Socialising in Sarawak

We've spent a very sociable 9 or 10 days in the state of Sarawak, Borneo, mainly thanks to all the staff and fellow travellers we've spent time with at the Singgahsana Lodge in the capital, Kuching, and those we've shared boats with, exchanged wildlife sightings with, eaten meals with, shared travel ideas with, or learned about local customs and traditions from. Loads of Aussies, 4 Nigerians in Sarawak to study engineering, a French couple living on Reunion Island but thinking of relocating permanently to Sarawak, a retired English couple whose home is their boat moored currently in Turkey, which they use on alternate years for lengthy voyages to exotic places, and which they rent out on alternate years in order to do more overland travelling, and a young German couple, Maya an Hannes, who we've spent quite a bit of time with. Quite a bunch!

One delightful encounter was with an elderly English gentleman with clipped moustache and of obviously military bearing, whom we chatted to for a while in the streets of Kuching one day. We learned from him about the time when he was stationed here with an airborne division of the Army in the run-up to Independence for Malaya and Borneo. A little-known part of the history of that time is that British troops were asked to stay on to help repel attacks from the Indonesians, who'd seen the British withdrawal from Malaya as their opportunity to take over Sarawak and Sabah. This ex-logistics officer told us quite a few anecdotes about his time there, and about the one-time fears that the British army would actually be overrun by the Indonesians, and how this had emboldened him to propose to the young Chinese girl in the Ting & Ting Supermarket - still here in Kuching today - which was at that time supplying most of the British army's foodstuffs. Over his 3 or 4 -year professional relationship with her, he'd slowly fallen for her, but she'd kept him very much at arms length. In the end, though, he managed to persuade her that, should the British be forced to withdraw, her life might well be in danger as a 'collaborator', and she and her family finally agreed that she should marry him, so that she could go back to the UK with his regiment. All these years later, they both live still in the UK, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, and come back to Kuching regularly to visit what remains of her family. What a heart-warming little piece of personal history, mixed in with some fascinating world history!

Amongst the Borneon people we've learned from have been those from the wide range of Sarawak tribes who help to staff the town's museums and the Sarawak Cultural Village set in the jungle forest of Damai/Santubong village, about an hour's drive from Kuching. The Cultural Village is also where the now annual Rainforest World Music Festival takes place every July - might need to put that one our list! The place reminded me, in its scope, of the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings in Bromsgrove (where daughter Cath and son-in-law Math had their wonderful wedding and celebration, nearly 14 years ago now: good grief!) The similarity is that the Sarawak Cultural Village is spread out over a vast acreage, and has 'living' examples of typical tribal homes, artefacts, and musical instruments etc. from just about every one of Sarawak's indigenous tribal peoples - including the head-hunters! We certainly saw one large, round, wooden headhunters' house with a number of of real heads (well, skulls now) hanging up in the roof, the relics of battles in the not too distant past apparently. Though head-hunting is now illegal in Borneo, some people believe that the practice does continue occasionally, deep in the interior, where 'enemies' come face to face in unpoliced areas.

We'd been to the Cultural Village on our first full day in Kuching, by way of a quick introduction to Borneo, whilst we were waiting to embark on our weekend trip in Bako National Park. This trip to Bako turned out to be a wildlife experience par excellence - which was just as well, given the disgusting, mildew-ridden, litter-strewn wooden chalets we stayed in there, and whose 'disgustingness', though legendary amongst travellers and locals, is seemingly not acknowledged or understood by the National Park staff who run the place.

