Borneo & Kuala Lumpur

---

As our plane descended on Borneo we were already mesmerized by thick, lush forests, tall mountain peaks, never-ending, winding rivers, and a sunset over the ocean. Our first impression was a lasting one, as Borneo did not disappoint us for the entire time we were there. Our two week plan for Borneo kept growing and growing and we ended up staying almost four weeks.

KUCHING

We first arrived in the city of Kuching, which was set along a river. The residents of this city seemed to worship cats and throughout the city there were seven huge statues erected of...cats! The city name, Kuching, when translated actually means cat. Our first night we went to a place to eat called Top Spot which was the top floor of a five story parking garage (the outdoor level). There were several stalls displaying fish, shrimp, crabs, etc. You could pick the seafood you wanted and tell them how you wanted it prepared. The next day, a Friday, we tried to make a reservation to stay at a National Park for the following day, but it turns out that it was a holiday in Borneo and the tourist offices were all closed. Finally, we got the phone number but no one picked up and when we eventually reached someone it was the wrong number. We walked around Kuching all day and at night went to a local restaurant, which featured "Steamboats". A Steamboat is a pot of boiling water placed in the middle of the table with small grills around it. You can go up to a buffet and get plates of vegetables, spices, dumplings, seafood, and meats. Then you return to your table and make a soup with all of the ingredients except for the meats which can be grilled at the table. We had a lot of fun trying to make the food and it turned out delicious!

BAKO NATIONAL PARK

Since we had no luck making a reservation to stay at Bako National Park (which the travel books say is strongly recomended) we decided we would store our big backpacks in Kuching and take our day packs to the Park in case they had a room for us, otherwise we would make it a day trip. We brought a change of underwear and socks but that was all we had room for in the smaller packs. We took a short bus ride to a pier and then got on a boat to the Park. When we arrived at Bako National Park, we found out that they had room for us to stay the night so we were thrilled. We looked on the map, there was a small loop hike which was recomended for people there for the day so we decided to do a big loop since we were staying the night. The big loop also went to a waterfall which we were looking forward to. The park ranger told us that the big loop was 9 kilometers and would take us about 5 hours. We started off and as you can see in the pictures below we encoutered some rough terrain. This was no walk in the park..over tree limbs, across rivers, climbing dry waterfalls, using ropes and handholds to pull ourselves up. There was no solid footing anywhere - it was rocks or tree roots - and we tried to circumnavigate the often flooded trail. We were truly in the jungles of Borneo. Five hours into the hike we were beyond exhausted and we came upon a map which showed that we were just halfway done the loop. So we trudged along despite the fact that all limbs on our bodies had gone numb. The heat and humidity was oppressive. The rainforest canopy was trapping all of the moisture released by the trees making us sweat more than either of us had in our entire lives (not to be gross - but the water was pouring off of us). We finally reached a little turn-off where we could hike out to a beach. We went through the jungle and it literally just went right to the sand where we found a gorgeous, secluded, cove with jungle and limestone cliffs encasing it. We went for a swim in the warm water, which somehow was still refreshing. The beach was definitely beautiful but we still had a ways to go on the hike. So we continued back to the trail and we hit the point of the "waterfall" which we were excited for, only to realize that it was just a little stream over a rock and only three feet high. All of a sudden it started to drizzle. It slowly got harder and harder, until it poured on us. Then the thunder and lightning started. It was a torrential downpour and we were still 4 kilometers away from camp. We were pretty much on top of a mountain and at one part we were above the tree line. We went really fast and probably made it back to camp in record time but we were drenched. Since we didn't know that we were going to get a room at the park, we didn't have a change of clothes. So we were stuck in our wet clothes! We really loved the hike. It felt like a real adventure. We were just surrounded by rainforest jungle and heard all sorts of animal sounds. The next morning we went on a short hike to see the monkeys in the mangrove trees and then the probiscus monkeys. We also went to a much closer beach and relaxed.

