Have backpacks will travel....

Bako national park was established back in 1957 (same year that Malaysia became an independent country) and covers an area of about 2,700 hectares. It is quite a small area for a national park (and is one of Sarawak's smallest) yet it contains almost every type of vegetation found in Borneo. There is one trail within the park (which takes roughly 3 hours to complete) where you can see 5 out of the 7 different ecosystems that are contained within the park.

These are the deadly (to ants) pitcher plants. Inside, they contain a lethal (yet attractive to insects) acid. The poor insects hop in, then get eaten alive as they slowly dissolve in the liquid. They grow in dense forest, usually where there are fallen leaves.

Mangrove forest

Baco is probably one of the best places in Sarawak to experience wildlife, which is why we decided to spend three days here. It is home to some rather scary animals (such as snakes and the unruly macaque monkeys, not forgetting the carnivorous plants!), but also some lovely ones (such as the proboscis monkeys and comical crabs).


This is the sight that greeted us at Bako national park. It is a Bornean bearded pig. We saw 5 of these trotting in and out of the vegetation.

Having had previous experience of the macaque monkeys we knew about their stealing habits. But on arrival we were forewarned that the ones in the park are particularly bold and are constantly on the rob, so we should lock all doors, windows and ensure all food is locked away. However, we weren't prepared for the day that one scally macaque did a smash 'n' grab of Andrew's foodplate at the restaurant and nicked his fish. The cheek of it!

And they look so innocent and cute....

The snakes in the park, although potentially dangerous (though not lethal to humans) were very docile. During the 3 days we were there, they didn't change position. Could they have been plastic?

These are both types of wagler's pit viper. We also saw a whip snake a couple of times, but in true whip snake style, they were too quick to photograph, or to even say "there goes a whip sn.." before it's buggered off.

We found the hermit crabs very funny, with their borrowed shells. They're all roaming the beach (when the tide is out) in some really odd outfits.

Cocky crab - "come down here and say that"! (were sure it was saying that to us). We think this is some type of fiddler crab. It just has one huge pincer - they were all like this - it's not a disabled one.

We were quite fascinated by the mudskippers, which leap about the shoreline and are very quick (though wouldn't win a race with a whip snake)

Other than the (frankly annoying) macaques, there are some nice monkeys to be found within Baco. One type is the silver leaf monkeys (or silvered langurs) which are quite shy, sleepy and spend most of their day sitting up a tree doing not very much.

Silver leaf monkey

We were really pleased to get to see the proboscis monkeys in their natural habitat. They were quite high up in the canopy, and we could see them clearly leaping from tree to tree. These monkeys are endemic to Borneo and are considered an endangered species. They are mostly arboreal, and spend their time eating young shoots, leaves and sour fruits (they are unable to eat sweet fruits as this causes gas in their stomach and they are in danger of exploding!) One lucky male has a harem of around 12 females. He differs from the female physically; not only is he larger and has a pot pelly, he's also the one with the funny looking, huge pendulous nose (the bigger the better to attract all those females into his harem).

Proboscis monkey

Different view of the same proboscis monkey

If it wasn't for the mosquitoes, we could have tried a nocturnal walk, where we could have spied such delights as a slow loris, western tarsier, mouse deer, flying lemur, pangolin, palm civet and different kinds of bats. But we'd already been eaten alive in the daytime, so we'll watch these from the comfort of our settee, on the telly, with David Attenborough for company (the BBC have been into the Baco national park several times to film).

Bako at sunset.

It took us around 5 hours, from Kuching, to reach the Iban's long house. This entailed a pleasant journey by van through the Borneo countryside and included a stop off at a pepper garden, to see how pepper is produced. The pepper plant is essentially a vine that requires a central stake for support. All 3 types of pepper (black, white and red) are produced from the same vine, but they are processed in different ways. The berries are picked when ripe and are laid out in the sun for a few weeks to produce black pepper. From the same harvest, other berries are rinsed or soaked in water for up to 2 weeks to remove the outer husk, revealing the white corns inside, and subsequently dried to produce white pepper corns. Only the best (heaviest) berries are reserved to produce the red pepper corns. This process occurs by boiling the berries for a couple of days - and this "dyes" the berries red - before they are dried.

