JB to Kuching, the Gingers, Gunung Santubong and Bako National Park

Well so I set off from Tioman on 6th November and headed by numerous modes of transport to Johor Bahru, where I was due to catch my plane to Borneo. It was very tiring, setting of at 6am and not arriving in Kuching until midnight! However, I saved so much money and then, this is KEY, i helped an old lady of the plane and she got her son to give me free lift all the way to my hostel in the town centre. How nice was that.... yes yes, part of me thought it was trick but the woman was very religious, so I assumed admitting I was an atheist was my worst crime. The hostel is great - Singgahsana Lodge, would recommend it to everyone.

Woohoo though, it seems like a stop well worth making on my way. Food is great and I had such a great day on my first day. Saw this and thought of Katie.....











Then I headed over to Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre - where they look after the wild men of Borneo. They are nutured back to health and then released into the safe national park. They come by for feedings twice a day and you're allowed to stand silently from afar and watch. You're lucky if any come at all in this season as there is so much fruit in the trees but I was lucky by God..... a brilliant day.

On my second day I had heard rumours of a great mountain trek quite close to Kuching called Gunung Santubong (910m), only 3.4km with a few ropes and ladders to help you on your way, so I decided I would give it a go. The guide suggested it was 5 hours each way, of course I scoffed at that convinced I could do it in less - it's not even the size on Snowdon, bah! 10am I set off as that was the earliest bus to the national park, and I knew I had to be back there by 5pm as that was the time of the last bus. Very excited to get my legs working again, I set off with vigour. 5 minutes later I was gasping... joke. No after about 2 hour of ups and downs, and thinking I was being hunted by something - turns out it was those damn monkeys crashing around (Silver leaf monkeys no less), very very cute when I did manage to spot one in the undergrowth - I made it to the final checkpoint (5 hours my arse). Points to note, not only had I not considered that some of the trek would be stupidly steep, but I had also underestimated the effect of the humidity (only 80%) on my ability to climb. Feck me. After this, things got a insanely sweaty, hairy and absolutely exhausting - good job I had brought 3 litres of water with me but even that wasn't enough. It was the three bananas and couple of biscuits that really held me together, oh yes! It was just so steep with continuing climbing on ladders and ropes, over roots, and rocks, hanging on to roots for grip - a bit like Tarzan. So after all that I didn't even make it to the top. Having been trained thoroughly to watch the clock, I had a time limit and knew going down would take much longer than it should do, so after a total of 4 hours I had to turn back even though I was probably only  half an hour from the summit. ARSE. Good job I did though, as I arrived just in time for the bus, with only seconds to spare, and a storm arrived which from the bottom looked pretty hairy on the summit. So in the evening I ate my weight in beef satay and rice, went to bed at 8pm and work up the next day feeling like an elephant had sat on me all night.

it got dark all of a sudden!

On my third day I lay on my bed and didn't move (purely as a precaution to over doing myself of course, nothing to do with the severe muscular pain coursing through my body) apart from going to post office, park office and bank, oh and for some Laksa. For light entertainment that evening I went on wildlife tour in the wetlands close to Kuching - but a storm came in and meant it got cancelled so I went home, having done nothing all day. Good.








On the fourth and fifth day and onwards I headed over to Bako National Park (still unable to walk really). The only way to get to the park is by boat and as such is very dependent on the tides (they change by like 5m so many people get stranded and have to walk with mud up to this knees).






Had heard rotten things about the park accommodation and it was awful but bearable especially with so much wildlife in the near vicinity. This was a place to go hiking through primary rain forest, truly very beautiful but I was so fecked off by the roots by the end of the two days, I almost wept every time I went out. The wildlife was amazing though and if you just stopped and looked in the bushes you would always see something! Probiscus monkeys (do you know they are aroused 100% of the time, and you can see it as well, although I didn't capture it in this photo!), hermit crabs, trillions of ants (my question: do ants sleep?), pitcher plants, frogs, monitor lizards, flying foxes the list goes on - i won't bore you with thousands of pictures.

for Katie

Long tailed macaque monkeys also live in this national park - these are the ones I have seen so many times in cages in the UK. Thinking I would love to see them in the wild, they are the cheekiest little bastards you never wish to come across. Truly I felt like a frightened pensioner trapped in my home by a gang of youths hanging around on the streets. I was too scared to take out my camera in front of them in case they nicked it (so no photos)..... they would sit in the middle of the path (the majority are young and about 50 cm high when sat down) and not move, stare you down (like they do) and as you walked around them they would run at you legs in a mock chase and then run off laughing when you turned and stomped at them. I mean really.

So that was that, swan in the sea and then realised there had been warnings about salt water crocs (oops), and then headed off back to Kuching and on to Mulu National Park up in the middle of Borneo for the caves and the bats! Bring it on David Attenborough!