Borneo Planning Trip

6th October 2011.

I have just returned from two weeks in Borneo, making the final preparations and planning for the expedition next year. All of Let Loose with Adventure holidays and expeditions have a reconnaissance trip before taking clients on them. The 2012 expedition looks so exciting, I decided to post the details here. Some of the final details are still being planned but this is a good taste of what we'll be doing.

I flew KLM from Paris to Kuala Lumpur via Amsterdam. Good airline but I later noticed that Air Asia fly directly, and if you can manage the long haul on a no frills airline, it's £100 cheaper. From KL I flew to Miri and stayed at Minda's guesthouse, the home of good friends Dennis and Willie. Both of these people are local and active in trying to persuade the logging companies not to cut down trees. Also staying there was another excellent friend David 'Oz' Osborne who has been involved in working for Trekforce. He and his teams have been identifying sacred stones and other religious and historical artifacts inside the rainforest. By locating these and highlighting their importance, he has been able to stop the logging in those areas.

The next morning I flew into Long Lellang in a de Havilland Twin Otter and met up with my local guide and village Headman, Robert. I was supposed to meet his son, who does speak English but he was away, anyway, it tested my Malay.

jungle village

We spent a night at Robert's house and then headed into the forest for the three-day trek to Long Kerong. This is Penan country, a group of people whose existence is reliant on the rainforest. The are hunters, who use gun, dog and blowpipe. The trek was quite arduous, especially as I had just stepped off the long haul flight, and there were many rivers to cross, all high due to recent rainfall.

swollen rivers do tend to go down as quickly as they rise

I then transferred up to the other Malaysia state of Sabah and met up with Tom and his partner Katie in her new venture, El Centro, a friendly bar with great food, and as you'd expect, plenty of chat about conservation and life in Borneo. Tom is running a new eco jungle-training camp out new Poring called Lupa Masa and will be the place for Let Loose with Adventure's clients next year.

The camp sounds excellent with primary forest, lots of wildlife and evening with its own waterfall and a river to bathe in. We shall be there for a couple of days next year learning the skills of being in the jungle as well as our project with the sun bears.

It was to Sepilok and the sun bears that I went to next, and met up with Wai Pak who is currently looking after things at the new sanctuary. Like orang utans, sun bears have lost much of their habitat through deforestation.

sun bear photo courtesy of Siew Te Wong

Talking with Wai Pak, who has an infectious admiration for the bears and his work with them, and I know this fuelled by the founder of the sanctuary Siew Te Wong, I was immediately plunged into feeling that next year is too far away and I wanted to get working right there and then.

Having worked on several other conservation projects, including the orang utans in Sepilok in 2003, I know that this type of volunteering is about handling cute animals. The work that's needed to be done is usually mundane and manual but important to the success of the sanctuary. I shall need to ensure that my clients understand that before they arrive. There will of course be plenty of opportunity to see the bears and the orang utans for that matter.

I flew back to KK, very excited about next year's trip. I was also planning how I can talk about the sun bears and the Penan on the 15th October when I have been invited to appear on the Radio 4 program Excess Baggage. I checked out some more hotels, hostels and places to eat, which of course had to include the excellent night market in KK

the forest in pure beauty

On arriving at Long Kerong, I said goodbye to Robert and picked up with a new guide, Dennis, and we set off for another two days in the forest and to climb Batu Lihat, a high point in the area. We trekked through some stunning, untouched rainforest with the calls of exotic birds and the familiar reverberations of the cicadas. It is incredible how such a small size of creature can generate so much noise. We made camp by a stream, washed, prepared food and then climbed to the high point to watch the setting sun over the jungle canopy. This is a stunning location and we watched as pairs of hornbills circled below us looking for somewhere to spend the night.

On returning to Long Kerong, I spent another night in the homestay. I listened with fascination to the accounts of how the Penan live and their struggle to maintain their traditional ways. The next day I left by small boat for a couple of hours downstream and then a 4x4 to Long Akah where I caught the plane back to Miri. It was an exceptional trip and part of a project run by Tom Hewitt called Picnic with the Penan.

camp fire

Plus, as they are the smallest of the bear species and tend to look like cubs for much of their lives, they are sold as pets and kept in captivity. However, the bear's natural instincts are to climb trees and dig for food and nature has equipped it with some pretty impressive claws to accomplish this. Hence, the bears are caged or abandoned, and the sanctuary is needed to rehabilitate the bears into a more natural existence.

sun bear photo courtesy of Siew Te Wong

Interested in coming on the next expedition? Dates are 16th - 31st August 2012, £1830 per person not including international flights but covers the internal flights, transportation, accommodation, food, permits, guides etc. Details HERE.

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