Black pepper drying out in the Malay sunshine

We then changed van for longboat and had an agreeable half hour moseying up the river to our "home" for 2 nights. Lisab (being an unsociable type) was a little wary of spending so long in the company of people with whom she couldn't readily communicate - though we both were interested in seeing how the Ibans really live - and felt this couldn't be achieved by a one day tour. We had booked our tour with Borneo Adventures, which had promised an "authentic" stay in a longhouse; this would include being the only tourist guests in the longhouse at the time of our visit.

The longhouse that was our home for 2 nights

As we arrived, we were greeted by the chief and his wife, and given a drink of rice wine. We were then left by our guide to "mingle" with the members of the longhouse. This particular longhouse is inhabited by 34 families, and although they have their own spaces (to cook, sleep & sometimes watch satellite telly!), people are often found relaxing or (if they are older women) working on their handicrafts, on the communal ruai - a roofed verandah. This runs the length of the longhouse. It was a little awkward at first - they often spoke minimal English; we only know the word for toilet (tandas) and closed (tutup) in Malay - so there was alot of nodding and smiling going on. Added to this, the Ibans were at the end of celebrating the harvest festival, which had started on the 31t May. Some of the (younger) male members of the community were a little piddled by our 4pm arrival. But most seemed genuinely interested in our visit and families would often invite us into their house for a glass of rice wine or rice whiskey (Lisa often fancied a cup of tea, but was given short shrift if she mumured the t-word).

The communal ruai

The boys (who weren't drunk) playing Iban football

Later on in the evening, we were given a formal welcome by the chief, and a welcome dance was performed by two younger Ibans. Part of the welcome involved ritual humilation of the Bruntons as we were invited to take to the dance floor and attempt to copy their dance moves. This was when Lisa cursed herself for refusing the rice wine earlier in the day. We then presented our gifts to the longhouse (pencils and colouring books for the kids).

Unfortuately no coverage of the Brunton's dancing, but here is the male part of the welcome dance.

After the dancing... You'd think the Bruntons would be embarrassed by the silly hats and sillier grins on their faces. But they are far more red faced because of the state of their shirts - bought in a hurry - to keep out the mozzies.

The older Iban community make their living from working on the oil palm planations, rubber planations and making handicrafts to sell to visiting tourists. The optimum time for collecting the rubber sap is around 4am, so they have to get up early in this job. The sap is collected by scoring the tree and letting the sap drip into the pots. The sap is collected from dozens of trees, mixed with a chemical, then poured into a tray and left to dry for a full day. It is then rolled through a mangle to produce a thiner sheet of latex which is aproximately 1.5m by 0.5m and sold for a few English pounds. A number of people work to collect the rubber, yet they are only able to produce one sheet of latex per day.

A rubber tree that has been tapped to drain the sap

The Ibans are one of three different tribes in Borneo that used to practice the custom of head hunting. Thankfully the practice is now ceased (at least in Malaysian Borneo - our guide told us the practice still occurs in tribes in Indonesian Borneo - though he could have been kidding us). There were 3 reasons why the Iban tribe collected skulls - to gain land, to gain pride, or to gain a fair maiden's hand in marriage. When the community grew too large for their land to supply them with enough forest to hunt and collect food, they would politely ask a neighbouring tribe for extra land. If the request was refused, they would then attack the village at dawn, after a full night of rituals. The land seekers would cut off all the heads of the males within the attacked village. They would celebrate their success in another ritual, whereby each warrior would mix together the brains and blood of the particular men they'd killed with rice wine and drink the mixture. This was thought to give the warriors increased power, as they took the strength and soul of the dead warrior. The women from the village would become slaves for a period of 2 and a half years (being made to cook, clean etc) before being integrated into the community. The more heads a warrior gained, the more pride and esteem he could command within his community. Successful warriors were deemed to be powerful and were therefore respected by their tribe and others. When a warrior wanted a wife, he would visit a longhouse and peruse the women - to see if anyone took his fancy. He would woo his chosen one with a short courtship, before suggesting marriage. The woman would accept marriage ONLY if she fancied him, AND on the proviso that he bring her the head of the most respected warrior he could kill. Often, one woman could be courting several eager warriors, and the first one back with the best head won! Lisab says "what's wrong with a diamond ring?"

