with Muggins
over here. It's been 53 1/2 weeks so you're
going to have to wait. You know the cut off is
somewhere, right? If it's a year, a year and a
week, two years, six months is somewhere.
And they were very rigid. They said look for legal reasons
if anything happens to you. If you go diving and we know
(24:49):
that your most recent dive is actually over a year ago,
there's a policy. We have to stick to it.
You've got to do a refresh. Skilled degradation over time.
You know, no matter if you're the most skilled surgeon in the
world, if you've you've not caught anyone open in the 53 1/2
weeks, you're going to have to learn that bit again.
Exactly. So we were doing the refresher
and the entire time, you know mebetter than anyone else.
(25:10):
You know, I'm quite receptive. I'm sensitive.
And if if I'm with someone who'slike in a mood or frustrated or
sad or whatever, I like to thinkI'm quite empathetic and I feel
that energy. So, yeah, and usually think it's
about like it's because of something you've done or take it
very personally to you, yeah. Yeah, so we were on this boat.
She was already in a stinking mood and she made it absolutely
(25:30):
clear. I'm, I'm pretty sure from memory
she even said worse. The effect of, you know, I'm
not, I'm not like this guy pointing at me.
I mean, he's, he's done like 30 dives and it's 3 years ago.
Obviously he needs to do. I'm actually a master of.
This So quite frankly, it's embarrassing that we're even
being considered in the same breath.
But she was on the on the thing and we ended up doing for her.
(25:50):
I totally appreciate it was probably incredibly boring
because you're going through allthe hand signals at 5 meters and
all this kind of stuff on this refresher call that's dive #1.
She still hasn't done it in a year and a half, so a year and a
bit. And a year and a little bit just
trickled over, but the second dive was OK.
We went down a little bit deeperfor a bit longer and we're kind
of diving together and whatever.I'm still feeling quite bad and
(26:12):
I feel quite nervous in this situation because it's been such
a long time since I've done a dive.
So I'm already quite nervous andI'm trying to remember
everything I knew. Follow the Follow the Thing the
guide. Is she good under the water?
Is she like mermaid level? Like swimming about, looping
around you, that sort of shit. There's in terms of her ability,
there's no way she needs. To do a refresher.
OK, she's. An excellent diver.
(26:32):
She just didn't want to be therewith me.
I was really cramping her style.She hated it and she she made me
know that and she made the dive guide know that.
How does she make you know it underwater?
Does she like take a respirator out and blow angry bubbles at
you? You just give bubble beam.
Yeah, a little snarky look everynow and again, like go on, fuck
off, go and get lost. But then the third dive of the
(26:53):
day came, which anyone who's an experienced diver, I'm sure
there's loads of people listening to this far more
experienced than I am. The third dive of the day, you
do have to be a little bit careful because we've already
been underwater twice. We've obviously been underwater
with oxygen tanks, under the pressure, all this kind of
stuff. And typically I think it's safe.
Correct me if I'm wrong guys, but the third dive of the day is
(27:13):
often the shortest and the shallowest.
Why is that? For that reason, because you've
been underwater for so long at pressure.
Just to get them because you've got nitrogen build up in.
All that sort of stuff. So we went down to a depth of
about 1718 meters on the third dive.
But it was also the dive when we'd, you know, the preamble to
this was that we've been doing the signs, we've been refreshing
(27:35):
our memory and all this kind of stuff.
So we felt more comfortable on that dive.
It was just going to be the shortest.
Now we were swimming between tworeefs, unfortunately at the
beginning of the day, as is the same with lots of areas around
the world. When you dive the the water is
like quite calm, good visibility, all this sort of
stuff. But in the afternoon the clouds
were coming in, it was really kicking up.
It was getting windy, so the visibility was pretty shit.
(27:58):
Imagine it's just me and this Dutch woman who I know doesn't
want to be there and the dive guide, both incredibly competent
divers. And I'm third dive of the day,
absolutely exhausted. Still not a clue what the
fucking doing. It's been three years and then
the visibility is terrible and the current is whipping up and
I'm actually struggling to keep up with them.
You can feel the warm swell whenthe current starts waking up,
(28:20):
can't you? And, and we, we were swimming
along this wall, this reef, thiswall.
And I, we were 17 meters down. I completely lost sight of them.
And then I began, begun to panic.
And I can, even as I'm telling the story now, I can remember it
so vividly. I saw their flippers go off in
the distance, and I was trying to speed up swim as fast as I
(28:42):
could to catch up with them. Visibility, as I said, was
pretty poor. Lots of sediment floating
around. And then there was a huge
current, like a big forceful kind of wave, underwater wave if
you like. And it took my regulator clean
out of my mouth. Oh dear.
