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Published: August 6th 2007
The Petronas Towers
Until recently the tallest building in the worldIt's a little known fact that any trip into the jungle requires a knowledge of at least three dance moves. The first, the Mosquito, is very simple. Initially stand with you head and upper body slightly inclined, lift one leg off the floor a few inches, and slap the raised leg simultaneously with both hands either side of the knee. Repeat, alternating legs. The Leech is slightly more difficult, but with practice, becomes very straightforward. Again, with head inclined, bend one leg inwards so that your line of sight meets your instep. Follow with the other leg, then repeat the movement, bending legs outwards. Repeat all steps every twelve seconds until you have left the jungle. The third and final step is the Fire Ant. This is by far and away the most energetic and can be spotted breaking out sporadically after dark. To proceed, stand on tiptoes and perform a running on the spot motion lifting each leg as high as possible. For maximum effect ensure a chant of ahh... eeehhhh... aaiiiiiiioooowwww continues throughout the movement.
There was no doubt about it. We had to come. For complete wildlife junkies like us Borneo
was the obvious choice. Where else could we cram in floating down a river to observe proboscis monkeys, snorkelling amongst huge green turtles and the potential to sight orangutans in the wild all in a week? Coupled with the delicious Indian influenced food and the welcoming people, Malaysia has turned out to be a fantastic destination all round.
We landed in Kuala Lumpur from Phuket and were immediately struck by the number of Indian faces around. We were suddenly immersed into a much more multicultural society, unlike the rest of SE Asia, with a mix of Malay, Indian and Chinese and a stack of Westerners too. Although a predominantly Muslim country, the multitude of religions seemed to sit side by side quite happily. The food on offer mixed spicy Indian curries with freshly flipped roti bread, delicious laksa noodles and peanuty chicken satay. English was widely spoken and was often the language of choice. The people were far and away the most friendly and helpful we have met in Asia. We couldn't stop for a second without being pounced on with offers of help, who for the first time in Asia didn't want anything in return!
Split across
Peninsula Malaysia and the north of Borneo, we found plenty to amuse ourselves for a month. KL is a thriving capital, a huge business hub with a big ex-pat community. The buildings sported Chinese and Islamic architecture rather than the common Asian designs. Mosques were interspersed with Taoist temples and the streets held women in burkas with others in crop tops, all happy to eat in McDonalds.
After a few days in the humid city we escaped to the East coast to a little beach town called Cherating. We weren't too impressed with the dirty beach but hung around long enough for their star attraction. At 9.30pm we get a knock at the door, after getting a vague hint that we might. A local guy took Katie and I a few minutes down the coast in his old car. The three of us then wandered in silence around a huge Green Turtle on her way up the beach to lay her eggs. We were taken a bit further along to where one had just finished laying hers. A couple of workers from a nearby hatchery had just collected the 127 eggs she had just laid, and we were able
to sit less than a metre away and watch the 3-4 foot beauty go through the very tiring and powerful motions of burying her imaginary brood. It was so wonderful to be able to watch this stunning creature carry out its life purpose from so close, unfortunately though it wasn't a secret and although the hatchery guys have plans in place to keep people away while the turtles are laying, as soon as it's done the people quickly appear. Our man later took us back to where we saw the first turtle on her way up the beach. She was being guarded, hidden and silently kept in the dark by the two hatchery guys we'd met earlier, who were also collecting the last of the 100+ eggs she was laying. They even let us hold one just before they whisked them away to safety. Quite why we were worthy of this privilege we don't know, but again it was incredible to be able to sit in the dark and quiet watching this amazing creature do its business. We left in a mixed mood - delighted and overwhelmed to have seen such an amazing spectacle, but upset that by just being
Male Orangutan
In Sepilok - we had camera and operator issues with the one we saw properly in the wild... shaking too much with excitement! there we may have impacted on the turtles' most important habitat. We sincerely hope not.
We didn't find ourselves quite so lucky in Taman Negara, a huge primary rainforest in the interior of the country, and home to many mammals. We had a few days here hoping to view some of the wildlife, even opting to stay in a basic wooden doorless hide in the middle of this dense jungle for a night. On our way there after not seeing any sign of civilisation on any of the leech-ridden sodden paths, for the entire walk, we actually ran out of marker signs and got a touch lost. Only then did the enormity, density and remoteness of the place dawn on us, and the beginnings of panic start to awaken! We spent the whole night at the hide taking shifts scouring the watering hole area with our torch, but alas no animals were passing through that night. In fact other than leeches the only other thing we saw was a jungle rat who'd come to munch on our food and keep us awake most of the night!
After a couple of days in the National Park we were pleased
Proboscis Monkey
If you look really close he's there in the middle! to escape the unbearable humidity and with great pleasure we stepped from the bus in the Cameron Highlands amongst the tea plantations. For the first time since we left Beijing we had to don our jumpers to escape the goose bumps, what a great feeling for a change! CH was a very different place in many ways, Tudor houses filled the hills, tea was the drink of choice, 'pick your own strawberries' signs appeared all over and scone cream teas were being eaten at every corner! The old hill station was like a little piece of England they left behind.
We were also treated to some more great Malaysian hospitality when our guesthouse owner invited us to a traditional Indian show. The long night consisted of a slightly painful school orchestra, followed by a great Indian rock band and finished with superb traditional dancing, which wore you out just to look at. The saris and facial expressions were beautiful. We felt extremely privileged to be the only Westerners there amongst 400 Indian-Malay locals.
