In the jungle, the mighty jungle...
...The Conway sleeps tonight (before being woken up by a cockerel at 3am, and without the falsetto voice for those of you who remember Tight Fit)
Greetings from Bandar Seri Begawan, which you'll all know is the capital of Brunei. Ok, I didn't either, but remember it for the next quiz night.
When I last wrote, I was in Kuching, capital of Malaysian Sarawak in Borneo. Kuching is a nice place, but merely a stepping stone for trips into the rainforest, to see wildlife and longhouses. My plan, on arrival, was to book an overnight trip to see an Iban longhouse, but this didn't seem to be working out, so I booked a day trip to see a nearer Bidayuh one instead.
I was picked up early in the morning in a rusty old Mercedes Diesel, which looked like it had been rescued from the scrapheap just seconds before the crusher! Our first stop was the Semenggoh orangutan rehabilitation centre, where orangutan, previously held in captivity are trained to be wild animals and released in the forest. At feeding times they may or may not come back, the tourists want several to come back, the naturalists want none, as this will show the animals are finding their own food. That day we saw one, it was great seeing such a special creature in it's natural environment, seeing it swinging in the trees was very exciting! The next stop was a crocodile farm, seeing the big salties is an exciting sight at feeding time.
From here, we travelled south to near the Indonesian border, to visit a Bidayuh longhouse. The longhouse was of fairly traditional design, but fairly empty, as many people work in Kuching now, only an hour or so away by road. I got to sample some of the local rice wine and whisky, which was interesting...A sign of how things are changing was the satellite dish I saw on one of the buildings, I'm sure they all gather round to watch the Premier League.
That evening, I returned after dinner to find a message from one of the tour companies saying they had an Iban tour running the next day. Suffice to say I accepted late at night, and was packing some stuff at midnight!
We set off the next day, just the 3 of us (myself and a dutch couple). We started with another visit to the Semenggoh orangutans, but this time saw the pre-feeding time feeding, where several animals came down including a mother and baby. Several cute pictures I promise! Next, a 3-4 hour drive, stopping off to see pitcher plants and pepper(corn) farms. After this, we then got into a longboat for a 30 minute ride along the Lemanek river to the Iban longhouse, our base for the night.
The longhouse and it's surrounding buildings were still quite traditional, though with floorboards instead of bamboo, and a metal roof. There, we met the retired former chief. He had the traditional tattoos and elongated stretched ears, with gaping holes on the lobe. None of the younger men had the tattoos, they leave them to people in the west now!
Exploring the area, a mile along the river was another modern longhouse, made of brick and concrete, the old ways are changing fast. The children go to school (and stay overnight there), the younger adults often work away from the longhouse, exposing them to another more materialistic world...
Our accommodation was next door, a guest longhouse, with basic partioned off mattresses (with a mosquito net), an open veranda area (where we ate), a kitchen, cold showers and a flushing toilet!!! Two other groups were there, one of which (a German group) were kept away by their guide from the rest of us, down the other end of the veranda, which seemed against the spirit of staying in a longhouse!
After dinner (where we were joined by a cute, and very vocal little ginger cat) was the 'cultural show', where the Iban performed some dances with various degrees of enthusiam, the former chief being the most lively, the musicians looking deadly bored (I can't blame them, one of them had to hit a piece of metal continuously for 30 minutes). We tried some rice wine (which was almost pleasant) gave our presents for the children over, and let them get on with their normal lives again (probably watching television like the rest of us). As it was still early, the dutch guy and I bought another bottle of the rice wine, and shared it there in the longhouse, which was quite pleasant, it was nice having a few of us and a few of them just sitting around...the rice wine makes you sweat (must be one of the weird ingredients)
Retiring to bed, it was hot but not unbearably so. The sound of the river was relaxing, but it was generally drowned out by the miaows of the ginger cat, calling of birds, cock-a-doodle-doos of the cockerels (they started up again a 3am!) and snores, so not the most relaxed night!
The next morning, we saw a cock fight, tried out our blowpipe techniques and went for a walk in the jungle, where we were shown ancient burial sites, and how the natural plants of the jungle can be used. Then back on the longboat, and back to 'civilisation' again. We dropped off the dutch couple on the way, for their 12 hour bus ride to Miri (the far northeast of Sarawak). I flew the next day!
