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Published: December 8th 2009
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As a 1,5 day trip from Kuching, I visited Bako National Park, Sarawaks oldest National Park. To get there, I took a 1-hour bus to Bako, and then chartered a boat to the park, which took about 25 minutes. The boat docked at a beach, where the Park headquarters were located. The accomodation of the park was also here. During this time of year, the difference between high and low tide is huge. I arrived at low tide and I had to cross about 100m of beach before getting to the treeline. Hours later, the water would come all the way up to the trees!
It was about 14h when I arrived. The weather was nice, so I decided to walk one of the many well-marked trails in the park as soon as possible. Its monsoon time now, so you can never be sure how long the clear sky is going to last. I went for a 3-hour loop of about 6km. The first 1.5km were a tough climb. After that, the path leveled and slowly descended and it was easier. Most of the trail went right through the jungle, but the few viewpoints were rewarding.
I returned to
headquarters at about 17h and met two Australians who both have Dutch parents or forefathers. We went out to watch the sunset, and although we didn see the sun setting, it was still a beautiful evening with nice colours in the sky.
After dinner, I joined the nightwalk to see the animals at night. I had forgotten to take my malaria pill (Lariam) during dinner, so I did that before the nightwalk started. When the walk started, I soon started to feel pains in my chest. After a while I decided to go back to my room. Back in my room the pains were so bad that I started to see red spots and my hands started tinteling! Oh oh, this was not good I thought.
It felt there was something "stuck" in my chest. I left the room, and the Australians were there. I told them what was going on and one of them said it was very likely the malaria pill that got stuck. She had heard it from a doctor before that this could happen. She told me to drink lots of water and breathe deeply. It didn help much, so I decided that the pill
had to come out the same way it went in. I managed to vomit, but I could still feel the pill being stuck. However, the pain wasn so bad anymore so I decided to just start drinking a lot of water and walk around a little. Slowly, I felt that the pill was going down a little. While it went down, the pain also subsided. Still, that night I didn sleep that well.
The next morning it was raining. Actually, the rain had started only minutes after I returned from the nightwalk (so the pill that got stuck saved my camera from getting wet!) and had not stopped since. I was feeling much better, ready to do another trail, but unfortunately, the rain prevented that. The rain stopped at around 12.30 but I had a boat going back at 14h.
I had made a reservation for the same boatman that I had going to the park. The Australians and a British girl were joining me. Unfortunately, the boatman never showed up. The sea was quite rough, with high waves and the boats were small. While waiting for our boat on the beach, we saw one boat (with 5
or 6 tourists) capsizing, just as they approached the beach. Luckily, it was not too deep there, so they could stand in the water, but everything they brought with them was soaking wet! In the end we managed to find a boat, and the way back to Bako village was easier, because we weren going into the waves. Back in Kuching, it did some relaxing and had dinner. The next day I had to get up early to catch my flight to Miri and then onwards to Mulu National Park for some caving!
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Erik
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Nice pics!
Nice pics Tony! Especially like the one with the boat and the mountains in the background. Am sure you can even tweak it more in Lighroom! ;-) Enjoy!