Advertisement
Published: November 19th 2009
I have to apologize for the late update. Even though it appears we have all the time in the world, there is so much to do and not to do, resulting in a feeling of time shortage. At the moment we are Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh on our way to northeastern Cambodia. Since we both have been here last year, there is loads of time to work on the travel blog for Borneo: An island famous for it's primary jungles, longhouse communities and top quality nature reserves, but also notorious for their logging,
deforestation and endless palm oil plantations.
Kuching After we flew in from Jakarta we decided to stay in Borneo Bed and Breakfast. This cheapest place in town offers nothing more than a dirty room, with shared bathroom and a simple breakfast. After Indonesia, Kuching felt much more prosperous. This would be for whole Borneo and Malaysia as we'd find out later but then again we expected this a bit as well. Anna was a bit sick, so the first 2 days we didn't do much: We got ourselves orientated on what we wanted to do and see in Borneo, wondered around town and dined and had some
drinks with our new friends, a couple from Germany we had met in our hostel.
Bako National Park With them we went for an overnight stay in
Bako National Park, north of Kuching. After an early bus and boat ride we arrived in the park in the morning and being welcomed by a heavy tropical rain shower. Luckily this didn't last too long, so we had time to explore 2 of the well marked trails. The first was a loop which took us to a plateau and back to park headquarters in a few hours time. Unfortunately we didn't spot any wildlife, accept for some macaque monkeys. After lunch we hiked a shorter trail leading to a remote beach. Along that trail we spotted some amazing Proboscis Monkeys or
Monyet Belanda in Malay language. The next day we decided to go to another beach for some beaching. Manti and Sebastian went by boat. We had some energy left, so we took the short jungle trail which leads to this beach nicely set in a bay backed by a huge cliff. By the time we arrived at the edge of the cliff and looked over the edge to see the beach, we could
see them already enjoying a refreshing swim. We still had to descend in the full heat of midday!
Rejang River From Kuching we took a a boat to Sibu, from where we would go upriver cruising the mighty
Rejang via Kapit all the way into central Borneo to the village of Belaga by boat. In each town we would stay the afternoon and night and catch the boat the following day early in the morning to the next town. Each town further away from Kuching became more quiet and smaller than the previous town. The most impressive was the journey on the river itself. Sometimes we were horrified by the ugliness of the brown river water and the deforestation caused by logging companies. Other moments we were touched by the beauty of it's sleepy villages on the riverbank where time seemed to have been standing still and where the communities often live in traditional longhouses. We were lucky that we could go all the way to Belaga. In Kapit we learned we had the first boat in weeks going to Belaga, because the water level was to low the weeks before.
Anecdote: It is very common in Asia
to have the air conditioning on maximum, which makes it often so cold in busses, dormitories and malls, that you have to wear some extra clothes. One evening in a town on the Rejang river, we were sitting on the terrace of a restaurant, because their air conditioning made it too cold to sit inside. At one point Anna was getting cold, so I went inside and asked if they could keep the door closed because the air conditioned air coming from inside made it too cold to sit outside! ;-)
Belaga The day we arrived in the sleepy little village of Belaga it was
Hari Raya, the end of Ramadan. We got in contact with Daniel a local guide, who took us the same evening to several of his Muslim friends where we were welcomed in each house with magnificent food, pastries and drinks. The streets were lit by candles and occasionally you'd see or hear some fireworks. We hooked up with a group of single travelers from Germany, Denmark and the UK. With them we booked a three-day-cultural-trekking-overnight-staying-at-longhouses-hunting-waterfall-swimming-thing at Daniel's place. It was costly, but tough bargainers as we were, we got it down to 2 third of
the initial price.
The first day we went down a branch of the Rejang River all the way till some rapids and did some jungle trekking. We went to a waterfall, where we had a refreshing swim and went back to town to have great lunch prepared by Daniel's wife. After some motor problems (floating powerless on the river for some time) we were taken to a
longhouse community where we spend the night. We had dinner with a family and stayed in their long house talking with husband and
bettlenut-chewing wife, smoking heavy local tobacco in a fresh leave while most of the community's kids were watching the only television in the longhouse. Unfortunately they could not take us out for night hunting because their dog died recently.