Miri is a dull city. It grew up due to the oil boom, but has little charm. The only reason to go there is to access the nearby national parks. There I bumped in to the dutch couple again. Sadly on their bus marathon, their luggage was broken into and their clothing stolen. Ridiculous crime really, as clothes are dirt cheap here anyway, and the sort of people taking 12-15 hour bus rides aren't going to have Armani suits in their rucksacs!
One of the conundrums on these sorts of trips, if whether to book tours or travel independently. My day trip to Niah national park demonstrates the problems of the latter approach.
I first caught a bus from the local bus station (complete chaos, no allocated stops or timetables) to the long distance bus station. There I jumped on a coach for an uneventful 1.5 hour ride to Batu Niah junction, a roadhouse stop 11km from the town and park, with no onward buses or taxis available. Eventually I got a lift for 5RM to the town (a small woman in an even smaller car!), from where I walked the 3km to the park (noting the car park full of visitors who came the easy way!).
Niah is famous for it's giant cave, where the remains of a 40000 year old woman have been found. To get to this cave, was a further 3km walk along a slippery and creaky boardwalk, while the cave path itself was slippery due to, ahem, guano, bat and bird sh excrement. Swiftlets nest high up on the ceiling of the cave; twice a year, these nests are collected to make bird's-nest soup (which from memory wasn't very exciting). My progress through the cave came to a sudden stop when I slipped on the guano covered floor - luckily I landed on 'both cheeks' so nothing hurt, though a very dirty pair of shorts resulted!
The next day I flew to Gunung Mulu national park, deep in the rainforest, so no easy land access. This is Sarawak's premier national park, and the runway has been lengthened so that 50 seater turboprops can fly there now. Smaller 19 seater Twin Otters also make the journey, via a more scenic route - on these planes, all the passengers have to be weighed to get the weight distribution right! These flights were full, so my weight remains a secret...
Mulu is famous for it's caves. A well maintained and not at all slippery boardwalk (during which our guide found a stick insect and later was given a nasty rash by a caterpillar that fell on him) takes you to the spectacular Deer Cave, the largest cave passage in the world (174m high, 2km long) and scenic Lang's cave. Many parts of the boardwalk had lots of beautiful butterflies, as this is where monkeys urinate at night, and butterflies are attracted by the salt in the urine...a good excuse to give the police if you are caught short I guess ;-)
Deer cave is full of bats, three million of them at the last estimation, and it STINKS!!! It's full of guano, cave cockroaches do their best to recycle it, but there's mounds of it around. What makes up for this is the bat exodus each evening, when 3 million bats fly out the 2 exits, a spectacular sight, as they come out in flowing waves. I have a small film of this, though one from the previous night was much better. On the way back, the frogs starting croaking, an incredible noise for such small creatures.
The dutch couple were here also (there's a natural progression on the traveller's route) and fancied a beer, so they forced me to go to a 'bar' just outside the park. Sadly the cafe didn't have satellite tv, so I couldn't watch the cup final - the owner was wearing a Liverpool shirt though, showing his loyalties! It was a lovely spot though, seeing giant moths and bats flying around, and watching the owner's cat pouncing on and crunching a lizard...
I slept ok, luckily the frogs shut up a bit! Next morning I got into a longboat to visit the Wind and Clearwater caves, the latter is the longest in SE asia. I joined a group of women from Penang here (they all holiday together and envied what I am doing!), they were due to follow the Caves with a long walk towards the Pinnacles, though looking at how some of them struggled with the morning's exertions, I'm guessing a hard afternoon lay ahead. Myself, I flew back to Miri, for one last night there, I upgraded my hotel room from Superior to Deluxe, well worth the extra one pound fifty!
And so on to today. The plan was to catch a coach from Miri across the border to Brunei. This wasn't running though, so I joined a shared car instead. There were 3 of us, but the driver waited 2 hours hoping for a 4th passenger to arrive. We set off to the border, where I had no problems (the British passport is easy to travel on in this part of the world) but an Indonesian man in our car was stopped as his passport had expired! So after all that, just 2 passengers made it to Bandar Seri Begawan, and we nearly didn't either as the car needed a push start to get it away from a petrol station!