When we'd finally drank so much tea we could barely survive a two-hour bus journey, we rolled down the hill back to KL and hopped
on a surprisingly long flight to Sabah, Borneo and the biggest city Kota Kinabalu. Borneo had conjured up an image of the most inaccessible place we were to visit, but when the budget airline took us there for 25 quid it was not surprising it wasn't quite that isolated. KK surprised us with its modernity, nice hostels and lovely food. From here we took a very windy trip over to Sandakan on which we discovered Malaysians don't travel too well, plenty of bags of joy filled the backs of seats on that trip! We hopped off at Uncle Tan's B&B where we signed up for a jungle experience on the Sungai Kinabatangan.
Before we left for the jungle we popped in to see the orangutans at Sepilok's Rehabilitation Centre. These uber-cool creatures hung around eating bananas, swinging casually on ropes and puking in their hands and eating it again while we were there! After seeing them there we were gagging to catch them fully wild in their environment. Although the centre (which is doing an amazing job) housed them and rehabilitated them gradually deeper and deeper back into the jungle, it just wasn't quite the same!
As usual
Black Scorpion
Stunt hand shown! our obsession took over, we had to see one in the wild! Not surprising really that it wasn't going to be that easy, so we ended up on two jungle camps. The first three days was spent immersed deep in the jungle in a very basic camp at Uncle Tan's with the stinkiest bed we have ever encountered, the deepest darkest brown river water to bathe in and wildlife all around us. Macaques played in the trees (and chased unsuspecting people from the toilet block!) wild bearded pigs snuffled around and huge monitor lizards kept trying to take off with the boat.
The camp was right on the river so we took numerous river cruises to try and spot wildlife. The endemic
proboscis monkeys definitely won the title for the most hilarious with the males sporting incredibly huge female-attracting noses, so big some of them can only eat by holding it up out of the way! We could have been mistaken for thinking they weren't endangered as they seemed so in abundance here. They hung out in the trees in groups, looking extremely human by sitting legs akimbo, arms resting on knees with their big bellies hanging out. They jumped
between trees, well actually they launched themselves with much faith between trees, often only just landing their jump. Unfortunately we did see one not-so-lucky monkey miss the tree and fall a good 10 metres in to the undergrowth. We didn't hear a bump so we assume he landed dazed in a bush, the poor thing!
At night we went bug hunting and came face to face with a scorpion and a couple of cute civet cats roaming around. Some of the guides were great (Remy), they really have put their life in to learning about the jungle and the animals, even spouting off the Latin names of many of the things we saw. We definitely learned a few things there: that there just isn't that much forest for all these amazing creatures, palm oil plantations have just taken over (which Malaysia still claim is bloody sustainably produced); it is extremely rare to see an orangutan; and that you absolutely need an SLR if you're going to get any decent animal pictures!
Needless to say no orangutan sightings at Uncle Tan's, so three days later and we're in the jeep on the way to the Nature Lodge Kinabatangan. We
Green Turtle
One of the many who cruised by us at Sipadan hoped as they're based on a different stretch of the river we'd have another chance. Realising how elusive the great apes are we were just happy to cruise the river watching the other amazing wildlife. Yet on our first boat trip out, which incidentally was on Katie's birthday, our luck changed! The other boat had pulled up under a tree and the guide was frantically making monkey impressions, we sped over and low and behold, look who's hanging from a tree just a few metres above us, a massive male
Orangutan! We were all practically squealing with amazement and delight. Bart's (our guide) only contribution was 'just look at his massive face pouches!' I think he was more excited than us! He hung around for about five to ten minutes before gracefully and silently swinging off into the distance through the undergrowth. What an amazing sight, we were and still are so chuffed. Hearing the sad fact that at the rate of deforestation at the moment they are likely to be extinct in ten years we feel even luckier (and a great urge to try to do something to help).
The rest of the three days was just a
Sunset over Borneo
Goodbye, can't wait to come back... bonus, as we'd had the highlight. This camp was definitely luxury in comparison, with clean beds, clear water and not so much mud! The staff were lovely and even sang happy birthday with a cake for Katie! As with the other camp the days were jam-packed with river cruises, day walks and night walks to try and see as much as possible. Here we spotted a few more mammals, a Malay badger, a prevost squirrel and a tiny pygmy squirrel! We also had a few more leeches at this camp, Katie finally got suckered and had to be saved as one had made it up under her bra strap!
In between all this jungle camp fun we also managed to squeeze a far cleaner activity in! Touted as a world class diving site, Sipadan island drew us in for a day's snorkelling to see the underwater sights. We stayed at Uncle Chang's on Mabul island, a place that has the potential to be a beautiful idyllic island, but it is way too inhabited so is encircled by a rim of floating rubbish. Luckily they have stopped people living on Sipadan (and thankfully plan to do the same with Mabul soon) so it is clean and the water is so clear you can see the bottom as you pass over. We waded out from the shore until we met the shallow coral reef, home to schools of the most colourful fish ever. About 20 metres from the shore the coral suddenly disappeared at the 'drop off'. An apparent 600m cliff, although we can't really verify this, at the edge of a plate, makes a phenomenal underwater ecosystem. Around here we got to meet the resident turtles who just appeared from the depths right in front of us, then gracefully flapped past us. There were so many of them we lost count, each one made us just as excited as the last! In between we also watched a good few white-tipped reef sharks, looking even more menacing beneath us than before as we were usually the only two in the water here!
It was with regret that we stepped on the plane and left Borneo, hoping that one day we'll be able to come back and explore some more. On the way through we had a brief stop in Singapore where a food festival was in full swing. Wandering into Little India from where we'd been staying, what had been an extremely quiet area was now completely full of thousands of Indian men. It seems they'd all come out to view the end of the 1000 Curry Fish Head Mela...
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