We'd arrived at Bako by bus and then boat, the boat dropping us at a beach near to the National Park's Headquarters, where we needed to pay for a visitor's permit, and behind which the chalets and dormitories were situated in amongst the mangroves. Andy and I immediately embarked upon a 5-hour trek (one of 14 to choose from - between 1 and 16 hours each). This trek was fairly tough, mainly given the heat and humidity, and took us high into the dipterocarp forest and over limestone rock formations, the whole time requiring us to scramble up and then down huge rocks and boulders, over tightly-knitted tree roots, and across a couple of wooden swing bridges. This meant spending much of the time watching our feet rather than watching the forest for wildlife, or the tree-canopy for birds, and so we had to stop every few hundred yards or so to take stock. So, we sweated around the trek for the 5 hours, bodies running with sweat, clothes sticking to our bodies, eyes stinging from the salty-sweat running over our brows, and, in my case, glasses steamed up from the humidity. And, after all this, we finished the trek having seen precisely NO wildlife or birds anywhere!! Not surprisingly, we got back to base feeling extremely disappointed and a bit grumpy - only to find, all around our chalet, in the trees and mangroves nearby, just loads and loads of wonderful sights: several fairly shy silver-leafed monkeys, and dozens of very cheeky long-tailed macaques scampering around, all of the latter looking for any opportunity to steal things from the visitors. I even saw one leap up from the forest floor, rush across the cafeteria decking as quick as a flash, and grab a cake from a young woman even as she was putting it into her mouth! We also saw several large, adult, bearded pigs, trailed by about a dozen of their piglets, all rooting around in the soil and sand on the beach and around the chalets, and these, along with the macaques, seemed to be an almost permanent fixture around the Park HQ and our accommodation. That evening, we saw our second flying lemur of this trip, only about 10 yards from our chalet, and it stayed there, hugging a large tree-trunk, for well over an hour. The following morning, we woke up to find about half a dozen of the rare proboscis monkeys (found only in Borneo) crashing around in the tree-tops immediately above our chalet; this sight made us a good hour late for breakfast, as we couldn't tear ourselves away from their antics. We also saw a medium-sized, bright-green, tree-snake, which slept on a branch near to where the lemur was parked, and didn't move a muscle for a full 24-hours. On the mangrove floor, at low-tide, we saw loads of very small crabs about half-an-inch across, each with just one huge right claw almost twice as large and much bulkier than its body, moving along in a kind of 'scissors' movement, throwing this huge claw forward, and seemingly using it to haul its body towards the claw. All absolutely fascinating!

Unfortunately, during the trek I'd managed to jar my back badly, and so the second day I hung around the Park HQ and the nearby beach whilst Andy went for a short trek with his camera. Once again, however, it was the sedentary tactic which worked best in terms of wildlife spotting - though, admittedly, more sightings of things we'd seen the previous day, which were nevertheless a real treat. My bad back, however, did mean that we had to abandon our plans to go on a three-day jungle/homestay trek to a fairly remote Iban longhouse, which was being led by one of the trip organisers at the Singgahsana Lodge. Instead, though, at his brilliant suggestion, we took ourselves off to a wonderful, very chic and stylish hotel with swimming pool, owned and run by the same family as the Singgahsana, nestled right in the middle of lush countryside at the foot of Mount Santubong. This place, called The Village House, was built only 4 years ago, and, though it's made use of modern building materials and very trendy bathroom fittings and tiles, white linens, and beautifully coloured 'accent' walls, is roughly based upon the style of an Iban longhouse, and was only a short walk away from Santubong Village and a fairly unspoilt, hardly-visited beach where we witnessed some absolutely stunning sunsets. Such a relaxing way to rest a bad back...!!

Our big disappointment of our stay in Sarawak was when we got up early, the day after our return from The Village House, to go to the Semenggoh Orang Utan Rehabiliation Centre. Having lost the opportunity to see any of our ginger-haired cousins in the 'wild' wild, we thought we'd try this 'managed' wild place- a 37-acre reserve, home to more than 20 orang utans rescued from domesticity or danger, where the rangers provide food at a feeding station twice a day to supplement the orang utans' natural diet, as they learn slowly to fend for themselves. And, twice a day, for one hour only at a time, people are allowed, under strict conditions, to come and watch the feeding station from a short distance away. So, after a 45-minute mini-bus drive and a lengthy briefing by the Reserve's rangers about the dangers of annoying the males or irritating the one nursing mother, we waited by the feeding station at the appointed hour for the next hour - to see precisely NONE of them! Apparently, it's the fruiting season in their part of the jungle, so there's plenty for them to help themselves to at the moment, and, of course, as far as the Centre staff are concerned, it's a huge success that these Sultans of Swing can fend for themselves at least part of the year. So, never mind the Wild Man of Borneo and all that, we ourselves were pretty peed off too!

Still, there's every chance for a second bite at the cherry this coming week, as we begin to explore the jungle in Sabah, Borneo's eastern State, where we'll also be on the trail of their famous pygmy elephants. Fingers crossed ......