Dantruong Travel & Tourism

We had left Bario a bit later than we’d hoped, so it was already after one by the time we were on our way from Bario to Pa Lungan. The first 30-45 minutes of the hike was along a well-trodden path that wound past the airport and along to the village of Pa Ukat. From Pa Ukat, we took a right onto a very narrow dirt path that would lead us from Pa Ukat all the way to Pa Lungan. The trail alternated between slightly muddy and nearly impossible to traverse because of the deep muck-filled puddles impeding our forward progress. Even wearing the lovely rubber Adidas Kampungs did not improve our situation. The mud puddles were so incredibly deep that we repeatedly wound up knee-deep in the slimy, yet sticky, mud. We had assumed the hike would take us about five hours, but at this rate, it looked like we would be lucky to make it to Pa Lungan by seven.

Despite the arduousness of the hike, we were enjoying ourselves immensely. Once we were beyond Pa Ukat, we found ourselves deep in the Kelabit forest, surrounded by flora and fauna of a surprising magnitude… some of which were unwelcome – like the leeches. We had heard stories about the leeches from other travelers we had met along the way, so we were prepared for them. Niraj had given us some loose tobacco, which was reported to be a surefire leech repellant. We had shoved the tobacco in our socks and coated our feet and legs in bug spray to deter any unwanted hitchhikers, and it seemed to be working very well so far.

Around 4:30, we plopped down on a log to take a short break – the rubber of the Adidas Kampungs were causing mad blisters to appear all over mine and Fred’s feet, and it was time to give the poor things a little breather. As I took my shoes off, I noticed a strange twig on the top of my foot – a bloody twig – or should I say a bloody leech? Argh! Konrad discovered his unwanted guest next – on the bottom of one of his feet. It took Fred a bit longer to find her leech… because it was between her toes! After disentangling ourselves from the nasty critters, we threw back on the Kampungs and hit the road once more. Despite our late start and the slow mucking along, we were in Pa Lungan by 5:30.

We easily located “The Lodge,” where we met Su Pang and Nabon, our immensely welcoming and incredibly knowledgeable hosts. Su Pang is Kelabit and was born near Pa Lungan. Nabon grew up in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak and the city where the couple lived until they retired and moved back to Pa Lungan. Nabon used to work for the government, and his English was phenomenal – which meant that he was able to share story after story with us. Nabon and Su Pang (and their little kitten) provided us with the best possible experience in Pa Lungan, making sure we were comfortable, informed, and well fed. We spent the remainder of the first night chatting with our friendly hosts, did some reading, and went to bed early.

We were enjoying Pa Lungan so much (and our feet were aching from the wounds inflicted by the damn Adidas Kampungs), that we decided to make it our base camp and just do some day trips in and around the area. We were most interested in finding some primary forest, so we asked Su Pang to locate a guide to take us the next day. True to her word, a guide was ready and waiting when we made our way down to breakfast the next morning. We knew the going was bound to be muddy and leechful, and to help out, Su Pang and Nabon had made us leech sticks: they had wrapped some cloth around some salt and tied it onto the end of a stick. We gobbled down breakfast and hit the road around 9:30, trailing behind Chris, our guide for the day. I started out in my Adidas Kampungs, but about 20 feet from the house I had to run back and change into my tennis shoes – the rubber shoes were just too painful to wear.

Initially, the path Chris led us through alternated between gorgeous green rice paddies and copper colored willowy fields that were deserted, save a buffalo or two. After about 45 minutes, we made our way into the verdant forest, which Chris had to hack his way through with a machete. Despite his slashing skills, Chris was proving himself to be unworthy of the title “guide.” He seemed to be oblivious to whether or not we were actually behind him, often so far ahead that we could not see even see him. Admittedly, I wasn’t hiking at my usual speed because I was trying to keep my feet dry and was repeatedly distracted by the seemingly infinite number of leeches trying to attach themselves to my exposed flesh. (As a side note, between the insect repellant, the tobacco in our socks, and the leech sticks, we all managed to avoid any major leech attacks all day.) We also found ourselves frequently stopping to admire the numerous monkeys, langurs, and gibbons who made their homes in the canopy above.

After trekking through the forest for a bit, we stopped in a jungle shelter (they were scattered about to provide hikers with a spot to sleep overnight) to take a break. It was during this little sojourn that we learned that our wish to see some primary forest may not have been accurately conveyed to Chris. He told us that we would see some, but that wasn’t going to be the focus of our trek. Disappointed, we shoved off and shuffled behind Chris further into the forest. We made our way to a river, the other side of which we would only see because there was no possible way to cross it. We took some photos and then turned around and retraced our steps. As we wound our way back through the forest and fields, we sampled some wild pomelo, jackfruit, and guava – I now understand why people don’t eat wild fruit: it is extremely bitter.

