Got to Kuching airport nice and early, and as there are no
buses servicing the airport, a cab to our guesthouse door, which was lovely
after our obscene walk in KL a few hours prior.
Guesthouse was lovely, and we had a huge room, so stuck to
the pattern, and dumped our bags and went out walking. We walked along the
river, then arranged some accommodation for Baku national park. Found the
coffee shop The Swedes recommended, and had a really good coffee and watched
the world go by. We got some lunch and headed back to the room to relax for a
bit…. 3 hours later I awoke. Feeling a bit like a zombie, we wandered out along
the waterfront again for a chicken kebab al fresco.
We planned to go to the early morning feed at the orangutan
sanctuary, but failed miserably due to the incredibly comfortable bed. Knowing
we had a few hours until the lunchtime feed, we ate the standard free breakfast
of toast, tea and coffee and went out to suss the buses. Bought some snacking
things to take to Baku from a little Chinese man who gave us loads of free
samples.
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| Orangutan family |
Got the bus to the orangutan sanctuary, and walked the 1.3km
to the feeding platforms, and were subjected to a load of crap from an
Australian man who tried telling us that the minimum wage in Oz was $6, they
were making 100,000 redundancies a week, and that rent is $800 per week for a
room. Knowing better than to try and tell the native any different about his
home country, I was first polite and then just ignored him. Dick Dundee then
started gobbing off loudly asking where the orangutans were when we got to the
feeding platforms despite the signs all around us telling us where they were
and we wouldn’t see them until feeding time, and the most common sign telling
you to be silent.
 |
| Geckos hunting |
Got lead up a track by a the guide to a clearing and a
feeding platform in front of us. Pretty soon, a big daddy orangutan was
bounding through the canopy. He slowly dropped himself down, and hung by one
foot and one hand from a rope, munching on fruit. After a few minutes, the
coast was obviously clear, and mummy and kiddy orangutan followed. They all
played and ate together, and we took millions of pictures. As we wandered back,
we overheard Dick Dundee complain to whoever would listen that there were only
three, and “there’s hundreds in the zoo back home”. Maybe the irony that may be
the reason there’s so few left in the wild and that they are protected might
not have quite struck the mark.
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| Jo loving hiking |
We got back to our lovely big room, booked our flights for
the Perhentian islands, then went across the road to a little outdoor restauran
for chicken curry, fried rice, Heineken and ice coffee for three quid.
Up good and early, and wandered down to get a bus to Bako
National Park boat station. When there we hunted down another couple who were
also staying one night, and arranged to share the boat there and back with
them. They were an older and Danish, and the guy was incredibly passionate
about Borneo, and when we told him we were going up to Sabah, he gave us some
tips, and told us we have to go to Uncle Tans, a jungle camp.
 |
| Proboscis monkey |
Eventually, we were packed into the boats and started to
make our way to the national park. We were a little dubious of the explanation
of the delay being that all the boats were waiting for high tide when the river
seemed fine, but after 10 minutes, we were out in the open sea, and chugging
along pretty slowly as we felt the bottom scrape the boat. A few boats with
only two people in them sped past, and we noticed that they had stopped. We
then looked further out and noticed Jesus fishing. We assumed it was him, as he
appeared to be walking on water. After a few minutes, we were stuck too, and
after a bit of trying to push us along with a stick, our boat driver got out
and pushed, which looked very funny as we were a few hundred metres out from
the coast. Finally we found deeper water, and in order to keep higher in the
water, our guy motored as fast as possible through the water that couldn’t have
been more than a couple of feet deep.
 |
| Mangroves |
 |
| On the beach |
We arrived at the park HQ and got a map, left our bags in a
storage room and headed off on a hike. It started along boardwalk through
mangroves, then suddenly it all stopped and you had to ascend through jungle.
