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Published: January 23rd 2006
(sorry folks, it's my longest blog yet, as it's been a busy couple of weeks - once again, you have been warned - enjoy.)
I have often mentioned in passing to people that I will be visiting Borneo, and the reply is usually "Ah, cool, that's great, right yeh...........where?". Relative to other destinations, Borneo is less well known or is seen as this mysterious land, but sadly or not (an argument not worth getting into here), is slowly being 'discovered' by the backpacking community as a stunningly beautiful and diverse region. The northern part of the island, formerly known as Malaysian Borneo is run by the same Government as Peninsular Malaysia and includes Sarawak to the south-west and Sabah to the north-east. Ultimately, it shares the world's 3rd biggest island with Indonesia Kalimantan and the black-gold state of Brunei.
As for me, I'm just visiting Saban and am here for 2 weeks on my gradual journey north through South-East Asia for 3 months. I flew into Kota Kinabalu, Sabah's capital, around midnight with no local currency (as I expected to arrive early enough for exchange places to be open, until the delay - lesson learnt) and no place to stay. Always a great way to get a feel for a new country. But somehow, my amazing bargaining skills (?) meant I got a taxi and place to stay without having to hand over any money, and after sleeping like a very sleepy log, I spent the next day exploring the city.
Being in a new city is one thing, but getting used to the temperature and humidity once again will take time, and in the meantime I'm back to Belize's guise of a western tourist stumbling around and sweating profusely. The Malaysian Government claims it wants to be an industrialised nation by 2020, and although Sabah is the poorest of all the states (partially due to the political administration having to change every 2 years), this is reflected in the city's buzzing atmosphere. There's shopping centres, about 2-dozen banks (this, I oh-so-happily know as I had to visit half of them before one would accept my stained traveller's cheque), food stalls selling great food for 50p, and frantic markets selling anything you dare to eat and much you wouldn't. The buildings are pretty grotty - mostly just concrete boxes as the Allied bombings pretty much destroyed everything except a clock, but a diverse mix of people fill them. In the compacted centre, there's a wonderful mixture of Malay, Chinese, Indonesian and Philippino cultures all intermingling in the markets and on street corners - it's a bustling, busy place, lit up at night by the lanterns set up for Chinese New Year.
My girlfriend wisely asked me not to do anything dangerous on Friday 13th, so I hope camping on a desert island, surrounded by jungle that houses a family of wild boar and 3 feet monitor lizards doesn't count as dangerous. And I lie - they're 4 feet; just kidding, I didn't have the island to myself, about a dozen staff live on the other side, which is good as it means a response time of only 5 minutes after hearing the screams. Nah, it wasn't dangerous (honestly hun) but actually a really cool couple of days. I went across to the island with a gentleman called Mark. Briefly, Mark is a character I won't be forgetting - a 42y/o British skinhead with tattoos and a put-on posh British accent, a cyclist, photographer, masseur, and travel & self-confidence lecturer, and an honestly decent bloke. There wasn't a single person that met his gaze that he wouldn't start talking to, compliment or help, and after 2 hours it was as if the entire beach knew him. Just an honest friendly guy who's life's goal is to cycle through 100 countries, while seemingly passing on every scrap of knowledge in his head to those who'll listen. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, except occasionally you meet someone when travelling who changes your perception of how to live or view your life. Also, when travelling, I often wonder how one of two people I know who I admire greatly when it comes to social interaction (you may know who you are), could react around other people in particular situations. Although I only knew him a couple of days, I think Mark is to be added to that list.
Anyways, with that love affair out of the way, back to the story. The island was beautiful, if a little busy, and the water very warm and great for snorkling - a 'tropical paradise' to be honest with you, though that makes me sound like a bastard to everyone reading this back home, sorry. Eventually however, everyone left, including the people I spent the day with, waving goodbye to the last boat and my form of escape from the island. This just left me and my now very-shoddy looking tent that I pitched away from the trees for fear that a falling leaf may collapse it. It was a nature lover's evening, as the monitor lizards joined me for dinner and hundreds of crabs emerged, like zombies, from the sand. I made a fire to keep away the friday 13th monsters and watched a flying fish gracefully jump out of the water, fly 10m, hit the water and repeated into the distance at great speed. Finally, I went for a swim in the moonlight and saw what I've always read about - luminescent plankton that glow when disturbed. It was so beautiful, and I became this mad puppet for half an hour wiggling my arms and legs everywhere and watching patterns of light form in the water. Who needs drugs when you can have plankton?!
Hitching a lift back to KK the next day, I got a ride to the base of Mount Kinabalu and over the course of the day befriended 7 people; one I'd already met on Palau Sapi, and the rest a mixture of eccentric fun characters - a NZ army guy, a couple of British girls, an American and an hilarious father/son duo with the appropriate surname 'Mountain'. Things were looking good - weather great, a fun group of people to make the climb enjoyable and my ankles finally healed enough to stop me walking like an old man. And for once, there is no 'but', things were perfect.
Most of you are probably wondering what's so specal about this mountan anyway. Afterall, all he seems to have done these last two months is climb mountains. Well, ever since I was in Asia two summers ago, I've wanted to climb Kinabalu, especially after Mr Millard's antics, and made a vow that when I came back, I would. Unlike those babies in NZ, this is a real daddy of a mountain, the biggest in SE Asia, and at 4095m, the world's highest mountain with no snow and the tallest tip between the Himalayas and the Snow Mountains of New Guinea Island.