Most of the day’s hiking had been along fairly flat terrain, but that was soon to change as we began our ascent to the Pa Lungan viewpoint. The going was rough, extremely vertical, and full of twigs and leaves, which meant there was no real traction along the way. I was glad I’d changed into my tennis shoes because Konrad’s feet kept slipping out of his Adidas Kampungs, which made the difficult hike was made even more laborious. Nonetheless, each and every one of us emerged from the forest onto the top of the peak where we were treated to some splendid scenery. From our vantage point, we were treated to a 360 degree view of the area, which included the massive Mount Marud, the highest point in the Kelabit Highlands. While we had not been able to see much primary forest, this stopover made the whole trek worthwhile: the stillness and tranquility of the area was precisely the reason we had made our way here in the first place.

We cut a path down a slightly less demanding route on the other side of the peak, and found ourselves back in Pa Lungan around 5:00pm. As we made our way back to “The Lodge,” we encountered a French couple who asked us to join them on a mutli-day trek to the summit of Mount Marud, leaving the next day. We were tempted, but I wasn’t sure my feet would last given their current pitiful state, so we told them we would think about their offer over the next few hours. They also encouraged us to visit a dolmen not far away (a grave for an honored warrior). We heeded their advice and hurried along, slaloming our way through the water buffalo lounging along the path. After a few minutes of photo ops at the dolmen, we walked back to the lodge. I took off my shoes and discovered that my feet were covered in blisters – including two on my pinky toes that were larger than the toes themselves. No wonder I was in such pain!

We spent the next few hours relaxing and chatting over a lovely dinner of pineapple curry, and hearing more stories as told by Nabon and Su Pang. After a chilly shower (did I forget to mention that there wasn’t electricity in the area?), we regrouped and whiled away the rest of the night playing cards. Given the state of my feet, we wouldn’t be following the Frenchies up to Mount Marud, and we were all enjoying ourselves so much that we just decided to spend the next day in Pa Lungan.

I didn’t have much in mind for the next day, apart from lounging around and getting some reading done, but when Nabon offered to take us on a short nature walk, we all fell into line behind him. We began by walking through their lovely garden, where a diverse group of plants and flowers made their home (including an orchid that we believe may have been a new find – Nabon had spent countless hours combing through botany books trying to identify it, but had been unsuccessful). From there, he took us just a hundred yards or so from his house to a veritable botanist’s dream: scores of different plants and flowers grew and flourished naturally, completely immune to most of the pollutants and dangers that threaten most plants and flowers around the world. We spent the greatest amount of time exploring the numerous varieties of pitcher plants and orchids dotting the landscape – absolutely stunning.

After lunch, I retreated to our room and spent the rest of the afternoon reading, and Konrad went on a hike of his own. The peace and serenity of Pa Lungan, coupled with the sunshine streaming through the windows, made me very sleepy and I ended up taking a nap with the kitten. I was awakened a bit later by western voices, but not those of Konrad or Fred – it seemed we had some new housemates. Over dinner, we traded stories with the newcomers a bit and learned that they, too, were English teachers. We had an amiable chat, but there wasn’t any real chemistry there, so we weren’t too bothered when they went up to bed and left us alone to play cards. I stayed up a little late and finished my book (The Dogs of Riga – give it a miss), and fell asleep enjoying our last night in peaceful Pa Lungan.

We spent a leisurely morning having breakfast and packing up, and then Nabon broke out the blowpipe. He set up a dart board target for us, and then let each of us have a go at it – it was completely new, but we all did pretty well with it. We took some photos with Sa Pang and Nabon and bade them goodbye, hitting the road by about 11:00am – a bit late if we were to make our flight back to Miri that afternoon.

Fortunately, it wasn’t quite as wet as it had been a few days earlier, and we made excellent time on the way back – arriving in Bario at about 2:00pm. We quickly stopped off at the agent’s office and booked three seats on that afternoon’s flight back to Miri. That errand taken care of, we dashed back to Nancy and Harris’s house to pick up our things. Harris was waiting in the truck at the mouth of the driveway and told us he would drive us to the airport. We ran down the muddy driveway to the house, hosed off our feet and leg (we were covered in mud), grabbed our bags, and were out the door again. We gingerly picked our way back to the truck carefully – it was one of the muddiest spots we had encountered. Fred and Konrad made it successfully, but I made one misstep and ended up mid-calf deep in mud. I was able to pull my foot out, but my sandal was still mired in the muck, so I had to sink my arm in up to my elbow to retrieve it. By this point, I was beyond frustrated.

