Into the wild

From Kuching we went even deeper into the jungle in Gunung Mulu.

The airport is tiny, the runway is pretty much a car park but as soon as I stepped off the plane I was in love with the place; tiny brightly coloured huts in the foreground and dense green jungle with a hazy backdrop of blue mountains shrouded in low cloud.




We stayed right inside Mulu National Park in a garden bungalow with nothing but the sounds of the jungle to disturb us. Crickets, frogs, birds, geckos and other creatures, each with its own distinctive call.




When we arrived at dusk, we decided to have a little trek to Moonmilk cave. It's one that you can do without a guide and is supposed to be good for bird spotting at that time of day. It was no leisurely stroll. The humidity was unbearable, we were drenched within minutes. Although there were paths all the way, most of it was up steps - hundreds and hundreds of steps! After about an hour we reached the cave and bumped into a couple of other people staying in the park.

We all walked through the cave together and came out the other side to a beautiful sunset burning through the canopy. After taking a few photos, we presumed that the trek would carry on in a loop and take us back to the bungalow so we all continued walking. We took our time, taking photos of all kinds of giant bugs on the way. I saw my first fire flies, twinkling amongst the trees like strings of fairy lights.




After walking for over an hour, we came to yet more stairs and had the sudden feeling of deja vu... Are these not the steps we walked up to get to Moonmilk? Have we just circled back on our selves? No. Worse. In the dark, we'd walked in a straight line in the wrong direction (1.5km) and reached the next set of caves. The walk back was now 3km. The jungle was dark. And hot. We had one small bottle of water left between the four of us. And did I mention the giant bugs? We had no choice but to turn around and double back on ourselves.

When you go into the jungle, you have to let security know where you are going and what time you expect to be back. We were due back an hour ago so I was worried they'd be out looking for us! The trek back was hard, we were all exhausted and pretty hungry. We walked and walked and walked with the sounds of the jungle as our power song. We eventually made it back to camp just before 9pm. What was meant to be a 45 minute walk had turned into a four hour hike!

On the plus side, I discovered glow in the dark berries...or was I hallucinating from dehydration?

No rest for the clinically insane wicked. The next day was more trekking! 3km in the morning for the canopy walk.




At 480 metres long, it's the longest tree canopy in the world. At 30m high, if you look down, your guts will make it back down long before you do!




Walking along each section was ok until the person behind you stepped onto the planks and almost catapulted you out of the canopy! Not for the feint of heart (or weak of bowel)!




After lunch we had a 6km walk to see Deer and Langs caves. The guide was great, he was extremely knowledgable and stopped to show us every weird creepy crawly, strange climbing plant and explain the meaning of each jungle call and what animal made it. I wanted to hold his hand and skip through the jungle, excited to learn about the next bug! He was even able to explain what my glow in the dark berries were (I should see a doctor if that doesn't clear up soon) - they work the same way as fire flies - not by leaving them in direct sunlight all day as I thought, but with bioluminescence. I should have brought him an apple because I was teachers pet by the end! I found the walk more interesting than the caves themselves, although they were pretty impressive!

Langs cave is full of some really interesting rock formations, grown drip by drip over the millennia.




Deer cave is much bigger and was featured on BBC's Planet Earth for the millions of wrinkle lipped bats living inside. The sound inside was deafening and the smell... well, millions of bats produce a lot of guano. A thirty metre high pile of guano to be exact! The smell permeates your clothes and sticks to your nostrils like a pint of spilled milk in a hot car!




At dusk, all of the visitors are ushered down to the observatory to watch the bats fly out in teams like clouds of black smoke for their evening hunt.




It's a very strange thing to watch, you can't make out the shape of a single bat, they just merge into one flowing stream of squeaking silhouette.




The walk back was another dark one, we managed not to get lost. Success!

Location:Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia

The Borneo Adventure begins!

The last few days have been an amazing adventure.

On Saturday we went to the Semenggoh Orang-utan rehabilitation centre. I was so excited to see an endangered species that I almost exploded in a fountain of glitter! There are only 20-27,000 orang-utan left in the wild and 18 of them live here; one big male (you'd think he was the boss but his wife, Delima, definitely wears the trousers in that household!) another younger male, six females and ten youngsters.




The great thing about the centre is that it is enclosed to keep poachers out but the orang-utan are free to come and go as they please so a lot of their time is spent out in the wild. They just come in for feeding times at 9am and 3pm and visitors are allowed in for two hours around both feeding times - the gates are closed the rest of the time. It only costs 3 ringgit to get in (about 60p) - I would have happily paid more for what was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.




We got there in time for their afternoon feed and after waiting for what seemed like forever, there was a sudden rustle in the tree tops as a mum and her baby started to scope out what was on offer. Not long after, another lone orang-utan started to make his way down - swinging through vines and hanging upside down to get a good look at us all. Soon there was another mum and baby and two more juveniles.




The rangers warned us all to be very careful - although they look very docile mums can be very protective when there are children around, and have been known to attack humans for getting too close. They will even attack you for a bottle of water so you have to keep everything out of their sight in your bag. Delima is the most dangerous - far worse than the big male. Her nickname is Hot Momma because of her fiery temper. I got to talk to one of the rangers and he showed me his hands - only nine and a half fingers, others had whole fingers bitten off!




I was surprised how much like human mums they were - giving kisses and cuddles, holding out coconuts for the babies to drink from, teaching them to climb and even telling them off when they got out of hand. One of the babies was getting a bit giddy and showing off to his audience by sitting on a bendy tree branch and catapulting himself on to his mum's head - she let him get away with it a couple of times but then gave him a clip round the ear when she got fed up!




The ranger explained that the babies will stay with their mums until they are about four years old, sometimes eight (depending how much the mum loves them) and will be full grown by 15 years old when they will start to have babies of their own. Delima is an experienced 27 year old mum.




As I was leaving the centre, I couldn't quite believe what I had just seen. I feel so privileged to have seen these beautiful, sensitive creatures in their own habitat instead of behind bars in a zoo. Not many people will get that opportunity, I can only hope that the work of centres like this one will continue to help increase the numbers and the orang-utan manage to fight their way off the endangered list.




Yesterday we went by boat to Bako National Park to see another endangered species - the proboscis (or big nosed) monkey. They are only able to survive in Borneo in what is an ever shrinking environment due to deforestation. There are only 3000 left in the wild and I was lucky enough to see five of them.




They often come down to the beach and forage in the mangrove swamps but we only managed to see them high up in the trees.




They are a truly strange creature - their big floppy nose is not used for smelling, but for amplifying their call to attract a mate. They have developed webbed hands and feet to become the worlds best primate swimmer, allowing them to make a speedy getaway when they see a crocodile - they often dive out of the trees and belly flop strait into the water.




I desperately wanted to get a good look at one and to have seen one on the beach but just seeing them swinging through the canopy and dozing in the trees was an experience in itself.




The island is also home to lots of wild boar, silver monkeys and various rare birds and flowers. There are a number of different treks of varying lengths but walking through the jungle is like doing star jumps in a sauna - pretty horrible!




As we were about to board the return boat, thunder started to rumble in the distance. Half way back, they sky turned black, lit only by flashes of lightning. The rain was so heavy that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, waves were crashing high around us and coming right over the front of the boat, the driver made us come and hide in the back. By the time we got back to the port,we looked like we'd swum back - my boots were full of water and were still wet this morning!

Location:Kuching, Borneo, Malaysia