(Don’t) Climb Every Mountain…

We have been carrying a copy of the Lonely Planet SE Asia on a Shoestring with us since the beginning of our trip. Colleen does most of the research around the destinations that we visit and at some point in paging through the guidebook she came across a few paragraphs on climbing Mt Kinabalu in Borneo. The peak is the highest point in SE Asia and the tallest thing between Himalayas and New Guinea. The trekking and hiking we have done in previous countries has been some of the highlights of the trip thus far so we knew this was something we should look into.

Still battling crowds and reservation issues due to Ramadan (does this holiday ever end?), we gave a call to Kinabalu National park and were able to secure two slots for the climb. Then we got ‘sticker price shock’ for one of the few times on the trip. The guide book had made the 2day/1night endeavor seem like a relatively affordable activity, after all the book is designed for shoestring budgets. A package that we thought would cost around $150 total ended up being double that, including a $90 charge per person to stay in an unheated dorm mid mountain! We almost balked but then reconsidered knowing this type of activity was something we both highly enjoyed (we have talked many times about how we hope to do more camping and hiking once back in the States).

We arrived outside the park a day early and spent the night in a guest house reminiscent of the tea houses in Nepal. The next morning, in an attempt to hitchhike the 3 kilometers up mountain to the park entrance, I took a nasty fall rolling into a ditch and broke my 3rd watch of the trip. Luckily I had no serious injuries and had saved parts from broken watch #2 to make repairs (I currently have multiple spare parts for Casio F-91W watches if anyone needs any).
We made it in one piece to the park headquarters and while in queue at check-in we made friends with a pair of traveling friends from Australia, Denver and Lindsey. I asked them if they wanted to split the required cost of a guide and with that we had a group of 4. We signed in, grabbed a packed lunch, headed to the trail and started our upward climb.

The trail is split into two days of hiking covering 19 kilometer roundtrip and topping out at 13,500ft . Day 1 covers 7 kilometers and rises steeply in elevation from 5,000ft to 11,000 ft. We completed this task in just over 4 hours, checked in, took a cold shower, ate and went to sleep in our unheated dorm room. We barely slept in anticipation of the next day’s climb and awoke at 1:45AM for some snacks before hitting the trail with our guide at 2:30AM for what we were told would be a 4 hour hike to the summit. The trail was pitch black except for the narrow rays of light given off by our head lamps. The wind was blowing heavily bringing with it fog and moisture. To make matters more difficult, the final 2.5 kilometers to the summit rose another 3000ft mostly through the aide of secured ropes.

Lindsey was worn from the previous day’s hike and having better foresight than the rest of us, decided to stay in bed and abort the summit hike. The three of us and our guide trudged upward getting ever colder and wetter as we went. I had followed Colleen’s lead in packing the day before and brought extra clothes knowing the predawn hike would be a cold one. We both had on 4 layers including a rain jacket but it seemed to do no good. The wind sliced through our layers and somehow reached our skin and the dampness penetrated our now well worn travel shoes. The worst part of the cold was on exposed hands as we hauled our selves of up secured ropes. Our saving grace was a hiker who was descending the day before and gifted to us a pair of cheep gloves now being worn by Colleen.
A little over two hours later we arrived at the summit (did we hike that fast?), a full 90 minutes prior to the sunrise. Although our guide had been working the mountain for 3 years and only spoke a little English, he seemed surprised at the earliness of our arrival. We were the only ones there, having not seen other hikers in well over an hour, and we were shivering cold in the dark. We could not see anything, neither the sky nor the valley below through the fog and the guide instructed us to huddle behind a rock and wait it out until the sunrise.

The wait turned out to be some of the longest minutes of the trip. I sat hugging Colleen with our arms wrapped around each other shaking uncontrollably. We were too cold and exhausted to even talk but both had serious thoughts of exactly how dangerous of a situation we were in. I felt the worst for Denver, he had no hat or gloves and only a flimsy poncho to shelter him from the wind and rain. A few hours later back at mid mountain we would see a thermometer that read 42 degrees F in the sunlight and Denver informed me that he was watching small icicles form on my jacket as we huddled mountaintop. Psychologically we focused on the warm that would come with the sunrise only to be disappointed a little over an hour later when we emerged from behind our rock to a sunrise that was blocked out by dense fog and no postcard view from the peak. We took a quick picture at the sign posted on the summit and headed down.

Ascending quickly put all of us in a better mood and the movement along with a little sunlight quickly warmed our bodies. We reached mid mountain, packed our bags, ate breakfast and started the hike back down to the park headquarters. From there we shared a taxi back to the town of Kota Kinabalu and said goodbye to our Australian friends. We had a flight the next afternoon, back to Singapore, and we bid farewell to Borneo.

