We check out at 8:15 with a flurry of half intelligble questions regarding heading to the airport and collecting tickets. I think she's getting us a taxi for pre rush hour. We stand outside waiting for the Bako National Park tour guide to turn up. He doesn't appear at the proscribed 8:30. It's already too hot and it doesn't bode well for the day. I'm lost in a daydream about this when a Mr Ian?
snaps me out of it and we're on the move. It seems our booking yesterday afternoon on a public holiday meant that the first that Loy (Loi?) knew about it was his boss interrupting his breakfast at the coffee house.
We head out of Kuching to the fishing village of Bako on the Bako river. A little more of the half million person city [Kuching] is revealed and it's generally quite light and airy despite (because of) 70% of Sarawak being under jungle cover. The Bako is a mesmerisingly muddly river, with the low tide plumes of suspended mud particles rise and sink. We clambour into the open boat, donning life jackets and picking up a couple of backpackers and head off between the heavily silted banks past several dredgers and on a strange wayward route out towards the South China Sea (avoiding sandbanks, one presumes).
Not actually knowing where we were going I panned the camcorder around highlighting some wading fishermen. Oh, no, they were only knee deep. Hang on, they're tourists as we zoomed towards the muddy banks. Shoes off!
was the cry. "Hmm," was the thought. The water's still a consistent brown so you've no idea what you're stepping into but it was at least pleasantly warm. And only shin deep. Low tide has its disadvantages [Not sure what I meant there]. We wade to the [mud] flats then the 100 yards to "shore." We pay our RM10 visitors fee, now covering as many cameras and camcorders as you care to carry and set off on what looks on the map like a distincly short route (at most 0.8km) for an all morning trek.
Straight away there are silver leaf monkeys in the tree above us and a little later another group with one of their quite distinct orange furred young. Over the boardwalk over the mud flats and just at the end some of Bako's famous proboscis monkeys. The males have long drooping noses. We're quite honoured to be within a few metres of them as they normally scarper. No need to go the full 0.8km as we've seen our targets. Next stop is the plateau, no more than 80m above us.
A fraction of the way up the rock and ankle-threatening roots [covered] path we're grateful to stop for a convoy of ants six abreast ten metres long. I had to stop filming when the sweat dripped over the camcorder. We staggered up the rest of the hill, sweat pouring, breath laboured pausing only for a couple of pitcher plants. One pitcher unopened, the other eaten by insects.
At the plateau, having done airplane impressions to cool down in the slightest of breezes. [Rotten grammar!] Then we started seeing the pitcher plants, everywhere. The erudite reader will know the pitcher plant is a vine which has a "creeper" that grows from the end of each leaf. That creeper then develops a pitcher at the end. Thus a vine can have dozens of pitchers or more commonly two or three. These pitchers vary in size from a few cm to about 20cm in Bako and there are about six species here. The locals make good use of them: an unopened pitcher's juice is used as an eyewash for infected eyes; an opened pitcher is cleaned and used as a pot for cooking rice and the vine's stem is stripped and opened to extract a versatile string. The plants themselves happily scoff little insects with a variety of cunning mechanisms.
We caught a glimpse of a water monitor lizard (about 1m long) prowling in the shade in the mudflats on the way back. The park HQ's canteen serves a decent fried rice and fortunately lots of water -- I was still sweating at the end of lunch when we were sent packing down another boardwalk. Almost as soon as we started there was a crashing sound from way above us and we both jumped as a brown lump thudded into the leafy ground beside us. This was no ordinary [potentially fatal!] near miss from a coconut however as the coconut stirred and stood up in a particularly squirrel-like fashion. It took one look at us and sprang to the next tree which it duly scarpered up. Methinks the squirrel needed to flap his little legs a bit harder next time.
On the way down [the boardwalk] Helen saw two snakes slither off into the bush as we tried to creep quietly along. On the way back a troup of monkeys caught our attention, mostly as they blocked our path. We watched and filmed them for a while including one mother carrying her dead and starting to decompose baby around. A sad sight almost completely ignored by the troop of Japanese who thundered through the lot of us, twice.
The tide was unmistakably not in as we wandered out to the boat, shoeless once more -- it didn't say anything about this in the programme -- only this time the brown water was hot, unpleasantly so. The boat journey back gave my trouser knees the opportunity to dry (I didn't realise I had a sweaty knee problem -- no-one else did) before we were back in Kuching for 3:30. I think Bako National park deserves a bit more time and they do have overnight accomodation (including an unused camping ground). Next time.
We went off to the airport. Our fellow passengers will have to enjoy our "full flavour" odour and sorted ourselves out for our 7:35 flight. A chance to read Helen's Reginald Hill, Dalziel and Pascoe book. He certainly uses some big words, that man. I bet he doesn't know what reptate means, though. We get exactly the same meal on the way to KL as we had into Kuching. No-one complains about our odour.
At 9pm at KL we're met with a number of surprises. Firstly, at Kuching travel from/to Peninsula Malaysia is treated as International. In KL we just walk out the door. Then we reserve a hotel at a shocking RM100 (OK, just US$27 and perfectly in line with budget but it's more than the RM60 we just paid) but the real shock is that a taxi is RM92. Eh? The train is RM35 and takes half an hour. A young entrepreneur who's been trailing us [do we look like tourists?] is quoting RM70 door to door. We're reluctant but accept, not knowing whether we're being scammed. The ATM accepts my card and PIN then spits it out saying invalid card. Admittedly it doesn't have the pure VISA logo but my thoughts are immediately suspicious. We head off in the car, I'm checking signs that we're heading to KL and we chat with the driver. I check with Helen and we've been driving for twenty or twenty-five minutes and then we spot a sign: KL 27km. Wow! They really did build the airport out in the boonies.
The twin Petronas Towers (the moral equivalent would be the twin BP Towers) stand out a mile, as you might expect the tallest building in the world to, brightly lit against a pitch black sky. They do get lost, mind, as you enter the city and minor (twenty storey) creations loom all around. We check in to our quite nice hotel, shower and start scribbling down the day's events.
Hotel Malaya, Kuala Lumpur N3.14440 E101.69653 Elev. 41m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.