AspiringNomad

Part 1- I’ve left it a little while to write as I have been indulging and fully immersing in the amazing world of Borneo. It’s luscious green landscapes, amazing wildlife, laid back vibe, different culture, and burning hot sun has made this place one of the top places I have ever visited!

Bavo and I arrived in Sepilok as planned on Sunday afternoon. We were dropped, quite literally, on the side of a dual carriageway in the burning heat with all our luggage, and we watched the bus drive off into the distance. Thankfully, we live in the 21st century and despite being in the middle of nowhere, we were able to book a Grab taxi to our Sepilok Jungle Resort hostel. It wasn’t like a hostel at all though. It had a few dorms, but most rooms were private rooms with an ensuite. It was a big complex connected by bridges. There was a main reception/dining area and dotted around were other blocks with the rooms in. At the back of the complex, there was a fairly clean pool, and it even had a spa with massage facilities. After the Mount Kinabalu Hike, I was more than ready to make use of that!

I had been given a contact from my French and German friends for a tour provider who, apparently, is a little famous around the Seiplok area for hosting David Attenborough during his visit to East Borneo! Unfortunately, after a bit of backward and forward with very confusing emails about his availability, I had to give up and eventually ask at the reception desk. They offered two half day tours that we decided to book on for the next two days. The following morning, we got up and dressed, ready for a boat trip along the Kinabatangan River. My one pair of long trousers were still dirty from the hike so I had to fashion some of Bavo’s baggy black trousers with my baggy white shirt. We couldn’t decide whether I looked really trendy or just a complete fool. Either way, I didn’t have any choice and we were on our way to the river, which was 2 hours away. On arrival, in true Borneo fashion, it began to absolutely pour it down. The staff were closing down the blinds around the dining area and we were questioning whether we would even make it out onto the river. Fortunately, after 30mins, it all cleared up and our boat journey began. We were out in the hope of spotting some monkeys and some other wildlife. Before we knew it, there was a whole harem of Proboscis Monkeys in the trees above us. Not just one or two but about 30 of them jumping between branches and cleaning each other. The bachelor even gave us a show and swung between the trees, showing off his dominance within the group. On top of that, a troop of Long Tailed Macaque Monkeys were also lining the river bank. Named as the cheekiest of monkeys as their stomachs can handle most food, so they are the ones who like to steel food in built up areas! There were small ones, females with babies and big males. It was beyond amazing to see these beautiful, funny creatures up close in their natural habitat, and it still puts a smile on my face even thinking about it. As well as monkeys, we saw a rather large crocodile and a rather small one, two Hornbills, a Monitor Lizard and a beautiful little Kingfisher. After two hours on the river, we arrived back at the riverside resort and headed back to Sepilok.

The next day, I made the most of a free morning and booked in for a full body massage! Despite me warning the lady about my very sore calves, she still insisted on digging her thumbs into them to the point where I was having to give myself deep breathing exercises to get through the pain! Other than that it was extremely relaxing and for the two hours afterwards we lazed by the pool in the blazing sun. Naively thinking we were not getting much of a tan, we kept moving our loungers (and delicate European skin) into the direct UV of the Borneo sun. Anyone would have thought we knew what we were doing, but we absolutely didn’t and after two hours, we had both burnt to a very pink/red crisp!

Once we established that we may have overdone it in the sun, we headed off to the Orangutan Rehabilitation centre just down the road from where we were staying. The Orangutans here have been rehabilitated after becoming orphans through deforestation or from being injured from illegal trading. They are then free to go into the wild when they are self-sufficient enough to do so, but twice a day, the centre provides a monotonous meal for them. They only give basic watermelon skin and bananas to encourage the Orangutans to source food from elsewhere. We were lucky enough to see one male and a female with her baby. We all had to be very quiet, and it was incredible to witness how gentle these creatures are. They’re strong yet graceful, calm and collected. I now love them even more than I did before!

Once back at the resort, we were ready for our second organised tour to a village about 30mins away. At 4:45pm, we were asked to get into the ‘maroon vehicle parked out the front’, which we were aware sounded a little dodgy, but our driver, Jojo, was definitely not out to kidnap us, she just wanted our custom and spent the next 30mins selling us a package tour to Semporna organised through herself with a company she had some sketchy connection with. After we heard her whole pitch, I took her number just in case, and we soon arrived at our destination. The village where we were to have dinner was very poor, the houses were just tin shacks and we had a go at playing a village game with the local children, which was essentially bowling but with coconuts and plastic bottles (the plastic bottles being an unfortunate reoccurring theme here). We were in a group of 10 and one English woman seemed to think that Bavo and I liked hearing about all her allergies and how burnt she gets if she doesn’t use SPF80 suncream, or in one instance, even when she did use SPF80 cream, she still got burnt. After about 1min, I was getting pretty bored of her various ailments, but Bavo was luckily being very polite and listened to her exaggerated stories! Once on the boat and meandering through the mangroves, the English woman quietened down, Bavo managed to escape and was chatting to some dutch people and I was happily taking in the scenery. We were able to enjoy the sunset from a sandy bank and then look out for the main event, fireflies. The moon was particularly bright which didn’t bode well for us, but we still saw a few in the trees which was really pretty and our guide was really informative about the ecosystems in the area, whether their being protected or not and how the government is trying to conserve as much of it’s rainforest now they have realise how important it is. That evening, we were still in touch with Jojo, trying to arrange transport and a tour to Semporna and particularly an island called Mabul about 25km off the coast. After a little fact checking with the ‘Borneo Backpackers WhatsApp group chat’ (which I seem to be pretty involved in now) and chatting with Jojo, the organising paid off and we bagged ourselves a taxi to Semporna which is 5hrs from Sepilok, a boat transfer to Mabul island, accomodation for 2nights and an activity all for a decent price. The only problem was, we had no idea where we were staying, who the company was or what this mysterious activity was! We took it in our stride, decided to put all our eggs in one basket, and went for it.

At 7:30am on Wednesday morning our sketchy maroon car was waiting for us and we began our trip to the south coast of east of Borneo…