Revenge of the Cheeky Monkeys

---

The human body has four million pores, and the an area of skin, the size of a quarter, has over 600 sweat glands. WELCOME TO THE EQUATOR, Sabah, Malaysia....BORNEO! Now most people I have talked to about my trip, even before going had no idea where Borneo was, much less heard of it. So I am going to delve into some geography for a second and explain what makes this such a unique island.
Borneo is by no means a small island, in fact it is the third largest island in the world. It straddles the equator and is cut in half by two neighboring countries, Malaysia, and Indonesia. They have found signs of human life on Borneo dating back tens of thousands of years, but that is not what drove me to the island. I was told that the Malaysian side of Borneo holds the greater riches, as far as awe inspiring reefs, and mountainous jungle. It is also home to the largest mountain in SE Asia, Mt. Kinabalu, at 13,455 ft. Deer cave is also in Malay Borneo, which is the largest cave system in the world. You can actually fly a jumbo jet through the entrance of this cave. Check out the Planet Earth special that the BBC and discovery channel put out about a year ago. That show actually stirred my pot for Borneo. This story, this week long adventure through Sabah, through the kinabatangan jungles and to the open ocean, it is beginning....now.
The days leading up to my trip were one of anticipation to say the least. The week before I left seemed to drag on while at night I had dreams about being on a tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific. When the day finally came, I was ready, I was pumped, I was excited, I was a third wheel?
Originally this was going to be a solo trip, but Jenny, Justin girlfriend had the same vacation time as me and didn't know what she was going to do. I invited her along and so it seemed that the two of us were going to be taking on the wilds of Borneo together. Justin had vacation a week before both of us and was planning a trip to Mongolia with our good friend Seamus. Well as fate would have it, Justin's school decides to switch his vacation days last minute to the same week as Jenny and I. Luckily for Justin he hadn't booked his ticket yet to Mongolia, and Sea had a change of heart and wanted to spend his week off with his little yoja. Justin didn't come out and say it, but you could tell he looked desperate. His vacation was getting all turned up side down and he didn't know what to do. I suggested and I assume Jenny suggested that he come with us, that he should book his ticket now though and tell the school tough...well....you know if they were going to change his vacation again. This is what he did.
So here we were the three of us heading off to the airport to spend the next 24 hours in a state of...."are we there yet?" Borneo is not far from Korea, in fact as the crow flies or a 747 it should only take six hours to make it to Borneo. But we had a nine and half hour lay over in Kuala Lumpur. Jenny and I got into KL around 10:30 that night, and went about foraging the airport for food and a beer. We got the food, but beer ended up costing around $11, so we opted for a sober night in the airport. I was hoping to get out into the city a bit, but the airport is 75 miles away from the city center, and it was the middle of the night. Cold blooded. Justin had a similar situation. He flew to Hong Kong and had a 10 hour layover there, where he managed to spend the night in a McDonald's and lose his ipod. I will leave that up to Justin to tell you about in his blog, le jaguar.
That night I spent reading a book huddled in a airline blanket on a metal reclining chair in a much to air conditioned airport. I ended up reading the entire book that night, and began my second half of my trek at 7:30 am.
We met Justin in KK, which is the capital of Sabah (the region of Borneo we were in), and made one more puddle jumper to an even smaller parcel of airstrip in Sandakan. The 24 air travel had taking it out of us, but we were in high spirits after grabbing our bags and hailing a taxi. We didn't have reservations anywhere, but managed to find a cool little B&B near the orangutan sanctuary about a half hour outside of town. I still remember Justin's famous words after getting out of the taxi at the sanctuary..."it's not that hot. I was expecting more out of the equator." Well speak of the devil and he appears. In the form of invisible demons that seem to soak you with sweat with in minutes of getting out of an air condition taxi. We ended up walking a mile down the road to find the Bed and Breakfast and by the time we were there, our were backs dripping and the only thing on our mind was a cold beer. Which they had and we had. The manager of the B&B was hip local dude named Justin who made us feel right at home, and told us to check out the forest reserve that is just down the road. "Around 5:00 you can sometimes see orangutans in the tree's that come down by the lake, and flying foxes in the trees. It is the best time to go." said Justin. We looked at our watches and realized we had 1 hour before 5:00 and another round of beers was called for before trekking off into the jungle.
