Bugs of the Rainforest

We saw this little guy in Mulu – what’s with the big head? It looks like the end of his nose should glow to attract prey.

This wonderfully fluffy caterpillar doesn’t look poisonous at all 🙂

We watched this wasp excavate a little hole at Niah Caves.

We saw this rectangular bug at Mulu – why is it this shape?

There were many centipedes in the rainforest which were really cute.

Our guide spotted this guy somehow on a branch in Mulu National Park and pulled it out for us to look at, incredible!

Raja Birdwing Butterfly, as big as your hand, at Mulu National Park.

Rainforest Destruction

We saw the wonderful tropical rainforest of Borneo from the air and the many rivers running through it. But we also saw some terrible deforestation for Palm Oil Plantations and the bright orange tracks of loggers. It was painful to watch the beautiful forest below us turn into mile upon mile of destruction.

Kuching

Kuching is the capital of the East Malaysian state of Sarawak and carries the nick name of Cat City. Sarawak was a part of the Sultanate of Brunei 200 years ago but as a reward for help in putting down a rebellion, it was ceded to the British adventurer James Brooke who ruled it as his personal kingdom. The Brooke family ruled Sarawak until the Japanese occupation in December 1941. After the end of World War II the third and last Raja, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke ceded Sarawak to the British Crown in 1946. The British gave Sarawak independence in 1963 and together with North Borneo, Sabah and Singapore, helped form Malaysia on 16 September 1963.

We liked Kuching, it was an easy place to loose days on end. We stayed at a wonderful backpackers place called Berambih Lodge in Chinatown with free tea and coffee and a friendly host Shaun, and just watched TV and used the free wi-fi. We went to a Lebanese restaurant for lunch many times for that taste of lamb and bread from home, it was even placed under the Western food section of the Lonely Planet! Or we went to get the Malaysian Roti Canai which is an Indian Roti served with a curry sauce for 90 sen. In the evening we’d take a stroll down by the waterfront and go to ‘Goreng Goreng’ a little kiosk restaurant on the front and have noodles. Then a trip to the 711 to get a chocolate ice-cream Trophy bar and sit on a bench at the waterfront watching the local families enjoying an evening stroll.

It was cheap too, the noodles at the prime position on the front were less than 5 Ringgit (85p), and a cheaper place down a back alley that Shaun showed us was only 3 Ringgit (50p!) for the most incredible noodles we’ve ever tasted! It was a restaurant near the two big Chinese temples called Syn Wah Hui, but just seemed to operate off a cart through their back door. Another lovely place was Life Cafe next door to our hostel for delicious fried dumplings. As no doubt you’ve noticed, we mostly ate Chinese food. That’s because Kuching, and large parts of Malaysia in general, is full of Chinese people. Practically whole cities are Chinatowns, and we didn’t see one Indian in Kuching’s “Little India”!

Sarawak was a part of the Sultanate of Brunei 200 years ago but as a reward for help in putting down a rebellion, it was ceded to the British adventurer James Brooke who ruled it as his personal kingdom. Kuching was made his capital and headquarters. The Brooke Administration was given the status of Protectorate under Rajah Charles Brooke’s rule and was placed behind the Indian Rajs and Princes. The Brooke family ruled Sarawak until the Japanese occupation in December 1941.

Kuching was surrendered to the Japanese forces on 24 December 1941, and Sarawak was part of the Japanese Imperial Empire for three years and eight months, until the official Japanese surrender on 11 September 1945 on board HMAS Kapunda at Kuching. From March 1942 the Japanese operated a POW and civilian internee camp at Batu Lintang, three miles (5 km) outside Kuching.^[5]

After the end of World War II the third and last Raja, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke ceded Sarawak to the British Crown in 1946. Sarawak and the British Commonwealth fought an “Undeclared War” with Indonesia to keep Sarawak from being absorbed into Sukarno‘s Indonesia. The British gave Sarawak independence in 1963 and together with North Borneo, Sabah and Singapore, helped form Malaysia on 16 September 1963. Singapore became an independent nation in 1965.

Sarawak Cultural Village

We spent a few hours at the Sarawak Cultural Village, then used the Holiday Inn pool and beach at Damai until sun-set. We missed the early morning bus and the next one was full so we ended up waiting until 2pm to go. This was a real shame as we could have easily spent a day here. Also, all the houses close after the show at 5pm, so we literally ran around it in an hour. It’s a living museum of 7 traditional houses set around an artificial lake in 17 acres of landscaped grounds. There are many indigenous tribes in Borneo, so this is a chance to see their unique houses, try on their traditional dress, eat their food and talk to them about their traditional way of living. One of the main tourist attractions in Borneo is an expensive Long House trip where they take you to a real community. However, these people don’t live in the dark ages and they all have TV’s and fridges, and use corrugated iron for roofing instead of thatch. Most people are disappointed with this reality and so this museum is built in a completely traditional way to show how each people used to live, though the cultures are still very much alive and independent. We saw a Malay Town House, where a wedding was being mocked up with two ladies singing to the beat of a drum traditional and very beautiful songs. We then went to the Chinese Farm House. Then the long houses, Melanau, Orang Ulu and Iban, and the temporary Penan Hut (they are the last of the hunter-gatherers). We missed the Bidayuh Longhouse as the cultural performance began. It was really good, with lots of different dances from the various tribes and a blowpipe dance.