Mike
Greetings from Bandar Seri Begawan, which you'll all know is the capital of Brunei. Ok, I didn't either, but remember it for the next quiz night.
When I last wrote, I was in Kuching, capital of Malaysian Sarawak in Borneo. Kuching is a nice place, but merely a stepping stone for trips into the rainforest, to see wildlife and longhouses. My plan, on arrival, was to book an overnight trip to see an Iban longhouse, but this didn't seem to be working out, so I booked a day trip to see a nearer Bidayuh one instead.
I was picked up early in the morning in a rusty old Mercedes Diesel, which looked like it had been rescued from the scrapheap just seconds before the crusher! Our first stop was the Semenggoh orangutan rehabilitation centre, where orangutan, previously held in captivity are trained to be wild animals and released in the forest. At feeding times they may or may not come back, the tourists want several to come back, the naturalists want none, as this will show the animals are finding their own food. That day we saw one, it was great seeing such a special creature in it's natural environment, seeing it swinging in the trees was very exciting! The next stop was a crocodile farm, seeing the big salties is an exciting sight at feeding time.
From here, we travelled south to near the Indonesian border, to visit a Bidayuh longhouse. The longhouse was of fairly traditional design, but fairly empty, as many people work in Kuching now, only an hour or so away by road. I got to sample some of the local rice wine and whisky, which was interesting...A sign of how things are changing was the satellite dish I saw on one of the buildings, I'm sure they all gather round to watch the Premier League.
That evening, I returned after dinner to find a message from one of the tour companies saying they had an Iban tour running the next day. Suffice to say I accepted late at night, and was packing some stuff at midnight!
We set off the next day, just the 3 of us (myself and a dutch couple). We started with another visit to the Semenggoh orangutans, but this time saw the pre-feeding time feeding, where several animals came down including a mother and baby. Several cute pictures I promise! Next, a 3-4 hour drive, stopping off to see pitcher plants and pepper(corn) farms. After this, we then got into a longboat for a 30 minute ride along the Lemanek river to the Iban longhouse, our base for the night.
The longhouse and it's surrounding buildings were still quite traditional, though with floorboards instead of bamboo, and a metal roof. There, we met the retired former chief. He had the traditional tattoos and elongated stretched ears, with gaping holes on the lobe. None of the younger men had the tattoos, they leave them to people in the west now!
Exploring the area, a mile along the river was another modern longhouse, made of brick and concrete, the old ways are changing fast. The children go to school (and stay overnight there), the younger adults often work away from the longhouse, exposing them to another more materialistic world...
Our accommodation was next door, a guest longhouse, with basic partioned off mattresses (with a mosquito net), an open veranda area (where we ate), a kitchen, cold showers and a flushing toilet!!! Two other groups were there, one of which (a German group) were kept away by their guide from the rest of us, down the other end of the veranda, which seemed against the spirit of staying in a longhouse!
After dinner (where we were joined by a cute, and very vocal little ginger cat) was the 'cultural show', where the Iban performed some dances with various degrees of enthusiam, the former chief being the most lively, the musicians looking deadly bored (I can't blame them, one of them had to hit a piece of metal continuously for 30 minutes). We tried some rice wine (which was almost pleasant) gave our presents for the children over, and let them get on with their normal lives again (probably watching television like the rest of us). As it was still early, the dutch guy and I bought another bottle of the rice wine, and shared it there in the longhouse, which was quite pleasant, it was nice having a few of us and a few of them just sitting around...the rice wine makes you sweat (must be one of the weird ingredients)
Retiring to bed, it was hot but not unbearably so. The sound of the river was relaxing, but it was generally drowned out by the miaows of the ginger cat, calling of birds, cock-a-doodle-doos of the cockerels (they started up again a 3am!) and snores, so not the most relaxed night!
The next morning, we saw a cock fight, tried out our blowpipe techniques and went for a walk in the jungle, where we were shown ancient burial sites, and how the natural plants of the jungle can be used. Then back on the longboat, and back to 'civilisation' again. We dropped off the dutch couple on the way, for their 12 hour bus ride to Miri (the far northeast of Sarawak). I flew the next day!
