I jumped on Air Asia’s bitty twin-engine for just under $25US and flew to the exotic Borneo from peninsular Malaysia. As we approached, I found that it wasn’t all jungle like I had imagined; in fact, the exotic nature of Borneo seemed a bit diluted.
In Malaysia almost everything is done in tours and the infrastructure that makes travel so easy is what also irritates people like me who want to get away from tourists. Fortunately, I can speak enough Malay and more significantly have met some really first class people who’ve helped me out; Jelawa Jungle was the only thing I was able to do alone on the mainland…and it was flippin’ fantastic!
I flew into Sandakan and quickly found a bus towards the center of the city—I guess I didn’t think there would be cities in Borneo—and found the main mini-bus station. It was here where I met Andi, an Indonesian who told me how wrong my president and most leaders are about his country. Of course, he has a little bias, but I like to believe that he’s sincere and that most people will be as welcoming as he says…we’ll see. We rode a bus to Sepilok together and parted ways as he said he would help me get a visa for Indonesia in the border town of Tawau where he lives in 2 weeks.
Sepilok is the tiny village whose only appeal is an orangutan rehabilitation center; and it is very appealing. While the great ape is the main draw here, I found the macaques very similar to the capuchins I worked with in Bolivia; that is wily, sinister, and very intelligent. At 10am the helpers bring out food for the apes and monkeys; the orangutans are amazing. Truly, when you look one in the eyes you cannot ignore the mirror-like image you receive. The most pervasive parallel is not physical; rather, their movements, their curiosity, their quick skill to resolve, their playfulness, their dexterity, their humour…their being. The photos in the Borneo folder do not grip this disconcerting verisimilitude; however, they are cute so enjoy.
Francine, a lady of 70+ years stays at the Jungle Resort (no I didn’t splurge…I stayed in the dorm part) and is a fascinating French woman. She’s lived with orangutans for 30 years in Indonesia among other things. She loves them like they are her blood; it’s touching. She told us so many stories, “some are mechanics, some are plumbers, some are painters…”…it cracked me up to hear those words spoken with such seriousness.
After viewing the amazing apes, I met an English guy who sounded pretty hardcore and up for some rough adventures. Tim left his girlfriend behind in something that might be equated to an argument that resulted in “go do what you want, I don’t care.”
I found out by fortuity that contrary to the Lonely Planet, it ISN’T impossible to get to the simple village of Sukau and do the Kinabatangan River on your own…I was stoked to throw a finger up at the LP and all those who think it’s the bible.
Our adventure was nothing short of a series of laughter inducing events…should you be of the right temperament. We set off after breaky around 8am and caught the bus like it was timed. We went into Sandakan again and purchased 6 liters of water each, a kilo of peanuts, choco and coconut cookies, and that’s it; Tim had noodles. We found a bus that would take us to some checkpoint that would put us in good shape to catch another bus to yet another bus that would eventually end up in Sukau…so the guy said.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, pre-arranges a tour to visit the river that has such famous repute for jungle wildlife. Sukau is very difficult to reach because it’s so remote and the road from the main road is abominable, which is why tours are the preferred. Most go to Sukau for 2 days then they pay a ridiculous amount to be boated around with a dozen people to the places that have these creatures so they can snap pictures from afar…where do I stand? “Keep it mate, I’m not havin’ that sheeyight!”
Our trip was to be as follows: we would quickly get to Sandakan in the morning which would allow us to somehow get a bus to Sukau, find a local who would offer his boat to us for a minimal fee, the boat would be requested to be without a motor so that we could paddle. We would paddle for 7 days around the river, sleeping in the jungle (no tent), fishing a bit (eat off the land, urrr water per se), and see primates, crocs, etc. up close…possibly even have a personal encounter.
Turns out the peanuts were absolutely terrible; like soggy chickpeas and I had a whole 2+pounds of this crap…sounds like a premonition.