On the boardwalk alone we saw a few snakes and a load of macaque monkeys
(trying to break into a park admin building). We followed three different
routes, through jungle, arid jungle, bush and scrubland. Made it to a few
cliffs, and down to a couple of deserted beaches swarmed in driftwood. It was
incredibly hot, and there was no escaping the heat and humidity, and we quickly
burned through our water, so after a few hours we started heading back. As soon
as we hit the boardwalk again, we immediately saw a young monitor lizard cooling
off in the water, and then a big proboscis monkey, relaxing in a tree right
next to the path. We were now absolutely pooped, so we relaxed for a bit, then
had some dinner, and went on the organised nightwalk. Jo was in two minds
whether to do it as she’s not great with bugs or spiders, but she put on a
brave face and off we went. We followed a flying lemur jumping between a few
trees, some bats, spiders and catfish. When we returned to camp, Jo and I
wandered off to the mangroves to watch the fireflies and take some shots of the
stars.
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| Sky shot at night |
After a very deep sleep, we woke to the rain hammering down
outside. We went and got something to eat, then I went on a short walk for an
hour, but it seemed other than the leeches which I kept finding on my legs and
one sad looking monkey up a tree, all the animals were taking shelter, so I
went back to camp, and we got the boat back to the bus stop (no pushing
required this time!)
We got back to our lovely little guesthouse, and spent all
evening drinking coffee and watching Breaking Bad! Repeated a budget dinner of
curry and Heineken!
Awoke to yet more rain streaming down our big window, so we
didn’t venture out until lunch, when Jo dragged me round lots of statues of
cats (Kuching means ‘cat’). Stumbled across a little Chinese place doing loads
of dumplings for lunch, and just walked around all the bits of Kuching we
hadn’t seen yet.
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| Cats... |
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| More cats.... |
Jo wanted to do some more hiking (I’m sure this isn’t the
same woman who was like a 5 year old I had to basically drag up Tiger Leaping
Gorge less than two years ago), so we went to another national park the next
day. The bus dropped us and a German guy (who was confusingly called ‘Manuel’) off
outside Kubah national park as the heavens started to open, but fully prepared
for the weather, we trod on up to the visitors centre. The guy working there
was really enthusiastic, and gave us loads of tips on where to go, what to look
out for etc, and off we went. Kubah doesn’t have a lot of wildlife, and is
actually the best place to see frogs, but as they’re bloody nocturnal, I found
none as I stalked around the frogpond.
 |
| Waterfall |
We carried on for an hour or so until we
reached the waterfalls. Immediately shedding shoes, I ploughed into the water
and up to the falls which were lovely and fresh. I was also dead chuffed to at
last find a frog! We carried on the hike, and said goodbye to Manuel who was
heading back the way we came. Spent a few cheerful hours, climbing and falling
through the jungle, spotting a few lizards, and getting a face full of cobwebs
every few minutes. We made our way back, and the guy at the visitors desk told
us that the next bus wasn’t for two and a half hours. With no other options we
went and sat at the bus stop, until the guy pulled into the bus stop in his
little car. He was off to the bank close to the city and could drop us off a
lot closer so we could get another bus. We hopped in and Dominic (that was his
name) told us all about the area, and that we should return to Borneo again
soon as the way the corruption in politics is, the reclassification of an area
from national park to jungle is done readily for a backhander, and allows
developers to flatten vast swathes of jungle to make way for palm oil
plantations.
 |
| A lizard of some kind! |
Back in Kuching, we ventured out to get some suntan lotion
and a late dinner. Feeling lazy, and because most local places were closed due
to it being Sunday, we decided to go to Pizza Hut. We were then told what we
wanted (cheapest pizza they did) had run out, and as this is Asia and not the
West, you don’t get offered an alternative, you’re just told “finished”. So we
left and went to KFC…. And they’d run out of chicken…. KFC couldn’t provide the
very
name of their company! This
obviously wasn’t meant to be, so home we went.
A few hours later at the stupid hour of 4am, the guy running
our guesthouse took us to the airport for our flight to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah,
the Northernmost area of Borneo!
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