Borneo

Borneo.

The very word conjures up images of lush tropical jungles, mountains shrouded in fog, furry orangutans and wandering pygmy elephants. Jaded as I was, I thought that Borneo would live up to its incredible depiction in the BBC's Planet Earth DVDs; a massive jungle akin to the fantastical description above, caves teeming with bats and spiky mountains jutting out of the wild landscape.

I arrived in Kota Kinabalu super early in the morning (after a sleepless night fending off bedbugs in Kuala Lumpur) with a new bug wreaking havoc on my digestive tract, and found a decent backpacker hostel to crash in downtown. Upon asking the hotel receptionist where the best place in town for local food was, I was directed to the food court at the local mall. I then discovered the friendly neighborhood KFC, the Body Shop, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Famous Amos Cookies, a ton of flashy clothing shops and more western corporations than I care to list here. After grabbing some Nasi Goreng Ayam, I headed back to the hostel to try to take care of myself. I had just battled a bug in Cambodia on my birthday a few weeks before so I tried to beat the bug with vitamins, echinacea, sleep, loads of water and a bit of gatorade, and western food (for comfort really). This meant that I essentially wasted a day in KK trying to catch up on sleep, take care of myself and trying hopelessly to figure out how one goes about seeing all of Borneo's attractions.

No one really had any information about getting around or booking things, so I stuck to online information and asked around a bit about climbing Mt.Kinabalu, which I really wasn't up for anyways. It was booked up, with no space for several days. So I decided to scratch that and head to Sandakan to see the jungles. In the meantime, I emailed a few dive shops to inquire about diving at the famous Pulau Sipidan site and spent a day wandering the town. I went for a long walk down to the Sabah Museum only to discover that it is quite possibly the most random collection of stuff I've ever seen under one roof. One building contained the Provincial Art Gallery, Science Centre, Radio Broadcasting History Museum, Railway Museum AND a massive flashy History of Petroleum exhibit (aka. Propaganda display) sponsored by Shell. The main building, which was more of a traditional museum had clearly been put together 30 years ago and was really outdated with stuffed animals, traditional costumes and photos of the region through colonial times to present day. I had intended to wander through the traditional villages set up on the museum grounds outside, but got stuck in a massive torrential downpour of rain and was confined to the old exhibits indoors.

I caught a cheap flight (thank you Air Asia) to Sandakan the following morning at an ungodly hour in order to make it to the Uncle Tan's Jungle camp tour that I had booked. We started the trip by heading over to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center to watch the morning feeding. The visit was a bit disappointing as only one orangutan showed up, hand in hand with a caretaker to drink some milk from a bucket on the feeding platform. The troop of Macaque monkeys sneaking around trying to steal fruit from the rangers was entertaining enough though, and the displays at the center proved that they have a pretty good program going. Once back at the "Ops Base" for Uncle Tans I had some lunch, felt horrible and decided to take some Antibiotics (which made me feel almost 100% better a mere 2 hours later, thank god) before we clambered into a minivan with out backpacks wrapped in plastic on the accompanying truck.

Driving for an hour from the base in Sepilok to the Kinabatangan River was shocking. ALL of the jungles have been destroyed and palm oil plantations stretch out over the horizon as far as the eye can see. The even rows of palms interrupted only by massive homes of the owners or processing plants made up the only sight to see on the drive to camp. I was horrified and devastated. Borneo is not the jungle paradise I had in mind (Thank you National Geographic and the BBC for helping feed my jaded misconceptions). I had just read about this tragedy in a National Geographic Magazine from the last few months, but it seemed to suggest that there was still jungle left, and that there was still hope - this sight contradicted that hope, and confirmed the author's research about just how excessive the deforestation has become.

Feeling totally disheartened, I climbed onto a little 18ft boat with a 40hp Yamaha on the back and was careened upriver at slightly dangerous speeds (considering all the crap floating down the river) by a young guide to our camp. Within 15 minutes of beginning our journey to camp, we zig-zagged across to one side of the river to watch a wild orangutan feeding on some kind of figs high up in a tree. At first I was amazed and highly impressed - a WILD orangutan in Borneo, how cool is that!? But was then saddened to see that a mere 50 metres away from the riverbank, the jungle abruptly ended to make way for, you guessed it, palm oil plantations. It was the kind of scene one could make into a poster: Save Wild Orangutans from loss of Habitat! I get it now.

Anyways, we traveled upriver for about an hour until we reached camp, spotting Egrets and Macaque monkeys all along the way and settled at the camp, which consisted of very basic open huts and a central area that served as a dining room. We spent the next 2 days doing more boat rides along the river and going on 'Jungle Treks' (short walks in up to 12 inches of mud) to spot local wildlife. On the walks we spotted a lot of small animals - tree frogs, insects - including massive butterflies - and birds up in the trees. Over the course of the 3 day trip I spotted about 10 wild orangutans and countless proboscis and macaque monkeys, but was constantly saddened by the increasingly shrinking forests around them.

While out in the jungle and with limited cell phone reception, I spent bits of spare time calling various dive shops in Sabah province trying to arrange a dive at the famous Pulau Sipadan island on the Northeast coast. After calling countless shops I was told that I had left it too late and that all the dive permits for the protected area on Sipadan were taken. Once again disheartened in Borneo, I changed my plans and decided to head to Sandakan with the family from New Zealand I had met on the Jungle trip... from there we would try to coordinate transport to a massive cave and see what else was possible with a limited budget and limited time. After 3 days in the Jungle without running water or electricity I was happy to head back to civilization to try to plan the rest of my journey...