SE E42 – Palm Oil
Marisa: Malaysia.
Woman: Hello!
Marisa: Hello.
A land of warm smiles, fascinating cultures, stunning nature. And we set out to ride our KTM250 motorcycle across the island of Borneo, covering all of East Malaysia end to end. But after many miles of riding, we noticed a very prominent industry that was hard to miss in Malaysia - palm oil.
Palm oil is used in cosmetics and food products around the world. It's a big business, and lucky for Malaysia, it grows really well here. But it is also plagued by controversy, particularly since so much deforestation of rainforest has been attributed to it.
Tim: So, palm oil is definitely controversial. Back in the States, I've heard of the palm oil industry and how bad it is for the environment.
Marisa: Yes, I heard the same thing. But after coming to Malaysia and actually experiencing what the palm oil industry is like here and talking with people and seeing what it's really all about, that has shaped our opinions quite dramatically of palm oil in general.
Tim: Spoiler alert: We do not have the answers, and we are not 100% pro, and we are not 100% against, but it is a tricky scenario.
Marisa: So as we made our way further and deeper across East Malaysia along the Pan Borneo Highway, we thought we'd better learn more about this ubiquitous plant before we made any more judgments about it.
Intro: Hey everyone! Nice to have you here. We are Tim, and Marisa Notier. I ride in the front. And I’m in the rear. We travel the world we pack too much gear. Oh, all the places we’ll go! Through rain and through sleet and through mud and through snow. Oh, all the things we’ll see! We’ve been to a country or two. Or three! Oh, all the fun we’ve had! To have you along, would make us real glad. So give us a like, and hit subscribe to join us along our epic ride.
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[Kundasang - Malaysia]
Tim: That morning, we woke up to an insanely stunning view.
Marisa: Oh my goodness, Mount Kinabalu in all of its glory right in front of us. Wow!
Tim: The night before, we had bought these little doughnut ball things.
Marisa: Yeah!
Tim: Mm, so good!
Together: Biscoff! Oh!!
Tim: But we had our little balcony, and I was able to make some coffee. I had these Biscoff donuts. I had the view of the century.
Marisa: Oh my gosh...
Tim: Just absolutely insanely stunning.
[Southeast Asia Journey - Day 123]
Marisa: Mount Kinabalu is the tallest mountain of the entire island of Borneo. Borneo is a huge mountainous island as well. So it is the third largest island on earth, and this is the tallest mountain on it, and it is massive. So cool just to open up our doors with a fresh cool morning breeze, very, very rare in Malaysia. And, because we were at high altitude, and just see that mountain.
Wow.
Tim: It was the colors in the sky, the mountain had yet to be taken over by the heat of the day, and then the forest mists rise into the air and then become clouds. And then it's shrouded by clouds and mystery for the afternoon on. But in the morning, it wakes up and stretches and looks at everybody and wipes the gook out of its eyes, and is beautiful.
Marisa: The mountain is totally covered in clouds now, it's crazy. You still know it's there though.
So as we got on the road, the views of the mountain got even better.
[Music]
Tim: It's crazy. Now you can't even see it.
Marisa: I know! It's so tall though, you know it's there behind the clouds.
Tim: Amazing.
It wouldn't get out of the main view. It was always beautiful and spectacular.
Marisa: We were kind of coming around a turn in the mountain that made it just look like this giant spire sticking up out of the ground. Before, we had seen it more like a sugar loaf type of mountain where it had a gradual incline and decline. But now we were really head on facing it, and it was just huge!
Tim: It was kind of like a rhino's horn from the side profile, versus now we were at that front profile of this just peak that was just [trumpet
sound].
Marisa: Yes, that is the perfect description!
Tim: [trumpet sound] That part in particular. That is Mount Kinabalu
summed up in a couple syllables.
And this road was like a scenic view. It should have been called Mount Kinabalu Scenic View Road.
Marisa: Yes. And we were super lucky that the clouds hadn't overtaken
the view yet.
Tim: Yeah. And it wasn't raining on us.
Marisa: Yes.
Tim: Yeah, I want to go on the bridge. Can I park here for a moment? Thank you.
Marisa: Thank you.
Tim: We had ridden by a couple rope bridges, and every time I see one, it's like me passing up a go-kart place or something. I'm like, “Oh that looks like so much fun! I want to stop!" And finally it was too much. I saw another another rope bridge and I pulled over. And Marisa got on it like Laura Croft about to explore some ruins.
Marisa: This kind woman has allowed us to walk on her amazing jungle bridge. Oh my goodness.