The next morning the family took us to the slopes by boat where they were planting the community's rice crop. We helped them for some time in the buzzing heat, making holes and sewing the seeds, after which we had a simple lunch in their relative's place. Our host dropped us back in town and a guide picked us up to take us across the river, from where a
2 hour trail leads into the jungle to reach a tiny hunting village. It was impressive to see how they lived there, bathing and washing in a small river and with only a car battery providing some electricity for their music. At night some kids took Marcus and me for a boys night out to hunt. We didn't see that much wild, but we enjoyed the experience of walking in the river behind some kids in pitch black, looking for anything to kill. They did managed to catch some frogs and even a turtle!
Day three started with walking back to town after breakfast and a fresh morning river bath. In town we had lunch and after that Daniel's brother took us to a creek and rapids where we had our last activity of the tour: a nice swim to cool down from the everlasting heat.
Setback in Miri From Belaga we took a 4 wheel drive to the main junction a few hours further, from which we could catch a bus to Miri. The nature during the 4WD journey was rough and beautiful: Lots and lots of trees in a hilly environment. We even got to see
a
Great Hornbill! After these adventures, Miri came a bit as a shock for us. An ugly town, which looked big and lively during daytime, but which was dead and empty in the evenings and nights. Maybe our judgement was a bit influenced by the following:
We wanted to visit Mulu National park, which was for a lot of people we had met one of the highlights of Borneo. You can only fly into that park. Since we had to book last minute, the flights were very expensive and after some research we found that the whole thing (including, guides for trekking, staying in the park and park entrance and getting back to civilization) would be to costly. Our second option was to go to Kelabit Highlands, a region near the Kalimantan border, also only to be reached by plane. The first empty seat in the 20-seat plane was 5 days later! By then we were a bit fed up with Borneo and decided to catch the next flight to Kota Kinabalu in Saba to climb that damn mountain and get the hell out of there.
Kota Kinabalu After Miri, Kota Kinabalu (named after the Borneo's biggest tourist destination:
Mountain Kinabalu) was a revelation to us. The town with all it's markets (Sunday market, Filipino Market, Handicraft market and Food market), malls and quite some western orientated establishments is lively and has a good vibe. We stayed at the very chilled out budget
Akinabalu Youth hostel. During our stay we explored all of the above mentioned markets and malls. A couple of times we ate at one of the nicest food markets I have seen so far. Both locals and tourist could order fruit shakes, pastries, fresh fruit and different kinds of fish and meat from the barbecue at one of the many stalls.
Mount Kinabalu No need to say more: Forget museums, cultural home stays, forest trekking, river cruises ..... sniff the clean thin air while your heartbeat is on its highest, climbing all the way to the top and be rewarded with magnificent views!
Kinabalu Mountain is the highest mountain of Borneo: 4095m and is known as one of the most accessible mountains in the world. Before we started the climb we decided to stay in a hotel just outside the national park (cheaper). Anna was very sick that evening (bad stomach) but decided to climb the next day
anyways. The first day was a 4.5 hour climb to Laban Rata guesthouse at 3272m height, where we stayed overnight in a very cold room to regain our strengths. We had to squeeze ourselves together in a tiny bed with extra blankets in order to keep ourselves warm. The next day we got up very early for coffee and a snack and started climbing to the top at 03.00 am. Climbing in the dark was exciting and for Anna it was very tiring. Her sickness had made her weaker. Every step she took was more exhausting than normal to her. After 3 hours climbing we made it and were rewarded by astonishing views over the island during sunrise. We were lucky with good clear weather and no wind. The summit closed some days earlier and we heard that there was no view at all the day before, only clouds, wind and cold. After taking loads of pictures we descended back to Laban Rata where we had our well deserved breakfast and we refreshed ourselves for the descend back to park headquarters. We were both exhausted and our muscles were sore for days!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.196s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 9; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0608s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dax, Ken en Anouk
non-member comment
View
Hi loved-ones, Your english is improving every story you are writing ! I'm impressed and so nice to read. The view is incredible, much different than the mountain you were describing last year. Same story, but different view. Dax is looking at you pictures with me : He misses you very much ! Love to both of you and till soon