Harris drove us to the airport (which, fortunately had a hose which I could use to demuddify myself), we checked in, and were told that the plane was going to leave 45 minutes early. There were only 6 passengers on the flight, so it didn’t take long for us to pile on and take off. And just like that, our lovely experience in the Kelabit Highlands was over.

The three of us shared a cab back to The Highlands (we were lucky enough to get rooms there this time) where we lazed the rest of the night away. Fred left for the peninsula the next day, and Konrad and I signed on for a brutal sounding 16 hour night bus to Kuching the following evening. And so ended one of our favorite experiences of that six months of travel – our time in the Kelabit Highlands.

Well I safely arrived in SEA and everything is well. Royal Brunei is definitely an airline that I would recommend, except there is no alcohol on the flight. I arrived at the airport trying to locate a cash point that would actually accept one of my bank cards, finding out that the buses stopped running at 6pm, realizing that few people were actually getting off to stay in Brunei and there was no visitor information available. What to do?? … just go up to two random backpackers (the only ones whom I could find) and follow them. All was well, Mark, Matt and myself clicked instantly. I found out that the only youth hostel in Brunei was fully booked (due to a sports function). Luckily Mark had found a relatively cheap place, extremely difficult task in itself since most places start at $50US per night. We had a triple bed dorm at $17pp per night. Matt spoken Indonesian, which was very useful for the Malay-Brunei spoken here.

There are 400,000 people living in Brunei, it’s extremely difficult to immigrate here. English is widely spoken at a high level, we had very little difficulty communicating with the locals. It seems as though cars are a big status symbol here, a good number of people are driving relatively new cars, and very few people are driving a crappy car. There are apparently 260,000 cars in Brunei. I’ve visited a few Mosques (Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien and Jame’Asr Hassanil Bolkiah). These both were extremely beautiful, you can definitely see how important religion is within Brunei and where money is spent. There are 150 mosques in Brunei, you cannot be more than 2km away from a mosque. I’ve driven past Istana Nurul Iman (Sultan’s palace). Visited Kampung Ayer (collection of 28 villages on stilts built over the water). We still haven’t figured out why people have chosen to build their houses over water, maybe because land is valuable??? I’ve visited the Brunei museum and the Royal Regalia building. They were interesting, I learned a lot about the Sultan and his family, plus you can actually see the gifts given to the Sultan from other countries. It is an extremely clean city with little garbage.

We took a day trip down to Temburong to do a jungle walk through the Peradayan Forest Recreational Park. I’ve see wild monkeys, turtles, strange insects, snakes. We also visited the Jerudong Park Playground, which they claim is the largest amusement park in the world, however I really don’t know how they can make that claim. Wonderland seems bigger and I’m sure it doesn’t care with Disneyland. It almost felt like having our own private park, it was almost deserted, we never had to wait in any lines and you could just tell the operators that you wanted to go again. However, about half of the rides were closed.

Food is pretty cheap here, it’s usually $1 per drink and $1-$4 per food dish. It’s kind of strange, but good eating things like a cuttlefish stirfry during a hike. The hardest part of eating all my food from the markets is that there is no Western breakfast foods available which is my favourite meal of the day. I’m not quite used to eating some of the dishes for breakfast. However, I’ve heard that banana pancakes are widely available in Thailand due to the high interest from tourists. I love being able to try so many different foods, half the time I have no idea what I’m getting, but that’s half the fun. Brunei does have a KFC and McDonald’s, and a coffee shop, however these places are very expensive.

The humidity is almost unbearable, sweat is just pouring off of me. The temperatures are mid-30′s during the day, and mid-20′s at night. However I’m don’t think these temperatures include the humidex reading. To me in the sun during mid-afternoon it feels like high-30′s to low-40′s with humidex. I have never sweated so much in my entire life. During my jungle walk I thought I was going to pass out. My pants and shirt were saturated with sweat pouring down my face, even my forearms were sweating (something that I had never seen before). There is just no relief and no breeze. Luckily our room is air-conditioned as well as most of the buildings.