These rope bridges are used for daily functions for these people that live there right across the river. They need this. But for us it was like, “Oh wow, I just walked into the set of an Indiana Jones movie.”
They're not the most stable or well put-together things.
Tim: There’s no other secondary safety. If one side goes, it's like a dump valve. You're just going in the river.
Marisa: I almost tripped with the first step. Whoa!
The railings on this are not very high. Whoa. You need a lot of balance. Oh my goodness.
If this bridge fails at least we'll both go down together. Oh my goodness. Wow.
Oh no, we won't. Tim's not even following me! It'll just be me who dies apparently.
And also, when you think of the rope bridges from Indiana Jones, all the slats are horizontal, right? You kind of go across it like a ladder. But this one, all the wooden slats were doubled but long ways so you really had to walk really narrowly, you couldn't just put your steps wide along the bridge. But still, even with that narrow walk and the railings were super super low, the whole thing would just move from side to side, back and forth. And it was very unnerving.
This is not one of those muddy rivers that we saw in Kalimantan. This is a crystal clear almost Caribbean-like river. And then you have the humming of the bugs all around, and you have the jungle on either side of the river. And then you have this Indiana Jones Bridge! It doesn't get any more jungle than this!
Tim: I'm glad that we took the little pit stop to breathe in the air and smell the roses, if you will.
Marisa: Absolutely.
Tim: And cross the Bridge of Doom. I think that's what they say. Take time to pull over and cross the Bridge of Doom.
[Music]
Tim: A lot of these pockets of clouds that bring rain will come in and move out. It's kind of like the Taoism of rain clouds, in one ear and out the other. All you needed to do is wait just a little bit of time, and thankfully for us, that amount of time was one Malaysian meal.
Eri: My name is Eri.
Tim: Nice to meet you, Eri. Are you the Muslim chef?
Eri: Uh... yeah.
Tim: All right, nice to meet you. What is your name,
sir?
Petrus: My name is Petrus.
Tim: Nice to meet you.
Mui Lin: Hi, my name is Mui Lin.
Mika: Hi, my name is Mika.
Tim: It is nice to meet you.
Within our Malaysian meal, we met new friends, of course, because everybody is so kind hospitable and friendly.
Thank you, thank you very much! Peace!
Marisa: And the food was really good.
Tim: The food was really good, yeah. And they got a giggle out of us, and we got a giggle out of them, so there was a bunch of giggling.
Marisa Bye!
That was the perfect lunch spot.
[Music]
Tim: We see all these little dirt roads that cut into the palm oil plantations. And again, every dirt route I look at, I think, "I bet that went somewhere cool."
It looked cool, it looked beautiful. And I wanted to get into the thick, the heart of palm oil country.
Marisa: And it's fun going off-road on that little KTM 250.
Tim: It is. We were rocketing down, bumping along. It was super cool. Go the Real McCoy!
Marisa: Yes!
Tim: But as we were riding down these little dirt roads and absorbing the beauty for what it is, because it has a certain exoticness to us as Americans.
Marisa: It does. It's very beautiful.
Tim: And then there's little rivers, so it was very adventurous to us. But it did recall back to some of the things that I've heard of regarding palm oil.
Marisa: Palm oil is everywhere, not only in Malaysia and Indonesia, the largest producers of it in the world, but also probably in your kitchen and bathroom. According to ChesterZoo.org, which has a really great breakdown of its pros and cons, palm oil is used in foods such as cake, chocolate, biscuits, margarine, and frying oils. It's also in cosmetics like soap, shampoo, and cleaning products. They say up to 50% of average supermarket products have palm oil in it.
Tim: So, there are some pros. Growing palm oil trees is the most efficient use of land producing oil. These trees have twice as much productivity
as coconut trees and 30 times as much as corn.
Marisa: That is crazy to me!
Tim: Yeah, and we come from a land of corn.
Marisa: Yes, we do. We're from Chicago in the Midwest, and we don't think twice about planting corn out there. And that corn isn't really used for eating. That corn is used for animal feed and oils such as canola oil or ethanol, things like that. And to think that palm oil is 30 times more efficient in its land use than corn, that's remarkable.
Tim: Prairie land is beautiful in its own right and is a habitat to lots of things as well. But I think a lot of the negativity comes from the fact that the rainforest is the home of so many species and we're still discovering species nearly daily within these rainforests. And they suck all of the carbon and make oxygen like they're the lungs of the world. Whereas prairie
land, and what used to be Chicago...
