Greg is named after a legendary Kayan warrior, Magong Lejau, in a longhouse ceremony. Here, he's improvising a song of appreciation.

“So why did you choose Borneo?” a colleague asked as we engaged in small talk following a meeting a few days ago. He was only the one-millionth person to ask the question, but I could always draw on a few quips:

"Hey, if it's good enough for Julia Roberts and CBS Survivor, then it's good enough for me! . . .I felt the need to trace my roots, since my grandpa traveled with P.T. Barnum as the Wild Man of Borneo circus freak show attraction. . . I needed to drop 15 pounds, so I figured what the hell, why not Borneo."

Instead, I shrugged, said, "Long story," and offered to chat at length over a cold beer. Why did I go to Borneo? My fascination with the place started in elementary school and persisted through college and beyond.

I distinctly recall lying in the deep pile shag carpet of our family room, struggling through third-grade math homework while watching an Our Gang episode called "The Kid from Borneo." In it, a large man from the traveling circus, clad in a caveman-cum-Zulu ensemble with bull horn headdress, leopard skin loincloth and, yes, a bone in his nose, was embroiled in a misunderstanding with Spanky, Wheezer and the lads. "Dudes," I wanted to yell at the characters running around on the screen, "he only wants Stymie's candy—he doesn't want to eat you!!!" I figured that Borneo must be somewhere deep in Africa, inhabited by huge, muscular black men who threw spears, wore cool animal skins, worked in circuses, and ate lots of candy. Bingo!

Perhaps I wanted to go so I could exorcise some seventh grade demons. My parents recently reminded me—by digging it out of God-knows-where and mailing me—that I received the lowest grade of my academic career on a Borneo-related geography project in Mr. Edward's Social Studies class. Choosing Malaysia because my aunt, uncle, and cousins lived there, I sorted through the National Geographic magazines stacked precariously on top of our toilet tank and traced out a map using Mom's waxed paper. It made peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo look like islands unto themselves. This confused my teacher and I paid, big-time. Too scared to discuss my C+, I internalized it for decades, hoping to show Mr. Edwards one day that I did know Malaysia.

By the time college rolled around, Borneo's exoticism became embodied in the expression "Gone Borneo", indicating a certain state of intoxication—as in "That last beer bong polluted me. I've gone Borneo!" or "Check out Chaz dancing on top of the piano with that Kappa in the acid wash jeans; he's wasted—he's gone Borneo!" It represented an ideal state of consciousness where picky foibles and teen labels melted away.

OK, but why did I choose Borneo? The reasons that I didn't choose others appeared more clearly. I didn't go to sit in a resort for canned native culture. I didn't go to get a traditional bus tour. I didn't go to passively observe. I didn't go to give answers or to impart any wisdom. I didn't go to spread democracy or the American Way. I didn't go to talk more than I listened. I didn't go to have a safe, ordinary, typical, familiar vacation.

True to form, our experience was exotic. We ate anything and everything that the natives ate—all sorts of vegetables and fish, snails, grubs, snakes, cicadas, turtles, shrimp, wildcats, ducks, chickens, and wild boars. We slept on rattan mats spread on ironwood floors of longhouses. We bathed and washed our clothing in the rivers. If you consider the lack of regular electricity, flush toilets, and running water to be exotic, then the remote communities of Long Sayan, Uma Bawang-Keluan, and Rumah Rayong where we lived are your holy trinity.

Despite the rugged conditions, Borneo—and its amazing culture—is imbued with a certain abstract allure. Like a wonderful cultural heroin, a visit only feeds and seldom quenches the craving. At Keluan, we witnessed the vanishing Kayan art of tekna'. All night long, we drank borak, the local rice wine, and listened to songs of the exploits of ancient Kayan heroes. Channeling stream of consciousness thought into melody, rhyme and meter, and echoed by the harmonic habai chorus, Keluan elders Ubong Jau, Anyi Saging, and Ulau Jau, crafted unimaginably beautiful songs, culminating in an elaborate naming ceremony where they bestowed Kayan names on each of us travelers. We returned the honor by improvising songs of appreciation and danced until the crack of dawn.

At the Iban community of Rumah Rayong, the villagers watched as I took my turn in the miring ceremony to ask for blessing from the spirits for safe travels. Drunk on the bottomless glasses of tuak, I circled slowly around the ring of participants, tapping, waving and dancing with a soon-to-be-sacrificed rooster. Later, with freshly smeared rooster blood congealing across my forehead, I fell into a deep sleep on the hardy rattan mat, safe from the ill intentions of malevolent spirits.

Yes, we encountered harrowing stories of headhunting, cannibalism, and death. At Keluan, Anyi Saging's frank tale of a bitter struggle against Japanese soldiers in World War II entranced me. "We killed several soldiers, then roasted their arms. They made us suffer for many years, so we had to eat them," he explained solemnly, yet matter-of-factly. At Rumah Rayong, Ngau Padan related a haunting story of a rhino hunting trip that turned tragic when enemy warriors attacked the camp and killed his friend—who had dreamed of his own death just days before. He hunted down the killer and took revenge by cutting off his head.

We also observed, with heartbreaking regularity, the negative effects of deforestation and the abject poverty of many inland communities, where basic healthcare and schools remain abstract privileges, not rights. On the other hand, we also participated in some of the most ingenious and proactive community initiatives—such as pepper farms, fish ponds, rice mills and reforestation projects—that creatively bridge the gap between development and conservation.

We even got to spend a little time in the logging camps—an unlikely tourist destination. While our guide, Saging, went across the river in search of our transport, we were stranded in the place where the scorching equatorial sun watched the Baram watershed's vanishing rainforests being unloaded from trucks onto barges. Instead of shunning us with suspicion or hostility, the young workers from Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia engaged us in candid conversation and welcomed us to nap on their veranda. Unexpectedly, the delay provided us with an incredible look at life on the other side of logging. Here were the migrant workers clad in conical sun hats, long sleeved shirts, jeans and rubber cleats, and galvanized by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and lack of community. They were working for meager hourly wage to provide for far-away families left behind. Some came from upriver communities that had been logged out, some wanted access to consumer goods that others enjoyed and could only be bought with cash. The multitude of Adidas, Nike and Guess t-shirts, bags and hats attested to the infusion of consumer goods into and throughout the island's interior. Globalization was surely transforming self-reliant communities, spawning new focus on individual gain and introducing cash dependence. The accidental "layover", sandwiched between incredibly memorable longhouse homestays, gave us a glimpse into a reality that few tourists have the opportunity to experience.

I like telling people that I went to "Borneo"—the word drips an exotic flavor of cool. Sure, I could say Malaysia, but most people get a different impression, one of the peninsula with its resorts, commerce and Islamic culture—something entirely not Borneo. If I said “Sarawak” instead, would anyone know where—or what—it is? The middle Baram River in Borneo—I like the consonance, how the phrase twists in my mouth—like the coffee colored river itself.

Borneo's been calling me since third grade. Even after the trip, it continues to beckon, like some bizarre compass magnet pointing and pulling ever so gently, yet consistently. I think that I waltz around answers to the question "Why did you choose Borneo?" because I have difficulty with the premise.

I didn't exactly choose Borneo; in some strange, wonderful way, it chose me.