Where The Orangutans Roam - Our Adventures in Borneo

Animals are a big thing in our life. We absolutely love them and there is nothing better than seeing a wild animal in it’s natural habitat (besides seeing our adopted seal, Orkney, in the SF Zoo). That was our main goal in coming to Borneo, to see as many animals as possible in their native land.

It has been my dream to see orangutans out in the wild since I was little. They are my favorite animal, period. They only exist in the wild in Malaysia and Indonesia and Chad agreed to come along with my dream and head to Borneo. Malaysian Borneo is a fascinating place. You could literally spend months on the island exploring everything from coral to caves to jungle. We had 2 weeks to explore the island and given Ramadan was coming to an end, and with it a 3 day celebration, we had to plan out everything well in advance (an anomaly on this trip as usually we only book activities only a day or two in advance).

Our first task was a 10 hour bus ride from Kota Kinabalu in the west to the town of Semporna on the far eastern side of the island. Semporna is not much of a town, but it is famous for it’s world class diving. Off the coast lie a handful of islands that have arguably the best diving in the world. Since neither of us are PADI certified we could not check out the scuba diving, but we did book a one day snorkeling tour of the area. We spent an entire day under the water at multiple sights, dodging jellyfish, checking out multi-colored coral and fish, and best of all - swimming with sea turtles as they scrounged for food an surfaced for air. It was amazing and only the beginning of our Borneo adventures.

Back to the original reason we included Borneo on our trip, orangutans. The island offers the unique opportunity of seeing some of the last remaining wild orangutans (less than 45,000 left in the world!) by staying near their natural habit, far from any major town or city. The lodge we booked was located on the Kinabatangan River, 500+ steps up on top of a hill surrounded by dense jungle. It was a small lodge, only 4 guest rooms, and as we hiked up the stairs I joked that hopefully an orangutan would show up outside of breakfast. The very next day that happened. Apparently the lodge sits on a orangutan family feeding route, amazing. That was not our only encounter with a wild one, we also found a mother and baby on one of our daily boat cruises. She wasn’t as happy to see us as we were to see her and starting throwing large branches down at us. They are very territorial. Not only were we treated to orangutans, we also spotted hundreds of proboscis and macaque monkeys heading to their water source at the river. It is truly amazing to see the animals out in the wild when we have spent most of our lives only viewing them in zoos.

We weren’t done with the orangutans yet. After 3 wonderful days in the jungle which included 2 boat trips up the river and 1 jungle trek for ultimate animal spotting, we headed to the town of Sepolik to visit one of only 4 orangutan rehabilitation centers in the world. The animals at the rehab center are usually brought in as babies, orphaned when palm oil plantations tear down the jungle and kill or separate them from their parents. Palm oil plantations are a major problem in Sabah, the northern section of Borneo. Borneo produces 47% of the worlds palm oil, an ingredient that goes into everything from cooking oils to sunscreen. Given the recent economic hardships, the government and landowners have turned to the dependable revenue generated by these massive plantations built on clear cut virgin jungle land. As always, money rules and unfortunately these plantations are taking precedence over the environment and wildlife. The WWF is doing it’s best to buy up land and save the animals but it is a never ending struggle as the land is essentially a patchwork of alternating plots of palm plantations and protected land with no corridors linking sections. We saw the destruction first hand from our hill top lodge and nearly everywhere we traveled around the country, it is heartbreaking.

We decided to stay out by the sanctuary to maximize our orangutan time and spent one entire day watching these amazing creatures in their refuge. There are 2 feeding times for the public and most people attend one of these, watch for 20 minutes and then take off. We went to both and were able to see about 10 different orangutans wrestling, playing, eating and swinging gracefully around the jungle. Between feedings we decided to use the hiking trails in the sanctuary. Apparently we are the only people who have used these lately as the trails were all over grown and they locked us in! Our exit consisted of climbing over fences, crawling through locked gates and one extremely scary face off with a troop of about 30 macaque monkeys. They were not interested in letting us out and we fled running and terrified in the other direction as the alpha male chased us with his massive teeth out.

Seeing the orangutans in the wild was even better then we had expected. It also exposed us to the fight to save the lives of so many different species and the virgin rainforest. But Borneo is so much more than just animals, and we have loved every second we have spent on this beautiful island. We are leaving with vivid memories and a renewed environmental consciousness.