When our bus pulled up to the checkpoint, we found a guy in blue camouflage jumped aboard with a machine gun and made a quick point to check things…he ignored us. We transferred buses and before departing (after paying…bugger) the driver had to change the tire in back. Apparently, the method of tire change here is to keep all 13 passengers in the van that sits on a slant very near a ditch. Then, when the van is completely full (minus the 2 foreigners who have wisely exited the vehicle until business is done) add one more lady to the mix…while the van is sitting on the jack. Her weight shifted the van and nearly threw the van into gully gear. We hopped in, me on top of the ladies lap, and were on our way. Before we made the junction, we stopped at a “Petrol Station” which put Tim and I into tears; nothing more than a kid sitting by a little pick-up with several vats of petrol in the back. He had his own method of labeling the liquid and the real kicker is that in the middle of this nothing, he had hanging from a tree, snacks; potato chips, nuts, even water; a real gas station…great start, we assumed. This brought us to another minivan that would be much more expensive than we thought, though understandably so after having been on the road.
Minivan #3 took off in the dust of a 2 hour ride that shook Tim and I like cocktails; our organs being the cubes of ice…bruised in the end. Notwithstanding, loads of laughter, we arrived to Sukau and I had to take notice that it was nothing like I had imagined. 2 guys immediately approached us with an offer for accommodation that was reasonable, but when we spoke of our idea with the boat, they quoted some distance to the sun that we rushed away from. Fortunately for us, Jamil was out for his afternoon smoke just sitting casually on the steps.
We told Jamil of our idea and it appeared that it might actually materialize which was truly mind-boggling. He called his boss and we arranged to meet. As we spoke about this he said, I’ve never heard of anyone wanting to do something like this…never. Of course, this put Tim and I into the car carried by wheels of pride.
We then met Muhammad Noh, Jamil’s boss, who had asked his people to prepare something so we could sort this out. A platter exited their makeshift door and it held all sorts of goodies that you would only want in the afternoon with a hot cup of tea/coffee; as it turned out, my watch said 3pm and 5 cups of coffee followed the platter.
Jamil did some translating and I tacitly begged some respect with my broken dialogue, and we all clasped our cups in deep thought; they with their Muslim hats, Tim and I with our shorts, sandals, and shown spirit. They were totally in disbelief that anyone would think of such a thing—inflate wheels, yeah—and tried to comprehend it. We settled on a super low price and Mr. Noh arranged a place for us to start our “jungle stay”. Tim and I went to the local mini-market (emphasize that first word) and bought some fishing line, weights, and hooks. Tim wanted to buy bait, but I said with disgust that we had “all the bait we could want out there…right out where we would be living for days…come on man, THINK!” He said I could catch it myself and it’d be ayight.
So the story goes like this…the boat was the antithesis to sleek and aerodynamic, the paddles were wooden with blades only 4 inches wide, and we would soon discover the boat had a bit of a leak. We jumped into our boat, not before Tim fell ass first into the water with his bag whilst the entire family watched in wonder at these 2 crazies who were to be gone for a week or so. We were taxied across to our first night’s “accommodation” which was in an incomplete lodge that had no power, no toilet, no water, and certainly nobody staying in it. I say nobody because there were definitely creatures inhabiting the residence. We paid a normal accommodation’s price for this dump, put a tarp on the floor, pulled up our socks, and lathered up in repellent. Before we drifted off to dreams unheard of, we found that there was a leopard bugging about the condemned unit; his eyes were the only thing we could see using our torches, stealth-like, no sound as he moved some 100 ft…we couldn’t believe it…like a ghost.
Mohammad visited us after a quick rain around 10:30pm with some food and his sons—who must have hated his father for making them come to this crazy house at this hour—and he proceeded to tell us a few stories.
