Proboscis Monkeys are in some ways like a clumsy fat guy, and in other ways like an acrobat. They, and their big stupid noses and beer bellies, jump from branch to branch way up high, yelling at each other and chasing each other around. You can hear them from far away because they break half of the branches they use, and even when they’re just chilling, they fidget and throw twigs and tree bits at the ground. Their nickname is Dutchmen in Malaysia , probably after those who’d colonised the area in the past.
Our ride here was a pretty anti-climactic Canada Day. We ignored advice to leave Kuching early, and ended up regretting it, since we ended up waiting three hours for other people to share a boat with. These potentially extant other people never materialized, and we ended up going alone and paying for the whole trip between just the two of us. The guy driving the boat was pretty cool about it, chatted with us and made plans to pick us up, jumping off the boat up to his thighs on the beach to walk the boat in. He was probably 80 years old, and I’ll be lucky if I’m that handsome and speedy when I get that old. That yellow ticket is the one for the guy; I guess his name is Bujang. Or maybe that’s just the word for boat or something.
The pink and red ticket is the ~1 hour bus ticket to the boat. Getting that bus was funny in itself, because while we were waiting, people kept telling us we were waiting in the wrong place and sending us across the street and then back to where we’d already been waiting.
The boat goes along mangrove forests, skirting around the shallows and staying close to the ‘shore.’ The landscape goes from a narrow river surrounded by stilted village, to mangrove forests, to the sea, with islands on the North and cliffs on the South. Around a corner, and there’s a wide sandy beach book-ended with cliffs and backed by jungle and more mangroves: our destination. Our boat man dropped our grumpy asses off at the beach, and we walked to the main building to check in and get walked along boardwalks to all the chalets. Ours is a four-bed cottage, in a long dark-wood building with four rooms side by side, a huge balcony across the front, with a kitchen-minus-useful-appliances on the right. Did I mention the wild pigs? One of them had green paint on its back from a painting job, I guess. They just wander around the park grounds, hiding in the shade of the boardwalk, digging holes in the lawn, and generally being awesome. Until they feel that hanging laundry is aggressive behaviour and start charging at my ankles. Their noses are really squishy and wet, so you know. And they do, in real life, roll around in giant mud puddles. Stinky mud puddles.
And did I mention the monkeys? Not just the proboscis ones, but the macaques. Those little guys hang around the cottages, too, play games of Who’s Dominant with the staff, swing around the tree branches, and break into the rooms and kitchen to take all our food stuffs. The clever little fuckers know how to use doorknobs, how to open windows, and even the fridge. And they don’t mind playing chicken with anyone who’s eating on their porch. Neither do the pigs, though. Now there’s a clever part of adaptation… knowing that being adorable and having patience near humans usually means you’ll end up with some snacks.
Our days at Bako were spent hiking, becoming exhausted, and then chilling to recover from said exhaustion with our strange German roommates and another couple a few doors down.
Our first day, drawn in purple on my map, was a good taste of the eco-systems and animals to see in the park. Going counter-clockwise from the headquarters, you go straight into steep rocky jungle with long paths and staircases up and down and around giant boulders and thick jungle. This is the place where the big-nosed pot-bellied guys hang out… along with the giant trees, thick undergrowth, and gazillion different types of vines. The little cute ones that creep up trees and on rocks, and the thick-as-my-thigh ones that hang down from the canopy in giant curly-cues. Sean ogled at the ginger monkeys while I stared at all the variety of green things that grow big and small, all on top of each other in layers from the ground to the sky.
From the breath-taking (literally) rocky jungle part of the trail, you slowly climb higher and higher to a plateau of smaller trees, little birds, pitcher plants and white-as-clouds sand and mud. That part is long and gets a little boring and sunny, but it feels good to walk on flat land after the steep bits. Before going back downhill to the part HQ, we took the yellow path down to what we thought was a beach, but turned out to be a giant pock-marked flat rock at the top of a hundred-metre drop down to the beach. Looking down to the beach we decided that the view was great and that the walk down and back up didn’t look good to our tired legs.
The next day we went clockwise and decided to do the big loop. Not the biggest in the park, but the biggest that we could do in one day without camping out with our lack of equipment in the park. Good thing too since it rained every night while we were there. When we were a third of the way we were decidedly tired and half done our water, but we kept going. Through a few more eco systems, some thick jungles with hills, some long lowlands with thumb-thick roots making a messy knobbly carpet across the path, crossing a few streams with feathery trees hanging over the edges, up and down some steep rocky and muddy cliffs, and ultimately back to the proboscis monkey parts near the HQ. By the end we categorically were going to have a lazy day tomorrow, and went straight to shower, eat, chill out, and sleep.
Day three was short and easy, clockwise through the jungle with a break to stare at the proboscis monkeys, across a short bit of flat boardwalks with white sand and short trees, up and down muddy paths to a beach. A lonely beach with Jurassic trees, tiny jellyfish, soft sand, and an epic view. We swam, lazed, gathered some cute shells and shit, stared at everything around us, and contemplated our luck. To be here on Borneo , on a beach surrounded by thick beautiful jungle, hilarious monkeys, enjoying our rubber shoes, sore legs, and brand new set of memories. Feeling good.
Proboscis Monkey chilling out.
Boulders, staircases, roots and vines. And a little Sean over there.
The flat bits with white sand and shorter trees.
The edge of the beach at the HQ has these neat cliffs on one side, and mangrove forest on the other.
Beautiful river looks like something out of a fantasy movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment