It is tempting to sum up our Bako National Park experience with one word: hot. But that wouldn’t be fair to anyone actually wanting to know how we fared, would it?
On Sunday, we made an aborted trip out to park headquarters because the local park office was shut. We knew full well we might have to just turn around and go back to the city if there was no accommodation – and that’s exactly what happened. Two hours on a bus in the midst of midday heat is an AWESOME way to make yourself feel completely gross. (Just in case you weren’t too sure…)
The next day, we were at the booking office nice and early, snagged a room for two nights, found out when the tide would be right for us to get a boat down the estuary and into the park, and then killed two hours until it was time to board the ‘big red bus 1’.
Once at the park, we (by ‘we’ I mean ‘Rich’) quickly came to the conclusion that they operate using a simple equation: chaos = cash. Book your beds, but find out once there that you’ve actually booked a room – up to you to fill it or not. Book your boat as a return journey – up to you to fill it with four people making a return journey all at the same time. Why not operate it like a normal hostel where people book beds instead of whole rooms? Why not operate the boats like the buses that they essentially are, where people book seats instead of whole boats? Bizarre.
The resident “wild” pigs were having a stroll on the beach when we arrived, making for an unusual first sighting. Then, while sitting and deciding what to do, I watched a guide walk over to the bushes and then turn and beckon me over. I walked over and we played a little game of “I spy with my little eye…. Something that looks like a pit viper.” nothing likely a deadly snake spotting as your second sighting.
Suitably inspired, we set out on our first walk. Anyone who knows me will already be aware of the fact that I am NOT a hiker; walking for the sake of walking bores me to tears. So we set off at a leisurely pace, stopping frequently to scan the trees on the off chance that we might see something interesting, thereby making it a walk NOT just for the sake of walking. Nothing. It was just us, the puddles, the trees, the invisible-but-very-audible birds, and the roots. Beautiful surroundings, despite the lack of wildlife.
Our trail ended abruptly at a mangrove swamp, where a BIG wild pig was rooting around in the dirt with its extraordinarily long nose. We had seen these oversized ugly squirrels at camp as well as on the beach, and I had marveled at the unusual length of the nose. Seeing it do its thing around the base of the mangroves, the length of the nose suddenly made sense: a regular pig’s nose wouldn’t work in this setting.
We meandered back among tree roots and vines, and got part way down another trail when a break in the canopy revealed an increasingly-darkening sky. Abort! We made the half hour or so walk back to camp and the rain actually held off until dark – at which point the heavens opened and it rained like we were about to witness the second coming of the Great Flood.
Watching the primates around the cafeteria/restaurant was a favourite past time of mine. The proboscis monkeys settled in the trees nearby, casually draping an arm over a branch or propping a leg up in the fork of another branch. Yesterday, I spent a long time just sitting watching them pull leaves from the branches and hop from limb to limb, while keeping a watchful eye on the goings-on around – and below – them. These animals are clearly not socialised. They seem to tolerate human presence within a particular radius, after which point they will move to higher ground, just to be sure. Fortunately for me, their comfort threshold was less than 10 feet, affording me great angles on their roosts. When they became decidedly more interested in another tree or the quiet grunts signalled a conference, they would move to the end of a branch and start a slow bob, using the momentum of the branch to help catapult themselves 5, 6, sometimes more than 10 feet through the air in an act strangely reminiscent of the circus man in the cannon – but with arms and tail akimbo (something the cannon man is always lacking, sadly). I found myself laughing aloud this morning when the guides did an accurately-timed countdown for one particularly large male before he flung himself wildly through the air above our heads.
There are signs everywhere warning visitors to be alert to the presence of a new breed of primate: the “naughty macaque”. There are the regular two kinds – long-tailed and big-tailed – and then this third subspecies…
The macaques are both charming and interesting on the ground and in the forest. I was taken by the presence of a couple of exceptionally young infants – young enough to still have umbilical cord showing – and found it fascinating to watch the interactions between mothers and their young. In the relative safety of the residential complex, the youngsters were, at times, left to play and wrestle amongst the foliage and leap over grass taller than them, but when it came time to move on, they almost always returned to Mom to latch on and be carried along, hidden by her bulk. When near the restaurant, however, it was a different story all together and this is where we saw the “naughty macaque” subspecies in action. These interesting little primates became nasty, scavenging tree rat members of the Jungle Mafia, capable of popping up over the railing and relieving a plate of its load of food in fractions of a second. Bugger.
Our hike on the second day happened to include a few lovely moments of getting caught amongst a small troop of silver langurs; a real highlight of my day. These Mohawk-sporting, wild-eyed, punky little primates are probably my second favourite of the primates we’ve seen in Borneo (after orangs, of course), so it was neat to have them join me on my stroll across the bridge.
I was on that little bridge because
our second day in the park involved a three hour return hike to Kecil beach (“little beach”), which was neither interesting nor fun, except that we got to see pitcher plants of various sizes growing wild along the path – a path that was, by times, made up entirely of patches of clay tucked between tree roots. The hike out to the beach was mostly on a gradual downward slope and, by the final third, I was in my zone and setting a great pace through the maze of roots and rutted clay. On the way back… Well, you could’ve just taken me out back somewhere and shot me. Midday heat, probably 100% humidity, sweat streaming into my eyes, faced with a now mostly UPhill slope, still woozy and off balance because of clogged sinuses, and I was not feeling too happy. Complaints kept mostly to myself, I was nevertheless very unenthusiastic about the suggestion that we make the 3km hike to Tajor waterfall. No way, Jose. On the upside, at least I had put my abhorrence of closed shoes on hold for the day; I was actually grateful that I’d chosen to wear running shoes instead of my flip flops (as great as they are for walking).
Despite my distaste for hiking and a lack of orangs, Bako was everything I imagined Borneo to be – with the added bonus of feeling like we were inside a pressure cooker. The jungle was lush, the birdsong was loud, varied and plentiful, there was plenty of primate life to watch… As far as ‘chill out’ spots go, the park was great and, if we were to have stuck around longer, I probably would’ve done short walks each day, either early or late, when the sun wasn’t so strong. That is, if the food weren’t so incredibly mediocre AND expensive – bit of a shock, given our gastronomic experiences in Kuching. Regardless, I’d still recommend the park to people who like being in natural surrounds. Hey – at least there aren’t any leeches!
Grateful for: my running shoes (which have now fulfilled their destiny by being donated to a guide)