KAPIT/LONGHOUSE

We took a boat to a place called Kapit, which was ten hours up the river from Kuching and not very touristy at all. When we got to Kapit we were approached by someone who offered to take us on a longhouse tour, which was why we had gone all the way up river to Kapit in the first place, but as we learned long ago, never say yes to the first person who approaches you. A longhouse is the way that natives in Borneo live. It is one long house with many apartments for families off of a communal main hallway which everyone conveens in after dinner and the children use to play all day. We checked into the hotel and tried to get some recomendations on who to use as a guide for our longhouse visit. We searched all over town, which had zero tour agencies, so we checked in all the hotels, and came back with the same name from all of them, Alice. We tried for hours to call Alice but it seemed that all the phones in the town were down. We were beginning to worry about having to wait another day in Kapit without doing anything until we got the clerk at our hotel to let us use his cell phone to call her. We got through and she agreed to pick us up the next morning at 10am. 10am rolled around and Alice's representative, Chris, showed up at our hotel and took us to a grocery store to get some "gifts" for the kids of the longhouse. We decided on a bag of lollipops and a bag of things that Chris recommended us to get because they liked them (we thought they were cookies). We then went the 38 kilometers away from Kapit on a bumpy dirt road to arrive at the longhouse, which upon first glance looked like a slightly better put together shanty town. Chris took us into the "headman's" house, as that is where all the visitors stay. We signed in a guest book and noticed that they have visitors nearly every single day. For the next hour Chris showed us around the longhouse and introduced us to our host family and some of the other people in the longhouse. Now, Chris, spoke their language, Iban, a local language which is very diferent even from Malay (the language of Malaysia). She stayed with us through our first lunch and then she said her goodbyes, arranged to pick us up in 2 days after breakfast, and left us sitting Apt. #10 with our host family. Our host family did not communicate with us much. We tried to speak to the younger men but they gave us single-word answers. We figured that they did not speak much English. We weren't really sure what we were going to do for the next two days since it seemed we couldn't communicate with the others. There are 18 people that live in the headman's house. There are two bedrooms other than the one that we stayed in. The longhouse had a total of 50 families. We decided to go out to the long common hallway room where the residents hang out together. There was a lot of commotion at one end of the hall and we saw that one family had just brought home a baby big in a basket from town. The father had to patch up a small wire cage to put the pig in. The pig was not happy to be there but all of the kids seemed really excited to have it there. Then we saw children playing a game with rocks. It is very similar to jacks but without the ball. Rachel went to the river and collected small rocks and then we started playing the game with the kids. This never ended. For the next two days whenever the kids saw us they wanted to play the rock game with us constantly. The headman's family did not come into the common area as much. They were clearly the most wealthy family and they kept to themselves watching hours of malaysian soap operas on their tv. After dinner we handed out the snacks that Chris told us the kids liked. The kids swarmed around us with their hands out and even the adults wanted them. There was another section of the longhouse where the people were poorer than the main section. We went over there with the snacks and they all ran out of their apartments. Then they patted the floor beside them and motioned for us to sit down with them. They even offered us a taste of whatever snack we had given out. It turns out that they were fish crackers and did not taste very good at all. We thought we had brought them something sweet like cookies. The young men started conversing with us. Some of them spoke English very well. It was at this point when we realized that the headman's sons could speak with us but just didn't really want to. We asked these people about the longhouse. It is the oldest longhouse in the Kapit area. They used to be headhunters until 20 years ago (and they have a human skull hanging in the longhouse). They are taking in visitors to make money to build a new longhouse out of concrete instead of wood, which will take 3 years to build. The next day was more of the same, we played the rock game, spoke to some of the people, and went to the river. We were happy to leave the longhouse but although it was a difficult experience full of culture shock, it was certainly educational, mind-opening, and memorable.

We headed to another National park called Niah Caves, where we explored the 3 caves that were more like archaeological sites than caves. One of them contained the oldest human remnants in Asia, a skull dated to be 40,000 years old, and another cave had several cave paintings over 2,000 years old. Then we headed to a town on the ocean called Miri where we spent a couple days relaxing and exploring the town.

MULU NATIONAL PARK

The only way to get to Mulu National Park is to fly there. It is in the middle of the primary rain forest of Borneo and is famous for its' caves and limestone mountains. We flew in on a little propeller plane and saw the beauty of Mulu from the plane's windows. We started out on an afternoon trip to see two of the caves, deer and lang's. We first reached lang's cave and the pictures below don't really do it justice. It was a spectacular site of limestone stalagmites and stalaglites. We thought they looked like drip-castles that you make on the beach with the sand. It was awe-inspiring and neither of us had ever seen anything like it. It was by far the best cave either of us had ever been in. Next, we went to Deer Cave, which is the second biggest cave opening in the world at 330 meters tall and 300 meters wide. In addition to the vast immensity of it, the fact that 3 million bats live inside it adds to its appeal. The cave opening has a natural rock formation which has an uncanny likeness to Abraham Lincoln (see picture below). Just before sunset, all of the bats fly out of the cave at the same time to get some food. Altogether the bats eat 15 tons of mosquitos in one night.

The next day we went to see two more caves, wind and clearwater. The wind cave had more limestone formations. Many of them looked like columns. The clearwater cave is the longest cave passage in the world with a river that runs through it for 127 kilometers. We did not go through all of it!!! From these caves we took a boat for 45 minutes up the river. We had signed up to do a trek to the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles are shear, razor-sharp, 60 meter tall limestone cones which extend out of the top of a mountain. There are only 2 formations like this in the world and the other one has rounded tops instead of sharp points. After the boat we had a 9 kilometer trek through the jungle. We had to cross two very narrow suspension bridges as well, while carrying all of our food clothing and water for the next few days. We got to the camp and had to do a leech check, but we didn't have any, except for one which was attached to Ian's sock instead of his skin. Our camp was right by a river so we jumped in. There was a swing over the water and the water created a natural whirlpool which kept us moving around in circles.

