The day after Semenggoh and the caves we journeyed to Bako National Park (which, as i'm sure you've noticed, has the unfortunate acronym BNP). Because it is on an island we had to take a boat from mainland Borneo. Although extra travel time may seem like an inconvenience, especially given our hostel's positioning right on the Kuching waterfront with antique shops lining our street, the boat trip was one of the highlights of the day. That is not to say that Bako was not amazing, but there is only so much one can take in trekking through dense rainforest. The boat on the other hand, offered a speed (and a breeze) that was conducive to leisurely appreciating the magnificent scenery that went by. We pulled out of the jetty, passed old fishing boats and house on stilts that lined the mouth of the river and before long we were cutting along the coastline. Most of the land was untamed and as a consequence was densely populated by foliage. We streaked past islands of trees and jutting cliffs, our imaginations allowed to run riot on what fauna might exist there.
We docked at a jetty which was positioned next to a skeletal clump of dead trees, knee deep in water. One of Borneo's most famous - and peculiar looking - animals is the proboscis monkey. If you don't know what one looks like have a quick Google search. Right, see what i mean now? That is one strange nose; in fact it was originally called the Netherlands man monkey after the Dutch settlers. Now i've been to the Netherlands and travelled with a Dutch firl...let's just say Dutch people don't look like that. If you don't believe me it might be time to use that Google search again. Now that that is all cleared up, suffice to say: we saw some, which apparently was rather lucky, so that's nice.
But before we were to see a group of four of these strange monkeys from up close and with a direct line of sight we trekked up through forest along paths that were so inundated with roots they looked as if the roots were trickles of water, separately running down from the top of the island just to get a flash of proboscis through the trees. It was a combination of these roots and something which seemed like moss but, when trod on, compressed about two inches that broke my sandals. Luckily we had already reached the plateau on top of the island and descended past otherworldly purple rocks to a lovely beach where we paddled in water as warm as a bath and started our return to the jetty before it happened so there wasn't too much climbing left to do.
Usually when walking with roots underfoot you need to keep at least one eye on the ground. With your heel sliding every which way at the back of a sandal, then, you would be forgiven for concentrating entirely on your route and it would be very easy to miss the poisonous snakes asleep on branches and a massive spider in its correspondingly massive web overhead but these delights were pointed out to me. Nothing like fear of death to put fear of twisted ankle out of mind. Fortunately neither materialised and all that was left to do was get the boat back past some impressive sea stacks.
If you fancy reading non-travel stuff i have a selection of poetry and discussions on gender, identity and eco-graffiti amongst other topics at alexleclez.blogspot.com
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