Marisa: Yeah, we stripped it all. I mean there's very, very, very little prairie left, and we filled it all with corn and soy. So to come and say, "Well you shouldn't be having an agricultural industry here with palm oil," is a bit hypocritical.
Tim: But the oil itself is versatile, cheap, efficient, doesn't have a smell, also it creates jobs for countries like Malaysia, and it's a real boost to the economy.
Marisa: Yes. And some of the cons for palm oil is that clearing the land for palm oil plantations has resulted in the destruction of much of Borneo and Sumatra's rainforests, places where orangutans, rhinos, pygmy elephants, and tigers once roamed
freely, but are now struggling to survive.
Tim: Yeah, so it's really hard just to throw a blanket statement of "Is it good or bad?" out there. Because it's a little bit of both. Kind of like me. I'm not 100% good, not 100% bad, and depending on who you talk to, there's strong opinions of both. But we've met people who have palm oil plantations and it really, really, really helps their family and it gives them a little bit of wealth. And so it's really positive.
Marisa: Absolutely.
Tim: And we all may have seen documentaries on Netflix of sad orangutans and a horrible environment. So we understand both sides.
Marisa: That's right. And the solution that I kept hearing about when we were back in the States is, well, just don't buy products that have palm oil in it. Which first of all, is very hard to do since so many products rely on it. But second of all, it doesn't really solve the problem. Because some economists say that if you were to just boycott all products with palm oil in it, then they're just going to look for another resource, another type of oil that they need in these products. And those oils are probably way more environmentally destructive than palm oil is.
Tim: And a world without cake and butter and cosmetics,
that's the world I don't want to live in.
Marisa: There is thankfully a way of doing this sustainably that is a way of producing palm oil without any further deforestation.
Tim: Malaysia and Indonesia are working hard to make this industry more sustainable and without deforestation. You can look for products that are certified by the Round Table of Sustainable Palm Oil or RSPO, and it's even approved by environmental organizations like the WWF, Save the Rhino and the Sumatran Orangutan Society, and Greenpeace.
Marisa: For more information on palm oil, we found a really great site that you should check out at Chester Zoo.org.
Tim: And all of this is kind of rolling through our heads as we're enjoying this ride.
Marisa: She's nice and muddy. Yay!
Tim: We pulled over and a gentleman on a four-wheeler pulled up and he had this sickle.
Marisa: Yes, he was a worker there at the plantation.
Tim: Yeah. And he spent some time to talk to us in in broken English and broken Malay.
We're just, uh, exploring.
Man: Oh yeah.
Tim: Just for photo op.
Man: From where are you?
Tim: Uh, USA.
Man: USA? You want to take my photograph?
Tim: Please, please!
It was just a good conversation that we had with somebody in a beautiful part of the world.
Marisa: So after our little ride through the palm oil orchard, we headed to the beach. And this was our first time seeing the Sulu Sea.
Tim: This is true. But the best part of this is the name of the little
place. It's Bak Bak.
Marisa: Bak Bak Beach.
[Bak Bak Beach - Malaysia]
Tim: And yeah, we bought two kilos of rambutan.
Marisa: Okay, so we have stopped at this beach called Pantai Bak Bak. It is on the way to our little beach resort cabin that we're going to be staying at tonight.
Tim: You say "beach resort cabin..." It very well maybe on the beach... But I don't think it's going to pass as a resort.
Marisa: I think resort might be loose, we'll see.
Tim: And we got back on on the bike after our little beautiful view, and headed towards our next destination – a beachside cabin.
Marisa: Next time, we discover heaven on Earth... perhaps?
Okay, so motorcycle goes... She wants you to take the motorcycle through that.
Plus we dive into those waves and discover some weird and crazy stuff.
So I hope you liked this video. If you did, please give us a big thumbs up and hit the subscribe button below, and we'll be seeing you next time.
Tim: Stay safe everybody. If you want to dive deeper into the adventures that we have been
through, Marisa and I have written three books. We have "Maiden Voyage," the who, what,
where, how, when of our travels. We've written "Two Up and Overloaded," kind of where we got our name, if you will. And that is from Chicago to Panama. And the third book being "Blood Sweat and Notiers," that is our South American Adventure.
Marisa: And you can find those on our webpage using the link in the description below (www.2UpAndOverloaded.com). And also other 2 Up and Overloaded products that we sell, merchandise, and all the great things that we do.
So we'll be seeing you next time guys.
Tim: Stay safe everybody.
Marisa: Bye!
Tim: Peace!