Brunei and Beyond

Malaysian Borneo was high on our list of ‘must sees’ for the trip but our round-the-world ticket alliance offered no routes to the island. The low cost airline Air Asia offered the best solution with a flight to the mid coast city of Miri from Kuala Lumpur. An afternoon bus ride from Singapore had us in Kuala Lumpur 2 days prior to our flight. We had hoped to catch up with some of my old work buddies staffed in Kuala Lumpur but of course this was the week they were off on their own vacation. So we had 2 full days to explore the city and passed most of the time on long walks and runs around town taking in the urban scenery.

The dominant focal point of the cityscape is the Petronas Towers, the skyscrapers which took over the title of ’tallest buildings in the world’ from the Sears Tower in 1996 only to lose it in 2004. The buildings are magnificent. It is one thing to design and build such a large structure but to do it twice simultaneously is quite the accomplishment. To cap it off, the towers are attractive, wrapped in ribbons of stainless steel, and are now considered the crown jewel of the city.

The two hour flight out from the mainland had us in Miri by noontime and from there we needed to head north to reach the activities we had planned. The small nation of Brunei laid in our path. The island of Borneo is geographically spit in two with Malaysia occupying the western part and Indonesia covering the eastern half. Then there is the country of Brunei, appearing as some sort of small geographic afterthought sandwiched by Malaysian Borneo on three sides and the ocean on the fourth. The tiny Islamic nation consists of less than 400,000 people and is headed by one of the most wealthy persons in the world, the Sultan of Brunei.

We caught a shared taxi north from Miri to the Brunei capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), along the way stopping at the Malaysia/Brunei border for what turned out to be one of our oddest border crossings yet. For starters we did not exit the car or speak to anyone. Our driver simply pulled up to a drive thru style window to both exit Malaysia and enter Borneo and handed over our passports for stamping. In between the two checkpoints we did have to stop at a small shed for a mandatory H1N1 full body temperature scan. Evidently it was a slow day at the checkpoint as the medical staff had to take a break from watching ‘The Naked Gun 33 1/3’ on the flat screen mounted to the wall in order to take our temperature.

BSB is a sleepy capital, with well paved roads and manicured lawns. Entering Brunei had stirred up thoughts similar to what one thinks of when mentioning the excesses of Dubai but we found this oil rich country to be quite the contrary. The city center consisted of low rising buildings and is dominated by the beautiful Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque but offers nothing extraordinary from a visitors perspective other than a pleasant stroll beside the water. The sale of alcohol is banned in Brunei and most of the restaurants looked quiet (it was the Islamic month long period of Ramadan and much of the country was fasting during daylight hours). We caught a tour of the Royal Regalia museum which housed many gifts given to the Sultan of Brunei over the years from world dignitaries. What do you give a man with such wealth? The answer is anything made of gold including statues, daggers, models of buildings, vases, etc.

We must mention that our path out of Brunei involved two ferries with a night layover on the island of Labuan. If you like duty free shopping, head to Labuan. We left a country where alcohol was banned and entered an island where cans of beer cost 50 cents (about ¼ of the normal cost in Malaysia). The island of Labuan is some 100 km offshore but due to difficult terrain on Borneo, it acts as the main corridor of travel over the northern border between Brunei and Malaysia.

The main island of Borneo actually played a critical role in the later part of World War II, mostly due to it‘s strategic location. Initially reinforced by Australian regiments, it was then sacked by the Japanese prior to the Allies retaking control again in mid 1945. We were somewhat surprised to spot a World War II Memorial on the map of the small island Labuan, a handful of kilometers outside of the main town, and figured it made a good destination for an evening run. We reached the oceanside memorial and were immediately filled with a emotion. The memorial was actually the final resting place for over 3900 Allied soldiers, mostly from Australian infantry and engineering units. Simple but tasteful plaques informed us that a majority of the dead were a result of the Japanese ‘death marches’. The death marches were a last ditch effort by the Japanese in early 1945 to kill off the remaining POWs before losing control of the Borneo. The marches sent already weak soldiers on a march 250 km into dense jungle. Out of the 2500+ POWs that started the march, only 260 survived, all of which died of disease and starvation once reaching the destination camp.

We wandered the rows of white gravestones for nearly an hour as the sun set. Families of soldiers were able to engrave a last goodbye on the headstones and it was touching to have the opportunity to read these farewells. I was somewhat taken back by the fact that nearly half of the gravesites were of unknown soldiers, simply marked with ’Known only by God’. We treasured our quiet time at the memorial and were reminded that the freedom that we have to do such an amazing trip through so many countries is nothing to be taken for granted.