I asked if there were crocs in the water and he said “many, many”. He then told me that nothing had happened except for that one time when 2 people were floating along and the croc chomped his way up into the boat and bit the guy in the back. “The man calmly thought what would remove him if he were croc”, he continued to tell, “and he thought, I wouldn’t want my eyes to hurt so man pushed his 2 fingers into croc’s eye sockets and the croc fell back.” Unfortunately for the 2 blokes, the croc had bit a bit of the boat and it was now sinking with the croc directly under…pissed. The same guy was the target of his wrath (of course…the blood was dripping and could be easily perceived by the reptile) and quickly found a lot of pressure on his knee. Again, he put his fingers into the eyes and the croc went away. “But it was just that one thing maybe 20 years ago”, Mohammad said with ease.
Then Mr. Midnight Tales of the Crypt with the candle flickering in his eye began to tell us that he went to the police to tell them what we were doing; they disapproved and warned him to get our information “in case anything happened to us”. Tim looked at me, and I at him as we chuckled to the rhythm of a nail being pounded into a coffin. We signed our names, wrote down numbers/names, and agreed on a panic date. Then he asks if we want lifejackets. We say it’s probably a good idea, but he says he doesn’t have any with him. WTF!!!
Keep in mind that it’s very dark, we’re in the jungle with no one around (ie within hearing distance), we’ve spotted and killed a spider the size of this computer mouse to my right, and to add insult to injury as we pull out the splinters out of our ass he says, “I was going to tell you to stay in my brother-in-law’s place. Same price but you get breakfast and it’s much nicer; but you say you want jungle experience, so I bring you here.” Two gasps for air are heard by Tim and I as we just surrender to our already defined state; but we really could have done without the thought of a much nicer place for the same price. We signed his “guestbook” and smiled at being just the second group of idiots to stay at his place that wasn’t yet a place.
The next morning we are awaken by Mohammad and another of his 40 sons at 6am, bringing us a flask of coffee and some break-less-fest. He delivers some form of a lifejacket and sees us off as we paddle enthusiastically. The enthusiasm faded quite quickly when we realized that this wooden paddle was also a very absorbent type of wood; thus, when it was wet, it weighed much more…well, when you paddle down a river, it’s gonna be wet, it’s gonna be painful, it’s gonna be nothing like you thought.
In a kayak, T&I could’ve rocked 30 km to the next village and back, but as it turned out we mustered what we thought was just 15 km to a small river where a lot of the wildlife could be seen; turns out when we returned that our estimation was 3 times too much; 5km was the result of our effort.
And so in scooping out water from the Leaky Lucy every 15 minutes, the sun roasting our backs, and the paddles rubbing the skin off our hands, we scooped our way towards “freedom”. We stopped to munch, and finally pulled into a shady spot to try our hand at fishing…didn’t pull up anything but broken lines. Tim was complaining a bit and all of a sudden our 7 day trip that he was so passionate about turned into his plan to get back to his baby asap. In fact, I had to persuade him from turning our shipwreck around and go back directly. I was too determined to stay the night in the wild. I was disappointed a bit in Tim’s change of character, but still wanted to relish the journey.
We took the lil’ river and searched for a camping spot. First, it had to be flat; second it had to have a tree that we could tie onto; and third a simple request…as few jungle ants as possible. We thought we found the jackpot, but I urged him to move on down the river because it was much too early to settle. We struggled past a home on the water and thought about asking for some lodging, but carried on. Finally we found what turned out to be a palm oil plantation and pulled our barge up to bay.
Our campsite was put up in roughly 5 minutes after Tim had found some bags that held dirt for our bedding and I had found another “stake” to tie our tiny tarp onto. We really were unprepared for this; but that was the fun part I guess…for me anyway. Then I tried to get him to jump back in the boat with me and go for an afternoon’s pull. There was no way in hell he was going to get back in that poor excuse for a boat, which left me to hop in myself and paddle solo-style. It was difficult enough to move that vessel with 2 people, and by myself I needed to stand up and sweep my way to the animals. I was super surprised to see all the creatures about though…well worth it. Proboscis monkeys hung from trees as long as their noses hung from their mugs, macaques were playing about where Tim and I had originally thought of setting up, and finally an enormous monitor lizard—originally I thought was a croc because of its size—was 15m up in a tree basking. I snapped loads of photos of all of this along with the famous hornbills and Storm’s storks that soared about me.
