Borneo: Rivers, Rainforests and a Lot of Mud
From the beaches of the Philippines, we flew to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, to begin our journey through Borneo. We had entered a different world, where our days would revolve around river cruises, jungle walks, sudden downpours and whatever happened to be moving in the trees.
Kota Kinabalu & Sepilok — First Steps into Borneo
Kota Kinabalu, a port city on the South China Sea, was our gateway to Borneo's rainforests. We walked past a striking floating mosque and along the waterfront to an enormous marlin statue, a fitting symbol for a city shaped by the fishing industry. Malaysia's Muslim culture was much more evident here, and the call to prayer from the local mosques, sounding five times each day, became part of the background rhythm of Borneo. Tomorrow we would take a short 45-minute flight across the Malaysian state of Sabah to Sandakan and our first real introduction to the rainforest around Sepilok.
The stars of Sepilok, of course, were the orangutans. The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center was established to rescue orphaned and displaced orangutans, rehabilitate them and eventually return them to the wild. Here we caught our first glimpse of an orangutan moving through the trees and coming down to feed, as well as a mother carrying her baby. The center also rescues sun bears, the smallest bears in the world, and we saw one in a nearby forest enclosure.
Orangutans are surprisingly human to watch—their long reddish-brown arms and shaggy bodies somehow at odds with the thoughtful expressions on their dark faces. Mothers cuddle their babies, adults sit together almost companionably, and sometimes one simply settles onto a branch and stares into the distance as if lingering over a morning cup of coffee; then it turns and studies us with seemingly the same curiosity with which we are studying it. Seeing orangutans this close was wonderful, but these were animals accustomed to people and feeding platforms. We had yet to encounter them completely in the wild.
Our first night we stayed in a lodge at the edge of the forest. There were a few trails we could explore by ourselves in search of animals. One was an elevated walkway and suspension bridge carrying us through the dipterocarp trees, very tall hardwoods—some 200 feet or more—that make up much of the Borneo rainforest. It was a great place to hear birds, though not usually to see them. On a guided night walk we saw a pit viper curled among the vegetation, a tiny spider, a stick insect and other creatures that seemed considerably larger when illuminated in a completely black jungle.
Sepilok was also our introduction to the peculiar rhythm of looking for wildlife in Borneo. You walk slowly, stare into an apparently empty wall of green, listen to a guide tell you exactly where to look, stare some more—and suddenly there is an animal that seems impossible to have missed. Once your eyes adjusted, the rainforest stopped looking empty. There was something living almost everywhere.
Kinabatangan — Life Along the River
We traveled about an hour and a half by boat up the Kinabatangan River, moving farther into the jungle. For the next few days the river became our highway. Every day we cruised the smaller rivulets looking for wildlife, although usually it was our guide doing the spotting. He would point enthusiastically into an impenetrable wall of green while we stared blankly in the same general direction until one of us finally exclaimed, “Ah ha!”—as if we'd known exactly where the animal was all along. We saw an orangutan moving between the trees, blue-throated bee-eaters flashing through the air, kingfishers along the banks and groups of proboscis monkeys sitting high above the water, their extraordinary noses making them unmistakable.
Proboscis monkeys were harder to take seriously, particularly the males with their enormous drooping noses, reddish coats and round bellies, but they too had an oddly familiar quality. Families sat together high above the river, grooming, eating and watching the world go by, while an occasional male gazed down at our boat with an expression suggesting that we were by far the stranger-looking species. Herons stalked the shallows while macaques noisily moved through the branches.
When it rains, it pours—every day. The rain turned the river and forest into shades of gray as we sat under the boat canopy watching the shoreline disappear behind sheets of water. In the evening, fireflies blinked among the trees while lightning flashed far away, and later we went back onto the river beneath a tiny crescent moon. By early morning everything had changed again. The water was lower and quiet, a large crocodile rested near the bank, a purple heron worked the shallows and baby crocodiles lay along the muddy shore while monkeys moved through the trees above them. Along the banks were fish traps, bamboo and palms, as well as mats of invasive water hyacinth that had somehow made their way here from South America.
One day we crossed the river to have lunch with a local family. From the boat landing we followed a muddy path past a few houses, occasionally balancing along narrow elevated planks that kept us above the wet ground and water. Lunch was simple—rice, chicken, eggs, bok choy and melon—but eating in a family home across the river from our lodge made it one of those small travel experiences that stays in your memory longer than many much grander ones. The river wasn't simply a place where tourists came to look for wildlife; it was home, transportation and livelihood for the people living along its banks.
The people traveling with us became part of the experience too. Along the way we met travelers from England, Scotland, Spain and Denmark, sometimes saying goodbye at one lodge only to unexpectedly run into them again farther down the road. Some continued upriver, while others headed toward islands and beaches, Kuala Lumpur or Bali. It reminded us of the two young Frenchmen we kept encountering in the Philippines. Southeast Asia is enormous on a map, yet travelers following similar paths have a funny way of repeatedly bumping into one another.
When it was time to move on, we traveled for three hours by boat and four-wheel drive, up the river and over rough roads, taking us even deeper into the rainforest.
Tabin — Mud, Sweat and Safaris
Our guide at Tabin knew the forest—the animals, birds, plants and stories—and over the next few days we followed him along trails, through streams, up hills and into the jungle after dark. One of our first destinations was Tabin's famous mud volcano, which sounds considerably more dramatic than it looks. There was no molten lava, just mineral-rich mud bubbling slowly from the earth. Later the jungle spa treatment continued with a DIY mud facial and a foot soak in river water scented with banana leaves, lemongrass and herbs. It was a surprisingly civilized ending to a day spent sweating through the forest.