To reach the top, you must force your legs to climb 5000ft on the first day and another 2000ft on the 2nd day, before descending all the way back down again; endless steps that are enough to put you off a hostel staircase. A good description of the walk is actually given in the trusty Lonely Planet, if I may: "The climb is uphill 99%!o(MISSING)f the way, it is unrelenting, steep in places and there are seemingly endless steps - 2500 as far as Laban Rata. Then it gets a whole lot tougher. The trail becomes even steeper as you approach the summit, then disappears altogether on vast, near-vertical fields of slippery granite. Every step can be a struggle as you gasp for breath in the thin air." So not exactly a walk in the park, and I admittedly nearly died on the first day. But we took our time and made it with the afternoon to chillout above the clouds. The truth is, as mountain walks go, it's luxury. There's free tap water at various points on the climb, everyone is given a guide (Marios was ours - a quality guy we nicknamed 'Jungle Monkey'), and there's even hostels and a restaurant at Laban Rata. However, we were put to shame by the local porters who were even shorter than me, which is saying something, and often carried over 40kg of supplies, beating us to the restaurant. Absolute legends.
Waking up at the ungodly hour of 2am feeling acclimatised, we began the final uphill treck to the summit at 2:30am, our path across the smooth moonlike terrain lit by our torches and the moonlight. The good news is some of us made it to the summit in 2 hours as proud, proud men. The bad news is, we thus had to wait 90 minutes for the sunrise, and so despite more layers of clothing than Ernest Shackleton, and a sleeping bag to boot, I was still freezing my balls off, and became slightly less proud. The sunrise, when it came, was not the best ever seen, but set above the clouds with distant peaks silhouetted all around, it was certainly memorable - thank god, after what it took to get there. Yes, we were extremely lucky with the weather, not raining once and being able to see as far as the sea from the summit. And then? Then we descended all the way back down, concentrating on every step and relieved to get back to the HQ to finish 2 days I will never forget!
Flo, one of the people I was climbing with, has already put up some of his photos of the climb online, so feel free to take a look - they're pretty good!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flo2005/sets/72057594051126996/
Amazingly, none of us were wringing each other's necks, so all 8 of us went to Poring Hot Springs, which are really just a set of glorified bath tubs surrounded by jungle and monster mozzies, but great at soothing the muscles. By this point, it was just the kind and funny Mr Senior and Mr Junior Mountain left as we headed to a place known as Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp, passing through Sepilok's Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Centre (one of only 4 in the world), on the way. This was fascinating in itself, as we watched about a dozen semi-wild Orang-Utans come to be fed from the depths of the rainforest. They've done a grand job so far, rehabilitating over 360 'Man of the Forests' who have lost their homes to the ever-expanding palm-oil plantations.
Mesmerised we continued to the camp whereby the 1st thing I read about it was the following: "the jungle is a green hell to some, but a lost paradise to many...the camp is not exactly the Hilton. Toilets may be underwater - this can be inconvenient." Inconvenient?...right. It was actually not that bad; the 'camp' was full of character run by some quality Malaysians, with great food, a strange square pool table with pucks instead of balls, and huts on stilts filled with mattresses and mosquito nets (a vtal life/death requirement). The camp is right in the heart of the jungle miles from anywhere, and I'm surprised the drivers don't get lost through the endless maze of rivers and flooded forest.
Of course, the main reason to come here is to see wildlife on the Sungai Kinabatangan river, Sabah's longest and one of the best places in all of SE Asia to do so. On the 1 hour boat journey in alone we were amazingly lucky enough to see Proboscis Monkeys, Long-Tailed MaCaques, an Orang-Utan, some Giant Otters, a Wild Hairy Pig, an owl, a flock of Great Hornbill and 2 species of Kingfisher. Wow! And it got tons better with plenty of opportunity to see wildlife on 2 morning boat trips, a night boat safari, a day jungle walk and a scary night jungle walk waist-deep through swampy water, with torches, getting closer to scorpions, frogs and an array of very large, very hairy or just very weird spiders. Unfortunately, it's the wrong season for elephants and most big cats, which was disappointing, but I can hardly grumble. You should count your blessings that I have lost my camera cable, for I have taken nearly 50 closeup shots. Before leaving, we also saw, among others, some Estuarine Crocodiles (3m), Wild Boar, a Giant Squirrel and a Pygmy Squirrel, Red and Silver-Leafed Monkeys, Pig-Tailed MaCaques, 4 species of Kingfisher, 2 species of Eagle and a weird insect called a 'Cotton Bug' which I urge you to Google an image of, as it's the strangest creature I've ever seen. I could speak for ages about the wildlife and how great the place was, but I've gone on for far too long in this blog, and any of you left reading would probably just fall asleep.
So where does that leave me? I caught an 11-seater minivan filled with 17 people and a chicken to Semporna, passing the turnoff to Danum Valley Conservation Area. This I only mention for the interest of one Miss Heather Janson who should recognse the Danum name since we did a presentation on it last year. As for Semporna, it is home of one of the world's best dive sites, Palau Sipidan, so I will be giving diving another go. If I don't, I fear a big telling-off from Will. Well done for reading this far - now get some exercise! Missing you all, Simon x
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wayne
non-member comment
awesome
Hey Simon! Absolutely enjoyed the stories and people profiles. Travelling is certainly the best way to meet wonderful people of all sorts and eccentricities. We travellers are a funny lot indeed. And a great way with words you have, sir. Keep on bein wild in Borneo and tacklin' those mountains! You working on all 7 contintents? Wayne