Well as if on que we spotted them in the trees. Not more than 10 feet above our heads were 2 orangutans. Wild ones that live near the center, and enjoy bounding from tree to tree near the main lake. This is all with in two hours of getting off the plane. Here we were staring up at the only great ape outside of Africa and our closets cousin. We followed them a bit as they casually swung from tree to tree and took breaks to stare back at us. We sat and watched as they made their way further into the thick jungle and out of site. Still on a monkey high we decided to follow the trail further and into the forest canopy. They had the walk ways that we about a 100 feet up and meandered through the jungle top. We didn't see any more monkeys, but it didn't matter. The sun was setting and here we were staring across acres of untouched rain forest in SE Asia. We made it back to the b&b a sunset and found that the place was having a buffet for around $3. The food here was amazing. I wasn't sure what to expect coming into the jungle. I had premonitions of eating larva and monkey brains, but instead had curry chicken and jack fruit (tastes just like artichoke). We ate our fill and downed a few more beers with a fellow traveler that we met there. He was our age and doing a round the world trip. He had been here for a few weeks and informed us of a good place for scuba diving and snorkeling. We played cards and chatted until 10, then hit the sack. Our first day down and we had only been up for close to 36 hours.
The next morning we loaded up on the free breakfast of coffee and toast, and hit the Sepilok Orangutan sanctuary just up the road. This was our pick up for Uncle Tan's jungle adventure, our next destination. We watched the morning feeding, where orphaned orangutans can come for a free meal and some human socializing. That was very cool, seeing the apes swing from the trees to the platforms all the while the Long tail Macaques were waiting to grab up any scraps.
After the feeding, we had about 2 hours to kill before catching our ride to Uncle Tan's, so we decided to take the short kilometer hike into the sanctuary. Well who would have thought that we would be hurrying back to the main center with only 15 minutes to spare before our ride came. As we started down the path, which at this point was still a raised wooden bridge deal, we encountered the cheeky monkeys. We had heard about them in our short stay in this country. The Macaques long and short tailed were crowding the way. We were told by a local guide earlier not too look them in the eye and to watch your bags and camera. They looked so cute and harmless. Just playful little monkeys right? Well as we soon found out, traveling 20 feet was going to be an ordeal. I had no fear of monkeys coming on to this path, but with a giant male walking past you and taking a swing at you, while a smaller one reaches out to either bite you or grab at your camera, emotions change. We were in their world, tourist to a habitat that we left long ago. Justin had a mischievous one that chased him down the path and out of sight for a good 10 minutes, while Jenny and I were stuck between two groups of them. Luckily we had a few other stranded hikers with us as well, so the brunt of the monkey business was not centered entirely on us two. Justin finally came back after trying to find another way around with no success. We walked through in shifts with our eyes carefully focuses not on the eyes but their quick little hands.
We were jovial when we made it through, but then the hard reality hit us. We were going to have to come back. The rest of hike was fun, we were deep in the jungle with all sorts of sounds happening around us, and when we did decide to turn around and leg it back to the main center, luck was on our side. The monkeys had dispersed and we had the entire path way to ourselves.
We were picked up 10 minutes later and shuttled down to Uncle Tan's base camp for lunch and briefing on what was ahead for us. With the cheeky monkeys behind us, for the time being, we settled into our lunch and then loaded up for a 3 day adventure in the Jungle.

To be continued...

---

Photos

locals
catchin some z's

ewok village
are view from the canopy walk. The towers in the background are for spotting birds.

salad?
massive leafs, that seemed to be a half inch thick as well.

Comments

[mom & dad]

WOW!
Lovethe story and the pics so far!!!! Anxiously waiting for the rest! Love, Mom