I ended up changing my flight to Bangkok so that I will only be in Brunei for 3 days as oppose to 5 days. It’s been a great experience, however there is only so much to do in Brunei, and I’ve basically done most things. There are some expensive tours available, however I’m sure that I can see similar places for a lot less money in other countries. Mark and Matt were leaving after 3 days, and to spend 2 days alone would be very lonely, as there are few tourists in Brunei. I can honestly count the number of tourists I see, and that number doesn’t exceed 10. It’s an expensive country and I’m sure the rich tourists are spending time at their resorts and joining tours.

It’s been a wonderful experience, a great starting point in SEA. We were never hassled once by anyone. The only time you had to negotiate a price was for a land or water taxi, and you had to approach them.

We were on a stupidly tight schedule in Borneo which meant we had to fly back to KL from Kuching, at the complete other end of the island, in only 4 days time. In this time we also wanted to visit the huge caves in Mulu national parks but that seemed highly unlikely given how difficult it is to get there.

To get from the Sabah region of Malaysian Borneo to Sarawak we needed to go through another country, Brunei. I was quite excited to be entering another country, even for only a day, so I had no qualms about the early start.

However we were all so tired that we overslept and only managed to make the boat thanks to Lars running to the docks, twice, to buy our tickets.

To get to Brunei we had to take 2 ferries. The first took close to 2 hours, an hour longer than I had expected, before we arrived on the island of Pulau Labuan. The ferry crossing had been choppy in places and 1 guy was so sick that the whole packed out boat could hear him. Lovely sound first thing in the morning. There was also some soppy Malaysian movie on the TV that seemed laughable to me as I couldn’t understand it but some people were actually crying at the end!

On docking in Labuan we had to go through exit procedures for Malaysia before boarding the second boat, with only 5 people, to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. Hadn’t had any breakfast so a bar of Dairy Milk with cashews, fantastic, had to suffice.

On arriving at the dock we had to go through customs, where they asked us if we had any alcohol as it’s illegal in Brunei! Illegal! Changed up all my ringgit to Brunei dollars and boarded the bus to BSB.

There is only 1 hostel in BSB so we had no choice but to head there and got lost a couple of times in the process. The dorm was reasonable for the price and had air con which is always a plus point. The hostel was a bit weird though. It seemed to be attached to a kiddies play park and had kids learning to swim in the attached pool.

Decided it was best to see the sights as we only had 1 day but there didn’t really seem much worth seeing. We got chatting to an American guy, who looked stoned, who was in Brunei with his “team” and the conversation went something along these lines:

Us: What is there to do in this place?
Him Nothing.
Us: Cool? So how long have you been here?
Him: A week!

We couldn’t understand why anyone would put themselves through the pain of staying in a place for a week with nothing to do! It made absolutely no sense so we left him strumming his guitar and walked into town.

It took us about 20 minutes to see the sights and we were bored stiff. There didn’t really seem like there was anything worth looking at in the town. The only saving grace was the prospect of visiting the amusement park in the evening.

No where seemed open, it was Chinese New Year, so we had lunch at Pizza Hut, which was reasonable, before heading to the amusement park. It seemed weird that the only drinks on the menu were soft drinks, all totally watered down, and I only received half my order.

Walked to the bus stop and it was packed. Like an underground car park and it was full with about 500 men and no women. In fact I hadn’t seen a single woman all day? Boarding the bus to the amusement park was a joke. 50 guys pushing trying to get on the same minibus but we managed to get on in the end. Paid the $1 they wanted and had no idea when to get off so ended up riding it all the way to the end. The LP said it was the final stop, well they lied. Waited around for a few minutes and they took us to the “silent park” as they called it.

The park had been built about 5 years ago and was apparently the biggest theme park in the world. Absolute crap! It was tiny, there were no people and only a couple of rides were open.

The park had obviously been built for people who have no other fun in their lives but even the locals don’t come here anymore. There were only 3 rides open in the whole park! One of those was bumper cars. Not even a theme park ride but bloody fair ground bumper cars! Well we had to go on it to justify the entrance fee, not a lot, and drove in reverse for the whole time. Pretty good fun actually.

Couldn’t believe that was the only ride open and eventually found the go carts that were apparently open. 1 bloody car between 50 people! This park was a joke! The only other ride that was open was the log flume and it was actually pretty good fun. Thought it would be the same as every other one I’d been on but half the ride was in reverse which made it much better! Going down the drops backwards, albeit only 1 drop, made it funny and we went on it twice in a row.

After all that excitement we decided to head back to the hostel. We had assumed before we left that it would be easy to get a taxi back but having seen how dead it was we now knew that wasn’t going to be the case. We had to order a taxi at reception and got chatting to another bunch of travellers, equally unimpressed by the park, and secured a taxi back to Malaysia with them tomorrow. Result!