I was happy upon returning just before the sun set, where I found Tim running up to me in a panic, breathless. Being the Englishman he is, he asks politely, “how was it?” I tell him to piss off and tell me what the hell is wrong. He says that he’s decided to go back to Sukau then Sepilok and ask his lady to marry him. He’s gotta go right now before she leaves. He starts balling and getting all choked up telling me how he left her and that he doesn’t want to wait and let her “get away”. I immediately concede and say, “let’s go then mate!” As we walk back to camp though, I start using my rational brain. I tell him there’s no use in paddling 5 hours in the dark—which would’ve been more like 8—just to get back and wait for a bus. He agrees if I promise to leave first thing; so I agree to rally the gear at 4am. We made a weak attempt to start a fire, then ate our noodles with such a disgraceful sight that there must have been a banner placed above our heads, “PITIFUL!”
The pic shows the space that forced an Englishman to cuddle with an American on a warm jungle night as he tried to apologize for ruining my journey…”but you can go on if you like” he offered. Sorry mate, but one person cannot paddle this lug on the big river; won’t work. Instead of making fun of him, which his mates surely would’ve done he assured me, I told him all the things that made sense and comforted him while helping him to realize that the whole journey was all for a bigger purpose. No worries for me, cuz the next morning I caught him way off guard when I took the piss out of his soppin’ about on my shoulder. We laughed as the darkness remained. Throughout the night, I found it difficult to sleep because of the noises that constantly rang in my ear; rustling about in the trees just above us, scratching and moving towards us on the ground, and don’t forget the bugs buzzin’ ‘bout. 4am came very slowly surprisingly, and we were awakened by the huge prickly stake falling inches within my face as the rain took it out of the ground. So there we sat with this sad tarp draped over our sadder asses for over 30 minutes…ignominy.
Time to move: at that time the tide had come way in and I had to sink knee dip in stinky mud to get the boat to water; we threw everything in that tub of a boat, and were off. We actually woke up the animals instead of them waking us up. It was funny to hear nothing followed quickly by the scared shaking of branches as the monkeys flew for cover. The monitor was still there sleeping and I pointed him out to Tim, who couldn’t believe that “crocodiles” could climb trees. It was a great way to welcome the sun, even though I knew that the journey would soon be over. I didn’t think that the overnight stay had been that bad, but he was adamantly amorous, we were out of food, and we were both quite sore. We did spot 2 wild orangutans shortly after hitting the big river; that helped me 4get for awhile; one of them was a male. He was enormous and just sitting on a thick broken branch eating some fruit. He held his arm out at a 90 degree angle and I swore it was a leg…massive. Only 3 hours into the paddle, he flagged down a motor boat and had him bring us to the village. He could see the disappointment on my face and asked if I would have the guy take me back out there to paddle the part he’d cut off so I wasn’t cheating…I laughed hysterically…”I’m not crazy mate; c’est la vie.”
Unfortunately no elephants were spotted, but other than that I was happier with the trip than I originally felt. I mean we did make it to Sukau on our own which is more than most of the travelers--that were attempting the same thing the same day who had asked me how to do it—had done. We had also rented a boat for super cheap, paddled on a rock the distance of the Atlantic with two lead poles, seen myriad monkeys, elephant footprints, monitors, hornbills, and slept out with nature completely exposed.
Tim paid a fortune—from their perspective—to get back to where he would kneel before his lady friend and I went to the Brother-in-law’s palace where I saw what we missed out on. Complete peace was found there with home cooked food and solitary stoops conducive to thought…good after all that. The enormous prawns helped to keep me satiated while a group of Malays working on a cell tower tried to communicate in English and I in Malay.
I returned to find a note from Tim saying that his fiancée and he were on their way off to some place near where I’m writing this from…nice that she actually said yes. I had thought how shitty that would be, though funny…fair enough, she was sucked in by his spontaneity and I was back to “civilization” with the apes before I left to climb the famous Mt. Kinabalu.
