Borneo is one of the destinations on this trip that I have been looking forward to the most. Prior to leaving, we visited a bookstore in NYC called Idlewild that specializes in travel literature, seeking not only guidebooks, but novels and stories from the destinations that we’d chosen to visit. One of those books was called ‘Stranger in the Forest’, and chronicled a traverse across Borneo by a journalist in the early 1980’s. The country was truly remote and wild during that time, and this man basically spent the better part of a year (if I recall correctly) bushwhacking through the jungle and living in longhouses along the river with local tribes – many of whom had never encountered Western civilization. So I had some pretty romantic expectations, and when we arrived at the Kota Kinabalu airport and found high speed internet and a Starbucks, it was a bit of a letdown – apparently modernity has arrived here.

We checked in to our hotel and explored the town a little – it was dark by the time that we arrived, but we took the opportunity to visit the town’s night market. There were a huge number of stalls offering fresh food and prepared meals. The stalls were neatly categorized into food groups – there were a series of stalls selling fish, then meat, fruits, curry ingredients, and prepared foods (which smelled delicious). Interestingly, each of the stalls within a particular category were virtually identical – perfect competition in the Kota Kinabalu night market! Sadly, we had already eaten dinner on the plane, but helped ourselves to some delicious fresh grapefruit, papaya and pineapple. Here are a few photos of the market:

We flew out the next day on a little puddle jumper to Mulu, via Miri. Though we remained in Malaysia, we had to go through immigration, since Sarawak is actually administered by different authorities than Sabah, where Kota Kinabalu is located. We passed over Brunei (the island of Borneo is split into three countries, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei), as well as endless rainforest and absolutely enormous palm plantations. We arrived at the National Park, Gunung Mulu, where we were to spend five days. This was more like it! The airport was tiny, and Mulu basically consists of a luxury resort, the airport and the park itself, where we would be staying, all within a three kilometer radius of one another. Gunung Mulu is a world heritage site; we were surrounded by spectacular rainforest, and decided to go on a short hike to see what we could discover. Here are a few pictures of the rainforest path.

At the end of the path there were huge limestone cliffs, with immense caves inside. One of them was the famous ‘Deer Cave’, where literally millions of bats, 12 different species in total, reside. We arrived just in time to watch the ‘exodus’ of the bats – at dusk, millions and millions of bats leave the caves in groups together. They actually exit in formations – it is really remarkable. Here are some pictures of the cliffs and the bats.

There are about 10 km of hiking trails that are accessible from the park’s headquarters, and to visit any of the caves or traverse the canopy walk, you have to endure a significant amount of bureaucracy and confusion at the park’s main office. The next morning, after what felt like an endless bewildering meeting with the park’s staff, we were set to do a canopy walk in the morning, and to visit Lang Cave and Deer Cave in the afternoon. The canopy walk was over 400 meters long, and, as the guide reminded us multiple times, the longest in the world. It was quite amazing, and gave us a different perspective of the dense jungle.

In the afternoon we paid a visit to Lang Cave and Deer Cave, both of which were truly spectacular. I was particularly impressed by Deer Cave (where most of the bats live), although the stench of the guano pretty strong, and the millions of crabs and insects that lived in it were pretty creepy.

The following day we embarked on a journey away from headquarters out to ‘Camp 5’, where we would spend three days hiking and exploring. Lindsay and I, an Polish guy traveling solo for 6 months, and two well-travelled Frenchmen, Alain and Phillipe, set out on a longboat for a drive down the river. En route to the drop off point to Camp 5, we were dropped off at a local village to see the ‘the way that the Penan (local people) live’, and check out the handicrafts they had for sale. Honestly, it was a little depressing – the Penan, who we’d read about it ‘Stranger in the Forest’ used to be a nomadic forest tribe; a tight knit community who lived in longhouses, took what they needed from the land, and shared everything. Since much of their land has been claimed by the Malaysian government, now they work at the park, farm rice and sell souvenirs to Western tourists. I have been so impressed by the gentle nature and conservationist attitude of all the Penan people I’ve met here, so it was a little difficult to see the dramatic (and recent) adjustment to their traditional way of life.

After this stop, we visited a few more caves, Lady Cave (so named for the formations, which were thought to resemble women), Wind Cave (you guessed it, there was a gentle wind in parts of the cave), and Clearwater Cave. I was initially skeptical, we’d already seen a couple of caves, and I wasn’t sure that we really needed to visit three more, but Clearwater Cave in particular was even more awe-inspiring than the ones we had already seen. After hiking up and down and through the caves, we took a dip in a lovely cove – it was our first swim of the trip and was so refreshing in the jungle heat!

We rode down the river for a few more kilometers, and were dropped off at a path. We hiked another 9 kilometers into Camp 5, and got some sleep in preparation for an ascent up to the Pinnacles (karst formations up to 60 meters tall) the following day. We woke at 6, and together with our guide Jenny, began our ascent at 6:30. While the distance to the top of the hill with the pinnacles is only 2.4 kilometers, the elevation is about 1300 meters. It was a tough 2.5 hour climb, particularly because a lot of the path looked like this:

The last 400 meters of the trail were so steep that it was equipped with ladders and ropes. The view at the top was fantastic though – here are some pictures of the pinnacles themselves.

The way down actually turned out to be tougher than the ascent, largely because each step had to be taken very carefully to avoid slipping on the wet rocks and roots (which of course occurred anyway … always graceful!).

We rose early again the next day and headed back to the park headquarters. Here are some highlights from the trip down the river:

After living on ramen, wasabi peas and packaged noodle dishes for 2.5 days (it was a bring-your-own-food situation at Camp 5, and choices were limited), we devoured a huge lunch, including our new favourite dish – the ‘local vegetable’, which we discovered was actually fern, and Nasi Goreng. That night we enjoyed some Tawak (rice wine) to celebrate as well. It was potent enough to make me forget about my aching quads!