The guy wandered into the audience looking for a volunteer and our eyes met. That was it, I was up on stage and told to fire at Andre. He seemed disappointed that I wouldn’t so pointed to a balloon instead. That was it, the pressure was on, I was in the spot-light literally! I remembered my Taman Negara practise and hit the balloon first time. As the balloon popped a huge cheer from the audience went up and I could see the surprise in the guys face. It was brilliant! We spent the evening on the beautiful Damai beach and swam in the sea. It was on a stretch of coast hemmed in by the Holiday Inn, so we used their pool and facilities until the bus took us back to Kuching.

Mulu National Park

I have always wanted to go to Borneo, ever since I saw David Attenborough stood knee deep in bat guano at Deer Cave witnessing the exodus of the biggest bat population in the world. It all seemed so exotic, and it was. I’d seen the Proboscis Monkeys, an Orangutan and a traditional Long House, and apart from a Rafflensia flower (which doesn’t flower at this time of year damn!) this was the last thing on my list of Borneo must see’s. We tried to book the cheaper park accommodation but it was full, so made a reservation for the Royal Mulu Resort at 176 Ringgit a night. However, Alex lent us her mobile and we phoned up the park one last time from Miri to try to get a dorm bed. Luckily we got one as there must have been a cancellation. The dorms are amazing with brand new separate shower and toilets, but you do have to share with the jungle wildlife at night. I was in my element though, taking macro shots of all the moths. God I love Biology but wish I’d done more Botany and Zoology on my course. The rain forest rooms were a bit old, so to anyone going there – stay in the dorm, they even had some separate 2 bed and 3 bed rooms in the dorm!

The first day we arrived we saw the exodus. It was 5pm and and we all fancied a walk so decided to go in the direction of the cave. The exodus happens between 4 and 6pm in fine weather, so we’d just missed the peak but it was still awesome. A snake of bats undulating across the sky from the cave mouth and little puffs of them leaving from other exits. It was incredible. Unfortunately that was the only sighting as the rain stopped them from coming out the next 2 days. The photo just doesn’t do it justice.

The next day we did the Moonmilk Cave walk (up and down nearly 500 steps!) to Clearwater and Wind caves for a guided walk with Jo and Charlie. Moonmilk cave is the only one you can enter without a guide, which is awful because they are the easiest caves I’ve ever been in, with nice wide paths and information boards. Moonmilk cave is so called because of the chemical reaction in the rocks coating them in a milky white colour. Wind and Clearwater caves are huge, with Clearwater cave being the longest cave passage in the world, though we only saw a fraction of it. We should have brought our swimwear for a dip in the clear water that gives the cave its name. Clearwater cave has 2 one-leaf plant species that only grow there at the cave mouth, one at the top of the cave, one on the floor. It also has weird spiky rock formations caused by photosynthesing algae. They always face the light and their waste products eat away at the rock which leaves lots of spikes that point towards the light. We decided to take the walk back though Jo and Charlie got a boat as Charlie had injured her knee. Yup 500 steps again, though this time we didn’t have to pretend to be fit as we were alone so we went much slower 🙂 On the way back we got a close up encounter with a really cute creature – a ‘pigmy squirrel’.

The next day we took the afternoon walk to Deer and Langs Caves. The trip is to coincide with the bat exodus, but like I said we didn’t see it again as it started to rain. Deer Cave was the largest in the world, but apparently they have recently found one in Vietnam that is slightly bigger. This annoyed one of the guides called Syria who was determined to find a bigger one in her park. We met her on the first day and she took us to the Clearwater and Wind caves. She’d met David Attenborough when he came and was the best guide we met there by far. The guy we had for Deer Cave left us behind while we were taking photographs and we lost them as they ducked into Langs cave. We went in search of them and had a big argument with an independent guide when he found us on our own. He accused us of lying and that we should leave as our group couldn’t possibly be in the cave as it was so quiet. We soon found our group at the back when we walked off in a huff and told our guide to wait as we did the little circuit. To which he buggered off and left us again. Oh well, you try to follow the rules but what can you do? This really annoyed us and I’m glad we’d had the bat exodus experience previously on a happier day. The Deer Cave is incredible and it’s no wonder we got separated from our group with them racing through. It’s huge and could have been bigger if not for a ceiling collapse at the back. The smell of ammonia and mounds of guano are incredible, with wire flooring used to allow it to drop through so we weren’t slipping and sliding in it. There’s water in the cave too and we saw shrimp and a tortoise in there.