Primary school for the young Ibans is about a 40 minute boat ride away, but for the secondary school kids, they leave the longhouse and board at a hostel for a few weeks to go to school near Kuching. We spoke to one family where 2 daughters were visiting for the festival - they were married and now lived in Kuching and KL. It seems that the younger Ibans are getting a taste of different cultures and are moving out of the longhouse tradition. Because it was festival time a number of families were visiting, so it was hard to get a true sense of how many younger Ibans are staying at the longhouse full time.

The second day was spent in the jungle. We first had a walk through the forest; all the while our guides were picking fruits from the trees (such as limes, mangosteens and chillies) to let us try them. It also involved trudging through the river, up to our knees in water. We then stopped for them to make us a delicious bamboo lunch. This involved them hacking down bits of trees to make a barbeque and to get fire wood, cutting bamboo to provide makeshift cooking utensils, and cutting fresh banana leaves to cook the rice in etc. It was great watching their survival skills in action; we felt like we were living through an episode of Ray Mears.

One of our guides for the day made us these sticks after Andyb fell down an embankment and Lisab slipped onto her arse on the path. And we were the ones wearing proper hiking boots....

Preparing our gormet lunch

When Andyb's chicken went on the bbq

This video shows the man using a kris to cut the bamboo

The dogs at the long house

The last day, after breakfast and before we said farewell, we were treated to a blow pipe demonstration. They were also going to throw in a cock fight for free but the vegetarian declined the invitation. The blow pipe was a weapon that they used to kill animals and other warriors - they would dip the dart in poison (from a tree) shooting it into their prey. Muchas fun was had by both Bruntons attempting to hit the target (competitive wife was on top form).

Blow pipe demonstration

Both of us thought the longhouse trip was interesting rather than enjoyable. Our guide had purposely left us on our own to engage with the longhouse inhabitants (or at least that's how he justified his long disappearances), which was ok to an extent, but there's only so much nodding and smiling we could do. When he was there and interpreting for us, it was much more interesting - particularly when a couple were asking for his help (the man's ex-wife had put a black magic curse on his new wife - they were clearly terrified at the potential consequences of it). But we certainly felt that we'd got an insight into how the Iban's live in the 21st Century.

Did you know that the word orang-utan means man of the forest in Malay? Or that the scientific name given to orang-utans is pongo pygmaeus? (they must smell up close). These are just some of the facts that you can find out if you visit (as we did) the nature reserve at Semenggoh, near Kuching in Malaysian Borneo. You also get the chance to see some of the 22 semi-wild orang-utans that are "housed" within the reserve. The aim of the wildlife centre is to rehabillitate the orang-utans and eventually set them out into the wild. However, the orang-utans have often been kept as pets for a number of years before being confiscated and brought here, so they lack survival skills. The nature reserve is made up of a few hundred hectares of Dipterocarp Forest (ones that contain several types of fruiting trees) and so the orang-utans are free to roam the area for their food. They also get fed twice during the day. We went to see an afternoon troughing session and were lucky enough to see around 8 orang-utans - which included a few mums and babies, as well as the dominant male (no, not Andyb); Ritchie.

