In 2006, my friend Jess and I went to Borneo; survived Air Asia, got leeched, trekked, long boated down river and made friends with nice monkeys and & people. That’s it, in a betel nutshell!
Smack bang in the middle of SE Asia, Borneo is a big place – it’s the third largest island in the world! It is split into several administrative areas – Sarawak & Sabah are Malaysian provinces, Brunei is an independent nation and the Kalimantan region is part of Indonesia.
What makes Borneo special is the huge swathes of tropical jungle that cover the land. These rain forests are home to a huge diversity and abundance of wildlife. The WWF dossier on Borneo conservatively estimates the jungles “to hold 222 mammals (including 44 endemic – not found anywhere else in the world), 420 resident birds (37 endemic), 100 amphibians and 394 fish (19 endemic)”.
This means includes the darling proboscis monkey, the Sumatran rhino, the clouded leopard and my favourite – orangutans. The photo above is from a orangutan forest sanctuary we visited near Kuching.
It’s an amazing place – and we had an excellent time exploring (while being mindful of the issues at hand). Here are a few details of the adventure:
This is at the top of Mt Api – we climbed it to look at these limestone formations. 4 hours up, 4 hours down. And it took that long even though it was only 1200m ascending & 2.4km long. (We made good time)
On the long boat, trying to dry my jandals out after pushing the boat upriver over rocks. Some pink butterflies were sexually attracted (we assumed) to the jandals, and kept nuzzling/hovering above them.
If you don’t like creepy crawlies… sorry! This stick insect was found in a pitch black jungle and was bigger than my hand:
So that’s a glimpse of Borneo. It’s a pretty amazing trip to look back on. Aside from the fact we were only 20 at the time – it was a privilege that not many other people will get to experience.
Unfortunately the life that makes Borneo so unique is under threat from logging, plantation development, hunting and mining. There’s loads of excuses from “With so many different stake holders, it’s hard to manage protection,” to “The people need to make a living”.
With that, I’m looking to show my appreciation and will be doing research into how I can help protect Borneo. Like everything good in life, we have to love it or lose it.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Simply incredible. You’re definitely right that not many other people would get to do something like this and it’s great that you appreciate it. The pictures are wonderful! I’m looking forward to seeing what info you dig up on how to help them out and how you choose to help.
Looks like such an amazing place. I have slight obsession with frogs, so I love that small red one. It really woul be such a shame to lose a place like this.
Borneo looks like an amazing! The animals look beautiful, but the insects look frightening! Good luck on your research efforts; it’s really great that you’re trying to be proactive about saving the forest.