The park has a lovely information centre which plays videos and a great cafe serving food, especially the noodle soup and chocolate nut sundae. Many people including Alex did the Pinnacles Hike, or there’s the Head Hunters trail, but like Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, I’d say to everyone to put some serious money away for a trip to Borneo as it is very expensive!

Niah Caves

We took a flight to Miri to see the famous Niah Caves. We stayed at Highlands backpacker hostel ran by a woman who would flip between friendly and snappy and her 8 cats. 8 cats together do smell, though luckily they were confined to the staircase and one room. We met some lovely people there that we travelled with later to Mulu National park; Alex a South African living in London, and Charlie and Jo from Lynham. Niah Caves lie 109 km south so we had to take a taxi for 120 Ringgit there and back. We booked it with a guy called Joseph from Delania’s Hotel (a recommendation by Mike but too expensive for us) and he provided us with torches, water and even some food. The accommodation there looked so much better than Bako, I wished we had stayed there.

Niah is one of Sarawak’s smaller national parks, but it is claimed to be the birthplace of civilisation and one of the worlds most important archaeological sites (beats Time Team Lorraine!). In 1957 they found evidence of habitation at the Great Cave mouth back to the early Stone Age , but in 1958 they found a 40,000 year old human skull. Its discovery re-wrote the text books as it was widely believed that Borneo was settled much later. We later went to the excellent Sarawak Museum in Kuching and saw all the bits that they had dug up from Niah and many other caves in the area. The Great Cave houses many swifts which locals collect to sell for Chinese birds nest soup. In Sarawak Cultural Village we saw how they processed them in the Chinese House, by dissolving them in water and picking out the feathers to just keep the saliva, ew! They also collect the guano for fertiliser.

We followed a pitch black corridor through the back of the Great Cave to the next cave. The second cave is called the Painted Cave, and has a 30m stretch of wall paintings depicting the boat journey of the dead into the afterlife in red hematite. There were also death ships (boat shaped coffins) containing human remains and grave goods (all in the museum now) dating from 1 AD to 780 AD, though local Penan folklore tells of death ship burials up until the 19th century.

We mis-judged our flight to Mulu and were happily on our way to the airport when I discovered our mistake – we we’re a day early! Oh well, at least we were early and not late! We spent the day reading back at the guesthouse and hanging out with our new friends. The only trouble was that all the rooms were booked out, so we shared the dorm with Alex and a girl called Hannah. Our first dorm experience was fine. I think from a cost necessity we’ll need to use dorms in China. Usually 2*dorm price is about the same as a double room, so we haven’t needed to so far in our trip.

Bako National Park

Bako is Sarawak’s oldest national park and one of the highlights of Borneo. The park occupies a promontory between the mouths of the Bako and Sarawak rivers. It is a very beautiful place of Lush forests and mangrove fringed beaches facing out into the South China Sea.

Getting there is an adventure in itself – an hours bus ride from Kuching takes you to Bako Bazzar a jetty just inside the park where you take a boat down the Bako estuary past river villages and the occasional fresh water crocodile sunning itself on the rocks. After 30 mins you arrive at park HQ.

We met some nice ex-pat Brits on the boat – Colin from Singapore who is a business news correspondent and Mick from Vietnam who’s been teaching English around SE Asia for 14 years!

On checking into our accomodation we were told that there was little or no water in the park, so washing was going to be impossible and what little water there was would be used to flush the toilet from time to time – it took an hour for the cistern to fill! Ordinarily this would be bad enough but we a taking about 35 degree heat here with very high humidity! We decided we were going to have to slum it for a few days and just be content to be dirty as hell!

We dropped off our bags and stood in front of the fan in our room for a bit to cool off. Then we met up with Colin and Mick for a walk to beach Telok Paku. We were only 2 minutes into the walk – still walking on the boardwalks near the park HQ – when we spotted one of the parks most famous inhabitants – the rare Proboscis monkey. This one was a large dominant male – hence the huge nose – the bigger the conk the higher up the pecking order he is!

The walk to the beach was amazing and exactly what you think of as Borneo – huge trees and creepers everywhere, roots that have to be climbed over. Susan once again in her element! The humidity was quite incredible I don’t think we have ever sweat so much in our lives!

After the trek Colin and Mick went for a wash in the sea – we thought about it but the thought of getting into the sea in the semi-dark with crocs around put us off a bit. We let the sweat dry on us instead. We then had to decide wether we wanted to change into a clean set of clothes or just go the whole hog and stay in the same clothes for the next day and a half until we got back to running water and sanity. We went with option two.