And I I panicked big time. So what are you supposed to do
when that happens? Is swim your right hand?
(29:05):
Engage the gills. Yeah, exactly like colossal
cheek flaps. You raise your hand behind your
back to collect the regulator because it's somewhere back.
There the hose, you would catch the hose if you do that motion,
that windmill motion, Exactly. Yeah, you're totally right.
Didn't do that there. Well, it's very easy to say that
now. And, you know, obviously I
(29:27):
didn't die because I'm here telling you the story.
Well, am I? But it's very easy to say that.
And in hindsight, and even like before, if you would ask me, you
know, to do that, that's pretty straightforward.
You may be blown out a little bit and you get those little
bubbles going. Well, you need to constantly be
breathing when you're underwater.
You can't hold your breath at that depth because if you change
(29:47):
your elevation a little bit, your lungs will expand or
collapse. So always if you're not got the
regulator in, you've got to be breathing out.
Yeah. And, you know, had I had more
time or been able to think clearly, I would have just done
the windmill motion, pop the regulator back in, purged, You
know, I got all the water out and then just started breathing
as normal and ended up probably catching up with them.
But that isn't what happened. I panicked.
(30:08):
I opened my mouth with it, you know, out, and I immediately
swallowed so much water. I think even in that scenario,
it's still possible to rectify the situation.
I think even then, if I'd done the windmill motion and still
purged, I think it probably would have been retrievable.
But I, I was, you know, I was thinking, Oh my God, I'm 17
(30:28):
meters down. I'm on my own.
I'm absolutely fucked. Can you see the surface of the
water above you? I mean, you can see that that it
is the surface. There's obviously more light
than than below. I wasn't necessarily
disorientated in terms of my like, whether I was, you know.
Your orientation, yeah. Yeah, up or down or whatever,
but. Up or down, OK or straight?
(30:50):
It's orientation. It's confusing down there under
the water. Good.
This tastes salty. But then then I was, you know, I
was thinking, well, I mean, I was just I thought I was going
to die. Obviously I thought I was going
to die. I was swallowing so much water.
Do. You keep on swallowing it.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, because you once you
swallowed it once, you've had tospit it out, Open your mouth
again, I mean. What do you what do you do?
Imagine being 17 meters underwater, which by the way, I
(31:12):
think is a couple of stories. You've already swallowed water.
You're not. You don't know what to do apart
from kick as fast as you possibly can to get to the.
Surface Once you've committed toswallowing water as a strategy,
you've either got to keep on drinking it until there's no
more say, or stop drinking immediately before you die.
Yeah, so I mean, it was, it was just awful.
(31:34):
I I had absolute survival mode mate, survival.
I thought just get to the top asfast as you can.
I wasn't necessarily contemplating whether I was
going to contract the bends or not.
That you contract. Or develop, whatever.
A mermaid swims up to you just halfway.
That you got the bends now, boy.OK, so you were like, you were
(31:54):
like, fuck the bends. I'm just getting.
I want to breathe sweet, sweet air again, baby.
Yeah, so I kicked as fast as I could, luckily managed to get to
the top. I got got to the top, broke the
surface, vomited immediately everywhere.
And I'm like. Splattering because of the salt
water. Yeah, waving, waving my arms
around. And then I could see the boat.
(32:16):
A couple of minutes later, the boat spotted me and and drove up
and got me in the boat. I'm still like vomiting off the
side in the boat. And then about a minute after
that, from memory, the guys cameto the surface as well.
We cancelled the dive. They got on the boat.
Obviously I wasn't that woman's best friend at that.
Point it was What did she say? But yeah, well, she was just
like. Did you see that mermaid halfway
(32:37):
up? That was me.
So if you're right, no, we just didn't really talk.
It was quite strange. The guy, the dive guide was
really looking after me and obviously knew that it was
pretty serious what happened. He did tell me that it was
unlikely that I've got the bends.
He said you you would know within, you know, a very short
(32:58):
time, 5-10 minutes or whatever if you're walking and talking.
It's something like that. You've got their ends.
Let's play Radiohead. So yeah, I was still panicking
because I didn't really understand the damage I could
have done. You know, it could be a bubble
on the brain, which I think is what Ben's is and all that kind
of stuff. But vomiting, I felt quite bad
that I'd had to. They'd had to cancel the dive as
(33:18):
a result of me doing that. I felt, you know, I was.
How long have the dive been going on for?
The dive itself, 12 minutes. OK.
So yeah, I'm in a bit of an oxygen guzzler, so 12 minutes
for me is approaching the end anyway.
Yeah, I mean, 12 minutes even for a dive of the day is pretty
short. It's quite, it's quite brief.
Yeah. I.
Don't know, maybe it cut her dayshort and she was happy.
