Jungle Misadventures in Borneo

We were looking forward to Borneo as it was always a place on our wishlist and we had originally thought we wouldn't be able to afford it this year. It was also a welcome change from the pavement pounding concrete jungle of mainland Malaysia.

We landed in the northern State of Sabah and headed to Sepilok, home of the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, to start Borneo with a bang. This centre rehabilitates orphaned, injured or displaced Orangutans through gradually reducing their human contact. One stage of this process is regular feeding at three different platforms. Visitors are allowed to observe feeding time at the closest platform and several Orangutans normally swing in, some to show off to the crowd, some taking more than their share of bananas and some taking their first steps towards independence. The centre has had success with several Orangutans being relocated back into the wild as well as a large resident wild population.

From Sepilok, we headed to the jungle for our 3 day wildlife tour. Kinabatangan River provides one of the best places to see apes and other endangered wildlife as the river banks have been divided into plots and only 2 out of 12 are still jungle; the rest having been changed into palm oil plantations. This sad fact means all the wildlife is trapped, including Orangutans and pygmy elephants that are treated as pests if they stray onto a neighbouring plantation. Most of the wildlife watching is done from the river, courtesy of a chugging little speedboat. We saw all of Borneo's monkeys except Orangutans although we did see their nests on a jungle trek. We saw Probiscus Monkeys, gibbons, redleaf monkeys, silverleaf monkeys, hornbills, rare eagles, kingfishers, crocodiles, the largest squirrel in Borneo, the smallest squirrel in Borneo and the ever present long tailed macaques, known to pinch anything that's not bolted down and foolish enough to fight keith for his breakfast! We decided not to do the night time jungle trek, specifically looking for snakes, scorpions and spiders as we felt the wildlife in the toilets was more than enough!

From roughing it in the jungle, we moved on to Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in SE Asia, 4100m, but with no intention to get to the top. We spent a nice couple of days enjoying the cooler weather and the views before exploring the parks trails.

We then headed to Kota Kinabalu where we got boat transport to Brunei, one of the smallest yet richest countries in the world. It even apparently owns a cattle ranch in Australia bigger than the country itself and is most recently famous for the $15 billion bender of one of the Princes, who at the time was finance minister. It was a stark difference with its clean and organised cities, massive houses and sheer number of cars. We had to laugh coming through immigration when one of the officers said we were the first English people he's ever met. He then went on to ask if everyone was short in England, and when we replied, well no just us, he then asked if we were mixed? We are still trying to work that one out, but it was good for a laugh.

From there it was back to Borneo in the Southern state of Sarawak. After a perfect day of 5 lucky bus connections we ended up in Miri which we used as a jumping off point for Niah Caves National Park, home of 40,000 year old remains, death boats, one of the worlds largest caves, and swiftlet nests collected for bird nests soup. We set off early in the morning for the 3km walk to the cave. Due to maintenance work, the raised boardwalk route was closed for some of the way. We were assured that there was a jungle route that would not take too long; 2hrs to get there as it was very muddy. 2.5 hrs later, with mud up to our knees, mossies flying about our heads, the sun getting higher and no cave in sight we had a problem. Stacey fainted. For the first time ever in her life. She chose the middle of the jungle, 2hrs from anywhere remotely sensible and to make it worse, she even picked the middle of a 6inch deep bog. Luckily I managed to break her fall and we both escaped the bog leech free. After a rest, sugar load and electrolade feast, we were ready to get under way...back the way we came. We figured that was plenty enough excitement and headed back the 2.5hrs to the museum on the river bank to see what we'd missed.

We have flown to Kuching, the state capital, where we are waiting for our flight to Cambodia next week. There's a nice river front, markets, museums, and many souvenirs to see and places to go, perfect for a couple of days. We went to Semenggok, another Orangutan rehabilitation centre, which, amazingly we saw Orangutans swinging about over our heads on the walk to the feeding area. Unlike Sepilok, the place doesn't give the separation between the Orangutans and us, allowing us a really close observation of them, although unsure of the benefits towards them, and made us somewhat nervous when the male Orangutan, all 100kg of him came storming through the trees for some brekkie! King Kong, eat yer heart out!

We have really enjoyed our experience in Borneo, the wildlife, adventure and the people have reinvigorated our energy in travel after a long stretch. Cambodia, here we come - we've heard the baguettes and brie are fantastic! And also something about some ruins...

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