Miri is a dull city. It grew up due to the oil boom, but has little charm. The only reason to go there is to access the nearby national parks. There I bumped in to the dutch couple again. Sadly on their bus marathon, their luggage was broken into and their clothing stolen. Ridiculous crime really, as clothes are dirt cheap here anyway, and the sort of people taking 12-15 hour bus rides aren't going to have Armani suits in their rucksacs!
One of the conundrums on these sorts of trips, if whether to book tours or travel independently. My day trip to Niah national park demonstrates the problems of the latter approach.
I first caught a bus from the local bus station (complete chaos, no allocated stops or timetables) to the long distance bus station. There I jumped on a coach for an uneventful 1.5 hour ride to Batu Niah junction, a roadhouse stop 11km from the town and park, with no onward buses or taxis available. Eventually I got a lift for 5RM to the town (a small woman in an even smaller car!), from where I walked the 3km to the park (noting the car park full of visitors who came the easy way!).
Niah is famous for it's giant cave, where the remains of a 40000 year old woman have been found. To get to this cave, was a further 3km walk along a slippery and creaky boardwalk, while the cave path itself was slippery due to, ahem, guano, bat and bird sh excrement. Swiftlets nest high up on the ceiling of the cave; twice a year, these nests are collected to make bird's-nest soup (which from memory wasn't very exciting). My progress through the cave came to a sudden stop when I slipped on the guano covered floor - luckily I landed on 'both cheeks' so nothing hurt, though a very dirty pair of shorts resulted!
The next day I flew to Gunung Mulu national park, deep in the rainforest, so no easy land access. This is Sarawak's premier national park, and the runway has been lengthened so that 50 seater turboprops can fly there now. Smaller 19 seater Twin Otters also make the journey, via a more scenic route - on these planes, all the passengers have to be weighed to get the weight distribution right! These flights were full, so my weight remains a secret...
Mulu is famous for it's caves. A well maintained and not at all slippery boardwalk (during which our guide found a stick insect and later was given a nasty rash by a caterpillar that fell on him) takes you to the spectacular Deer Cave, the largest cave passage in the world (174m high, 2km long) and scenic Lang's cave. Many parts of the boardwalk had lots of beautiful butterflies, as this is where monkeys urinate at night, and butterflies are attracted by the salt in the urine...a good excuse to give the police if you are caught short I guess ;-)
Deer cave is full of bats, three million of them at the last estimation, and it STINKS!!! It's full of guano, cave cockroaches do their best to recycle it, but there's mounds of it around. What makes up for this is the bat exodus each evening, when 3 million bats fly out the 2 exits, a spectacular sight, as they come out in flowing waves. I have a small film of this, though one from the previous night was much better. On the way back, the frogs starting croaking, an incredible noise for such small creatures.
The dutch couple were here also (there's a natural progression on the traveller's route) and fancied a beer, so they forced me to go to a 'bar' just outside the park. Sadly the cafe didn't have satellite tv, so I couldn't watch the cup final - the owner was wearing a Liverpool shirt though, showing his loyalties! It was a lovely spot though, seeing giant moths and bats flying around, and watching the owner's cat pouncing on and crunching a lizard...
I slept ok, luckily the frogs shut up a bit! Next morning I got into a longboat to visit the Wind and Clearwater caves, the latter is the longest in SE asia. I joined a group of women from Penang here (they all holiday together and envied what I am doing!), they were due to follow the Caves with a long walk towards the Pinnacles, though looking at how some of them struggled with the morning's exertions, I'm guessing a hard afternoon lay ahead. Myself, I flew back to Miri, for one last night there, I upgraded my hotel room from Superior to Deluxe, well worth the extra one pound fifty!
And so on to today. The plan was to catch a coach from Miri across the border to Brunei. This wasn't running though, so I joined a shared car instead. There were 3 of us, but the driver waited 2 hours hoping for a 4th passenger to arrive. We set off to the border, where I had no problems (the British passport is easy to travel on in this part of the world) but an Indonesian man in our car was stopped as his passport had expired! So after all that, just 2 passengers made it to Bandar Seri Begawan, and we nearly didn't either as the car needed a push start to get it away from a petrol station!
Mike
posted by Michael Conway at
10:23 am
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