(33:38):
But we got back to the dive site, back to the the resort
itself and I was feeling really down in the dumps because of
course I've got another four days diving coming up that I've
paid £850 for the whole package.It's really not cheap.
And now I'm absolutely shitting myself that I can never dive
another day in my life. You know the trauma of almost
(33:59):
drowning is significant. And the let down as well of
thinking that you could drink the whole sea and then not being
able to. It's disappointing yourself as
well, I imagine. Yeah.
Yeah, it was lose, lose. So anyway, I was having dinner
that night trying to keep a low profile.
Word got out that you know they'd cancelled the dive.
But you had an orientation crisis deep under the water.
(34:23):
It's not the time, not now. See you mad at me?
I got off with the mermaid that always contracted the fans.
So yeah, and look, the the dive resort manager came over and
said, mate, I heard what happened.
Your dive guide told me how you feeling.
I said, well, yeah, I feel awful.
Like I just, I'm worried of, of I'm not going to be able to do
(34:46):
any of the dives and all this sort of stuff.
He said, look, you're probably fine.
The fact that you're here now chatting to me, eating dinner
means that you're fine. I just want to know what, what
you want to do next. And I said, well, what would,
what would you do knowing my situation, knowing I've got the
dives coming up? He said tomorrow morning, 8:00,
you get back in the water. Oh, that's a good, that's a good
bloke. I was like, really?
(35:07):
He was like absolutely, absolutely.
Tomorrow morning, 8:00, I'll I'll get you out on a boat and
we'll we'll get in the waters together and you'll just do it
as if it like it never happened.Get back on the horse.
Get back on the horse. So Long story short mate, that's
what I did and I had the four best days diving of my entire
life. It was absolutely extraordinary.
And you know, I'm sure over the over the coming weeks, months
(35:29):
and years, I'll drip feed a few of those Tipidan diving stories
as well if I haven't been back there before that.
But highly, highly recommend Borneo for diving.
I mean, it is absolutely extraordinary.
So if you have a silly experience in Sibidan, then you
must get 2 back on the horse. Because if sometimes life throws
you a bitter lemon, you've got to turn that thing up and do it
(35:49):
again, baby, because that's partof what traveling and life's all
about in it. Get back on the horse.
Keep on trucking. Yeah, I'm sure there's a
seahorse joke in there somewhere.
But the The thing is, I'm, I'm someone that plays a lot with
their regulator in their mouth and maybe just don't do that.
I can feel myself chewing the little mouth guard thing.
I sometimes play around, I think, oh, what's the most
effective way to breathe? And I'm constantly monitoring my
(36:11):
gauge and that kind of stuff. So diving.
I mean, I know that there's thousands and thousands of
people that do it all over the world and there's absolutely no
problem. But if it does go wrong, it can,
can be serious. And I think I just got quite
lucky. Couple of lessons there for
everyone I thought was a great story.
Thank you for sharing it. Thank you Adam's greatest travel
stories. Wouldn't it be good if we, as
the tripological community, found a way that we can hear
(36:32):
other people's greatest stories from all over the world?
We have got that way. If you go to
tripologypodcast.com/tales of the Trip, there is a link in the
description of this episode. Wherever you're watching it,
you'll find a big red button, a button Rouge.
If you click on that, it will give you 3 minutes with which
(36:53):
you can tell your greatest travel story.
And going forward in Tropology, we're going to play one of you
listeners, greatest travel stories every single episode.
It's a new feature we're going to call Tales of a Trip.
Me and Adam will hear the best travel stories of people all
over the world. We'll talk about them, we'll
comment on them. It's going to be a way to bring
(37:14):
the tripological audience closertogether.
Yeah, it's going to be a great way of building community.
We're always inspired by other people's stories and experiences
and greatest travel story can beanything that's super
heartwarming. Like we say, life changing,
dangerous, maybe a near death experience, all of the above.
We know that there's some great stories out there and and we
hope you send them in. We can't wait to hear them.
Yeah, perhaps you met your best friend travelling and it was all
(37:35):
beautiful that that can be a greatest travel story.
Maybe like Adam, you nearly had a fist fight with an orangutan.
That's an amazing travel story. There's so many things that we
want to hear, from the emotionalto the beautiful to the
memorable to the dynamic. You've only got 3 minutes to
tell them you can re record, youcan have a practice, you can go
out that be a part of the tripological community.
(37:57):
We're going to go off to the Patreon section now, the Lost
and found patreon.com/tripology podcast.
We've got an exclusive Patreon T-shirt that's coming out.
We've got all sorts of brilliantthings going on.
So sign up to the Patreon now. Only a dollar a month.
Should we go there now? Yeah, I look forward to it,
mate. We'll see you next week.
We'll see you there. Bye.
(38:50):
None.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.