We left camp at 7 to begin the climb to the Pinnacles. The climb was only 2400 meters long but the gain in elevation is 1200 meters, which basically means that it is one steep climb. We had to scramble over tree roots and limestone rocks and the trail was as steep as a staircase and it didn't let up at all. We were using our hands the entire time to hoist ourselves up. The final 400 meters consisted of 16 ladders and boards, beams, and planks that we had to use to walk over 20-30 foot drops. We reached the summit at 11AM only to look out to a heavy, dense fog, making the view of the pinnacles almost obscured. Miraculously, the fog gave way, leaving a breathtaking view of the limestone pinnacles. They were astounding and even better than we imagined. After only 5 minutes the clouds rolled back in and began to rain so we had to begin our descent. Although impossible to imagine, the descent was even more difficult. Every step was unstable or slippery which would be perilous if we lost our footing. Our legs were already so tired they were shaking with each step. The rain also made the rocks really slippery and there were several falls on the way down. Eventually, we made it and we were ecstatic. The short view of the Pinnacles made the entire hike worth it - they were amazing!

KOTA KINABALU

We flew into Kota Kinabalu (KK) and went to a night market which had seafood which was pulled out of the ocean only hours before. The next morning we took a boat to a tiny island named Mamutik. We spent the day on the beach, relaxing and snorkeling. On the boat ride back to KK with Mr. Toad the boat driver he went so fast that the rain felt like hail against our skin. As we jumped over the waves the boat would crash down and each time we thought it would break in half.

SEPILOK

We took a bus to Sepilok which is home to an Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, one of only four in the world. We watched them swing on ropes. They looked so cuddly and cute even though they are truly wild animals. We were only about 15 feet away from them. Their arms are so long and it was really fun to watch them interact with each other. Then the center brought out food for them. The bigger ones went first and they would take food in their mouths or feet and then swing away to eat it somewhere else. After a while some monkeys came in and raided the food. All of the monkeys fought over the food with each other but they seemed pretty scared of the orangutans.

MABUL/SIPADAN

We headed South and took a boat to Mabul Island. We stayed on a homestay on a dock on the water. We were there because we were going to do one day of diving at Sipadan Island. Sipadan is a National Park and no one can live or stay on the island. This island was fought over for many years between Malaysia, the Phillipines, and China. The United Nations gave it to Malaysia only a short time ago. It is one of the top ten dive sites in the world, which is why everyone wanted it. To keep the coral pristine and intact, the park only allows 120 people per day. Permits are required and strictly enforced by the Malaysian Army. We had to spend a few days snorkeling the nearby island of Mabul until we could get one of the coveted permits to dive on Sipadan. We did a lot of snorkeling at different spots on Mabul Island. We saw turtles, lion fish, scorpion fish, puffer fish, porcupine fish, crocodile fish, cuttlefish, trumpet fish, clown fish, and much more in larger quantity and variety than either of us had ever seen before in our lives. We snorkeled for two days and then the next morning Ian surprised Rachel and told her that a few of her friends from San Diego had given Ian some money to spend on Rachel for her birthday and that she was going to dive Sipadan that day as well. Rachel had the best day of diving ever and saw sharks, turtles, a huge lobster, a school of bumphead fish, and many other fish, as well. The highlight of the dive was a huge school of barracuda. They like to swim in the current and when the current dies down they create their own current by swimming in circles, forming a tornado of fish. It is truly an incredible sight and you can swim under them and inside the vortex. The next day we both did dives in Sipadan and saw the barracuda tornado again, an innumerable amount of turtles which passed within 6 inches of your face, and countless other fish. The diving was the best we have ever done since the aquatic life is so varied and vast and we are worried that we might never find a better dive site.

KUALA LUMPUR

Since we kept extending out trip in Borneo we realized that we wouldn't have time for Peninsular Malaysia and we would have to fly to Thailand but we spent one day in Kuala Lumpur first. We went to the Batu caves which is a Hindu temple inside caves right outside of the city. They have a festival here where people practice self-mutilation as a sacrifice. We were not there during the festival but it looks pretty intense as you can see in the picture below. We went to the Kuala Lumpur tower, where you take the elevator up to the top for panoramic views of the city, including the Petronas towers.

We absolutely loved Borneo and highly recommend it to anyone who loves the outdoors. Off to Thailand!!! Happy New Year!!

---