Borneo Adventure
Borneo Adventure, Meandering in Malaysia
I organized myself to get ready to leave for a month long trip to Borneo, the 3rd largest island in the world, part of which belongs to Malaysia.
I had planned a 24 hour layover in China to catch up on emails I had neglected while getting ready to leave. I landed in Shanghai after a 24 hour flight to find my email and laptop not connecting to internet – it turns out China has banned gmail, google, & FB! TRAVEL TIP!!!
With no access to email, I enjoyed the hotel amenities, pool, gym and the food! Then I grabbed a flight to KL(Kuala Lumpur), the capital of Malaysia, and since I was only going to be staying there for 10 hours between flights, I tried a stay in a “bed hotel” made famous by Air Asia – the room is literally just enough space to walk along one side of the bed to get to the bathroom, and the other side to jump into bed!
In the morning I flew to the Malaysian portion of Borneo, into Kuching, city of cats. It had a beautiful waterfront, street art on many of the buildings, and taoist temples on almost every corner.
We stayed in a hotel called The Marion – a heritage building, formerly a boarding school but renovated into a funky little guesthouse with a pool, lots of chilling space, and a big restaurant/pub called the Grange.
We decided to go to the rehabilitation center to see the orangutans – it was fruiting season, so it was debatable whether we would see any. When we arrived in the park, the guard said he hadn’t seen them for 2 months, and the signs said close to ZERO change of seeing them until the end of March and absolutely no refunds on the entry fees. I’ll have to go back in July/August when the orangutans are strolling down the paths & grabbing your shirt…
BAKO
We took an overnight trip to Bako, one of the National Parks.
Our journey started off in the pouring rain in a tiny little boat – (OVERCOMING FEARS AGAIN, TEAM!) – but really the rain was pelting us so hard, I had to keep my head down so I wouldn’t get blinded by it as we went downriver, around the point of the National Park, and into the shallow bay to climb out of the boat and wade into shore.
The rain seemed to clear up once we arrived, and as we walked into the park, we passed wild boars with their babies snuffling around the ground for roots.
Our guide Edwin is a 4th Generation Chinese Malay, and he made the trek through the jungle interesting. He was a master at finding animals, insects, trees and plants and gave us the history and details of each one.
The paths on one trek were covered with roots and the trail culminated on a wild rugged beach. They stopped allowing tourists to swim after spotting crocodiles in the area a number of times.
We opted to take a fishing boat out to the iconic limestone “Seastack” rock Bako uses as their symbol – there was no way to reach it by foot, so it was ANOTHER decision in overcoming fear to opt for an extra 45 minutes in the boat to go out to the rock & then back to park HQ, vs just walking back down the trail, avoiding the boats completely. And it was nerve-wracking as our boat captain actually picked his way through the jagged rocks between the rock & the shore instead of going out into the ocean to go around the last rocky point.
But I did it!
The long tailed Macaque monkeys were extremely bold, and we had to be careful while eating outside that they didn’t shimmy down the posts and jump down to grab out food off of our plates.
Max spotted a flying lemur in a tree grooming himself after a torrential thunderstorm.
We walke
d on boardwalks through the mangrove forest and spotted the proboscis monkey, an unusual primate because they have a big bulbous nose that grows as they grow, and they are one of the few monkeys that swim – they’re not scared of water.
Below is a 2 minute video with Max’s drone footage of Bako National Park.
MULU
After our adventure we traveled back to Kuching & the Marion Boutique hotel for a night to get dry clothes.
The manager from Borneo Adventures stopped over to our hotel to confirm our tour to the Pinnacles, while we were relaxing by the pool.
He looked at me and said : Are you sure you are “fit enough” to climb the Pinnacles? It’s a tough climb…hard on your knees??
Maybe that is a sign team, that I need to get in better shape!
But he didn’t discourage me – I didn’t buy into his negativity…
We caught a quick prop plane over to Mulu – only 13 people on the plane – I barely remember those days when I saw planes empty like that.
The service was outstanding – warm meals, drinks, blankets & pillows.
The way to get to our rooms included walking over a hanging bridge into the national park.
We left right from our rooms to a 13 km walk through the riverine forest and karst towers to the caves. The Deer Cave has the largest cave opening in the world – a 747 plane could fit through the entrance, and after a mile walking through the cave we found a waterfall they call the Garden of Eden.
We waited for the bats to appear at dusk, leaving the caves in waves like smoke. Even in the jungle at dusk there were no mosquito, but I guess 2-3 million bats, eating 15-20 tons of Insects daily cuts down on the mosquito problem!
It’s hard to see in the video, but look in the sky for the thousands of bats leaving in a flock.
The Lang cave is renowned for its unique stalagmite formations. The Clearwater Cave is 66 miles long featuring an underground river. Each one had something different to see & discover.
We visited local settlements on the river, meeting locals whose only way to connect with the outside world was up the rivers via traditional Malaysian longboat.
I might be able to train you how to earn tens of millions of $’s, but I would starve if I had to catch my food using a poison blowdart, like the tribes in Sarawak ~ watch the video:
On our hike up to the infamous Mulu Pinnacles, we spent the first few hours heading upriver in the longboats, traveling up successively smaller tributaries of the river, racing though small rapids, and even occasionally having the driver and guide getting out & pushing and pulling the longboat over the rocks at the bottom of shallow parts of the river when we got “grounded” – Max is a big guy!
Then we were dropped off for a relatively mild 5 hour hike through the national park to our first camp. We crossed a few rivers on one person rope bridges on our way to camp, and had to pick the leeches off our pants, socks and legs.
After dinner we were given the warning about getting to the first set of Pinnacles within 90 minutes, or they wouldn’t let us continue to the top.
The climb was steep and exhausting, and the top portion included climbing 17 aluminum ladders attached to the cliff face, metal beams laid across crevasses, and ropes to pull ourselves up the bigger rocks to get to the top.
Oksana (My daughter-in-law) opted not to do the Pinnacles trek, but to stay at the bungalows in the park at the bottom & catch up on work on the computer while Max & I made the attempt…she was the smart one!
The reward was the breathtaking view of the pinnacles at the top of Mount Api – we didn’t see another person the entire day!!
These jagged white and grey limestone pinnacles have been weathered over centuries to create these razor sharp formations shaped like sharks teeth jutting out of the side of the mountain.
Meandering in Malaysia is just one example of visiting a new destination, seeing a culture different than our own, discovering unique things in nature, and pushing ourselves a little out of our comfort zones to grow a little.
And Surge365 is the vehicle, the vehicle to Freedom – Financial Freedom, Time Freedom & the Freedom to Travel wherever you want!
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