A picture of the big man. Ritchie now weighs a humungous 110kgs (2 Lisab's). He is now around 18 years old, and has obvious flanges (cheek pads). These start to grow when the male orang-utan reaches about 10-15 years, but only if there are no other dominant males around. Apparently, the bigger the cheeks, the more success he'll have with the ladies, as females are attracted to big 'uns. For their size, orang-utans are strong. It is said that (fully grown) male orang-utans have the strength of six men. We don't know how this "fact" was arrived at. We don't know if there was a fight between six Malay men and one orang-utan (because Malay men are quite small on the whole and this could skew the figures).

Mum and her "baby" which we think is about 2 years old. The infants stay with their mum until they are about 5 years, when mum chucks them out of the nest to breed again - aww.

Learning the ropes.

These are a few videos of the orang-utans showing off their tree climbing and swinging skills!

We had really enjoyed seeing the orang-utans at the Singapore zoo - but we much preferred seeing them here in their more natural environment. Because the orang-utans have a large area to roam, it felt special to see them arrive for a spot of fruit; not all of them turn up at feeding time. We were also very glad that we didn't listen to the man at the National Sarawak Museum who told us that we shouldn't bother to visit the orang-utans that afternoon because it was going to thunder and they don't like thunder, so they hide, and we wouldn't see them. We should instead join him and two other American tourists for a visit to another wild life sanctuary where for a bargain 160 ringitts (27 pounds) we were guaranteed to see a few animals (including orang-utans) in cages. Needless to say, it didn't thunder and we saw lots!

It's been a while since the Bruntons enjoyed a holiday, so we opted for a bit of rest and relaxation on the lovely little island of Tioman, Malaysia. The place had been voted as one of the top ten islands in the world by Time magazine a few years ago, so we thought "if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us".

Eight days were spent lazing around the beach, reading books, eating, and snorkelling. We were glad that we'd visited the Barrier Reef first, because we were both REALLY impressed by it; it was the first snorkelling we'd done in the tropics. However, we reckon the snorkelling at Tioman beat the Reef, for corals (it was much brighter and more colourful here), variety of fish, and numbers of fish. We didn't get to wear those fetching lycra suits though, and both Lisab & Andyb burnt their bums (well, the bit that the swim wear doesn't cover), despite being lathered in 30+ factor suncream. We also didn't have an underwater camera. But amongst the fish we spied was a really big flat one (don't know it's latin name), a Ray of some sort, clown fishes(only know these cause of "Finding Nemo"), some other big fishes, and some other little fishes. We also saw loads of clams, a big turtle and these really weird, almost luminous corals, which really impressed Lisab.

Andyb enjoying a beer at (nearly) sunset

Our home for a few days. (the highest chalet)

The view from our digs, at Bamboo Hill. This place looked idyllic, and was, except for each time we opened the door, things would scatter, under the bed and up the walls. For example, Lisa saw a mouse one day jumping out of the bin (it was empty) and behind the bed headboard. Funnily enough, we moved on after a couple of days...

This is a macaque monkey with her baby. Each morning around 6am, we would hear the pitter patter of monkey feet on the roof of our villa. They used our roof as a spring board to get to the trees. The trees contained some kind of fruit, that they would eat at various points during the day.

Sunset at Salang

Air Batang

We took a stroll through the rain forest one day to get to "Monkey Bay" (the clue should have been in the name). We'd taken lunch, snacky things, but left them (underneath the towels and books) in a zipped up backpack, whilst we went to snorkel. Just as we were walking out of the sea, Andyb was struck by a thought - "I hope those monkeys haven't nicked the bag". Well, as luck would have it, they didn't, but they had (or should we say he) riffled through all our possesions, and niftily (we thought, cause nothing was out of place) helped himself to our food. We found him up a tree, eating our bag of crisps. Andyb called him a "little monkey", Lisab called him something more choice (we all know Lisa don't share food). At least he wasn't wearing our t-shirt or watch, whilst taking photo's of us below. The monkey had also kindly left us all the rubbish and crumbs by Andyb's t-shirt, so at least we didn't add to the litter problem (as well as encouraging a junk food habit amongst Macaques). It's the last time we'll snorkel before lunch.

Monkey Bay