The next day we did 2 short walks and were lucky again very near the park HQ. First up we saw some beautiful silver leaf monkeys with little yellow babies that looked like teletubbies!

Later we saw a big group of proboscis monkeys jumping between the trees.

The big animals are great to see but the park’s small creatures are just as impressive and so easily missed. On one of our walks we saw some leaf cutter ants that had made a nest out of leaves. There were a group of ants on the outside defending the nest and reacting to our every move. We also saw a huge convoy of termites – about 10cm wide and at least 100m long – crossing over all sorts of obstacles, presumably moving to a new nest as they were carrying larvae with them. If you put your foot near them the outer termites would stop and guard the perimeter against possible attack. Susan and I grew up watching David Attenborough so to see this stuff with our own eyes was a lifetime’s dream fullfilled!

There is so much life in the jungle and as two people with a science background it was amazing to see close up. If you doubt evolution then come here – no where is the fabric of life more tightly woven together – nothing is wasted, everything recycled. Fallen trees are everywhere, but you get the feeling that nothing is really dead here. Something – more than likely millions of things will call it home.

Welcome to Borneo!

We caught a lift with a taxi van to Semengoh Animal Rehabilitation Centre where we hoped to see some semi-wild orangutans that had been released into the wild. They still feed them in the morning and night so if they are hungry they can come back to the centre, and for their bucket of fruit a stand full of tourists get to see one of the most amazing animals in the world. We had just over a kilometer to walk from the ticket counter to the park entrance and passed many planted gardens of ferns and trees, all landscaped with water features and bridges. It was a really beautiful place that you could spend hours exploring.

We had many pittying glances from those on motorbikes and in cars as we walked in the afternoon sun up some steep hills, but we were rewarded with the sight of an orangutan that none of the group tourists saw. Just as we were coming around a corner we could hear this high pitched noise. The orangutan was making a really weird screech but didn’t seem too phased as we stood with wide smiles trying not to scream ourselves with excitement. We took many pictures and some video but it soon clambered down the wires to the ground where it walked over the road really close to me and into another garden area.

We were so lucky to see this as the feeding time at the park was so full and noisey that no orangutans came that day. We are definately going to make time to go back there and spend some time in the parks and gardens around the centre first. This was the Borneo that I had waited so many years to come and see.

Night Walk

About 15 of us set out with our guide to follow the board-walk into the jungle behind the Park Headquarters. We were certainly not alone, as many tour groups passed us on the narrow boardwalk, but it didn’t scare the animals and insects away. The walk took us around the back of the accommodation to the nearest hide, where we spotted some deer in the distance, and back into the compound in about 1 1/2 hours.

First we saw some really big spiders, literally the size of Andre’s hand! Then we were all asked to look at the foliage in front of us and try to spot something. We couldn’t spot the amazingly camouflaged stick insects though, even though they were about 4 inches long. They were so perfect, even having fake thorns on their bodies. We had also seen another type at the reception area that was shaped exactly as a leaf.

We also saw some scorpions too. The large black scorpion was lured out by poking a stick into its burrow. Apparently they are blind and just react to the movement outside its lair. This one had a massive sting, but they tend to get less potent with size. It probably wouldn’t kill you but could give you a painful sting. We had a look around our hotel later that night as we found out that our trees made great homes to these massive scorpions, but thankfully we didn’t find any. The other scorpion we saw made a very strong vinegar smell. Why in the world anyone would want to touch a scorpion is beyond me, but our guide touched it quickly on the back for us to learn something new that night. The poor guy also endured the bite of a termite soldier to show us how strong they are. When we got back we found the head of one clamped onto Andre’s shoe-lace – they do actually use them to stitch wounds together in some cultures.

Our best sighting of the night though was a Slow Lorris. It slowly made its escape from the flashing camera’s but gave us a terrific view of its massive eyes.

Night Safari

The night safaris on offer at Taman Negara just take you around a local palm plantation, but we had met a family who had seen two big cats while on it so decided to give it a go. For a nice change, all the prices had been crossed out and discounted instead of hiked, so we ended up doing the night walk too. We climbed onto the pick-up trucks, with Zoe and I on the back and Andre and Dave sitting on top of the roof rack with our guide.

We didn’t see too much. There were lots of birds sleeping in the trees a small brown stick snake and the best of all, a leopard cat. The idea is to stun the animals with the torch light so that they stay transfixed and do not run away. Unfortunately with all the flashing and noise the cat turned tail and wandered off really quickly, but it was the most beautiful animal I’d ever seen, with gorgeous big eyes and silky coat. The most numerous bird we saw was the little ‘telly bird’. Only about the size of a wren, it was sleeping on branches all around. The kingfishers that always seem too far away and fly off quickly were a bit sleepy at this time of night so we finally caught one on camera.