Our days quickly settled into a rhythm of early-morning hikes, daytime excursions, dusk safaris and night drives. A mouse deer hid in a thicket beside the path, and we also saw monitor a lizard, civet, leopard cat, flying squirrels, red leaf monkeys, hornbills, owls and pheasants. One night the Milky Way stretched above us, another reminder of how far we were from city lights. During a morning walk an orangutan crashed through the canopy overhead, climbing, jumping and occasionally bashing branches as though mildly annoyed by our presence. Late one afternoon we watched another prepare its bed for the night, pulling and bending branches together into a nest high above the forest floor.
The smaller creatures became almost as memorable as the large ones. A giant millipede curled itself into perfect armored ball when disturbed. We found termites inside openings in trees, wild durian, strange geometric ferns and sticky tree resin that could be lit and used as a fire starter. On the Gibbon Trail we climbed through a succession of steep ups and downs, crossing streams and listening for gibbons in the canopy. Within five minutes our shirts were soaked, which by then was simply the normal state of clothing in Borneo. A waterfall swim later in the day was less an activity than a very welcome form of air conditioning. And, inevitably, we got “leeched.”
Our guide also told us about his tribe and traditions that had survived within living memory. He described an earlier time not so long ago when headhunting was part of tribal life and when, according to the stories passed down to him, a young man needed to take a head before he could marry. He also told us about traditional ironwood blowpipes and poisoned darts made using toxins extracted from local plants. Listening to him while standing in the rainforest made the jungle feel less like scenery surrounding a wildlife lodge and more like a place where generations of people had learned how to live and survive.
Tabin also brought another collection of travelers into our orbit. We particularly enjoyed the company of a German couple, and later had a fascinating conversation with a Swiss family from Zurich about Switzerland's education system. It is one of the things we like most about traveling this way: you begin the day looking for orangutans and end it discussing vocational education in Switzerland over dinner. By the time we left Tabin, our wildlife lists had grown considerably, our clothes had rarely been completely dry, and the jungle was beginning to feel almost familiar.
Danum Valley — Deep in the Ancient Rainforest
Our final destination in Borneo was the Danum Valley, deep in a rainforest that is more than 100 million years old and is often described as older than the Amazon. After days of muddy trails and night safaris, there was something slightly surreal about returning from the jungle to such comfortable surroundings.
The wildlife here sometimes appeared before we had even left the lodge. A black squirrel moved through the trees at breakfast, while a family of red leaf monkeys—parents and babies—ate, jumped and swung with astonishing ease through the branches. Our walks produced serpent eagles, pittas, pheasants, macaques and more orangutans. Some of the orangutans were so well known to the guides that they had names, including Alan, a mother named Kate and her daughter known as Beth. Watching them high in the trees, moving through a completely wild forest, felt very different from our first orangutan encounters at the conservation center in Sepilok.
One of Danum's highlights was the canopy walkway, six platforms connected by five hanging bridges, with the highest section about 21 meters above the forest floor. Up there, we were briefly inside the canopy, rather than standing below it staring upward.
Another morning, Mark and our guide left at 6:30 for the Coffin Trail, climbing through fog toward an ancient burial site above the valley. The fog gradually cleared, revealing the forest below. The hike down included a beautiful waterfall and natural pool. The combination of steep trails, humidity and constant moisture made swimming in jungle rivers and waterfalls feel less like an optional excursion and more like a reward.
On an afternoon when our drive was cancelled due to heavy rain, the lodge staff put on a show that included traditional dancing. By then we had learned not to resent the rain. This was a rainforest after all, and the rain was responsible for the extraordinary green world we had come to see. Plans changed, trails turned muddy and clothing never completely dried, but the animals still moved through the trees and the forest continued around us.
After two weeks in Sepilok, along the Kinabatangan River, and in Tabin and Danum Valley, the wildlife sightings had begun to blur together into one long procession of orangutans, monkeys, hornbills, crocodiles, kingfishers, flying squirrels and creatures that appeared only after dark. What remained distinct were the moments: lightning over the Kinabatangan, an orangutan crashing through the canopy, fireflies along a black river, our guide talking about headhunters and blowpipes, red leaf monkeys swinging between trees, and conversations with people from half a dozen countries who had somehow ended up in the same remote corner of Borneo.
Epilogue — Mark's Boots
Mark has a favorite pair of hiking boots that have traveled almost as much as we have. They climbed Kilimanjaro, trekked through the Amazon, crossed China and Europe, and returned with us again and again to Tanzania. They have been soaked, caked in mud, worn thin and repaired more times than either of us can remember.
Whenever the boots needed attention in Moshi, our tuk tuk driver Joseph would pull over at the same stretch of sidewalk. There was no storefront, just a familiar cobbler sitting beside a weathered wooden box surrounded by brushes, scraps of leather, heavy needles, thread and a small hammer. He would smile when he saw Joseph arrive with Mark's boots, take them without much discussion and set about bringing them back to life once again. A little stitching, cleaning and waterproofing, and somehow they would return looking respectable enough for another journey.
Borneo presented a new challenge. Days of rain, mud, streams and nearly constant humidity left the boots permanently wet. At our final lodge, Mark put them on the drying rack, where they sat looking tired, battered and distinctly disreputable while we packed for our flight the next morning.
We packed our bags, checked the room and headed for the airport.
The boots stayed on the drying rack.
After Kilimanjaro, the Amazon, China, Europe and all those visits to the Moshi cobbler, it appeared Mark's favorite boots had finally found the one journey from which they wouldn't be coming home. We, meanwhile, were headed for Jakarta and the Indonesian archipelago.
