So on Friday I was supposed to go to Temburong Rainforest to hike up to the Ulu Temburong Canopy Walk and generally hang out in the rainforest. Unfortunately, I was awake all Thursday night with some form of food poisoning. I had been feeling bad Thursday on the flight to Brunei, but sucked it up enough to fly in and then do the proboscis monkey tour, but by the time I got to my room around 7:30 it really hit me. Anyway, when the company came to pick me up for the tour on Friday morning I had them change my trip to Saturday and then I contacted Alohazizay to see if he could do a city tour for me on Sunday, since the company I had booked the city tour with on Saturday could not accommodate me on Sunday. Jackpot.
Anyway, I ended up spending most of the day lying on a sunbed in the shade by the hotel pool sleeping the day away. By early evening I was feeling much better and even had some dinner. By Saturday morning I was back to 100% so Temburong Rainforest here I come.
I was picked up at the hotel around 7:40 and by 8:00 there were 11 of us in the van headed south the Ulu Temburong Rainforest. We arrived by 9:00 a.m. and were immediately outfitted with lifejackets for the 45 minute longboat ride upstream to the point where we would begin our hike. Oh yea, did I mention that the hike was straight up 874 steps to the Canopy Walk where we would then hike up a ladder like contraption another 200 steps. And did I mention it was about 90 degrees and 100% humidity…. What the hell was I thinking?
So once outfitted in lifejackets and waivers signed, we were loaded into longboats (3 to a boat) and we began the journey upriver to the starting point. Now the river was incredibly low in fact so low that the boat driver had to be extra careful not to ground the propellor or stall out the motor so as we headed up river, it was a series of go fast then putt putt along, go fast then putt putt along.
We saw zero animals and only a handful of birds on the trip to our starting, which was not only surprising, but quite disappointing. I have been in a lot of rain forests and we usually see at least some monkeys, but nothing.
Anyway, we reached our destination at just about 45 minutes after we set out. We walked up from the river to the covered starting area, listened to some instructions and then set off. Now I don’t know what I expected, but the stairs weren’t a sloping meandering easy type of stairs. Nope. These stairs were straight up one after the other. We handn’t even finished the first 100 stairs and I was already drenched in sweat. How the heck was I going to make 874?
Now immediately after the first set of stairs we had to cross a suspension bridge, which unfortunately did not count towards the steps, but at least it was a break from the stair climbing.
Once we had crossed the bridge, it was back at the stairs. We would finish one set of stairs and veer to the left or right a step or two and then up, up, up again. Fortunately, there was little resting huts every so often so I took full advantage of that. The rest of the 20 somethings group not so much, although our guide Mimi was right there with me. And while the climb was tough, it was the brutal heat and humidity that was killing me.
After almost 50 minutes of climbing, we finally made it to the Canopy Walk where I was faced with the daunting task of climbing essentially a ladder with 200 plus rungs. Yikes! But I had made it this far, be damned if I was going to back down now.
Eventually it was my turn to start the climb up and quite frankly this was a walk in the park compared to the hike up. There were seven ladder steps then a small platform that you would step on to reach the next 7 steps and so on. Eventually I reached the first hanging bridge between the towers that would take me across the canopy. Then it was on to the next ladder tower taking me up even further. In total there was four different ladder towers that eventually took me as high as I could go. And while the view above the canopy was fabulous, there were still no monkeys. I thought for sure that once I reached the top we would see monkeys or some thing … but again shut out.
Nevertheless, the climb had up the canopy (not the climb to the canopy) had been surprisingly easy and quite a lot of fun. And, just as surprising was the ease I was able to climb back down. The little platform every seven rungs really helped a lot as did the metal bars that you could grab on to as you climbed back down (and which I also used climbing up). Although I learned the hard way to be careful where you grabbed the bars because metal bars cooking in the sun are not your friend.
Anyway, once back down on the ground, we began the climb down, which was obviously far easier, although slightly tough on the knees. We made it back down in about 20 minutes, although by now I was absolutely exhausted. Not to worry … we had a nice 30 minutes down river trip that would cool me off…. Uh think again.
Less than 5 minutes into the trip we pulled over to go “hike” to see a waterfall. I was calling no mas and planned to stay behind when Mimi said it was only a 5 minute walk. I relented and true to her word, the hike was a quick couple minutes. Now due to the low water levels, the waterfall wasn’t particularly impressive, but at least the air nearby was really cooling.
We eventually walked back, climbed into the longboats and headed back to the staring point and main lodge area we had left at 9:00 a.m. And bonus! We passed by a monkey on the side of the river, although our boat was apparently the only boat to see it.
Anyway by 3:30 we were back on solid ground eating lunch (pretty standard stuff of chicken, shrimp, rice, cucumber and watermelon). And the best part was they had yellow watermelon …. And if you have never had yellow watermelon, you are missing out. Sweeter than regular watermelon and absolutely heaven sent.
At just after 4:00 we were back in the van for the hour trip back to Bandar Seri Bagwan. Now unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, there was a drone festival that evening and the roads were jammed and I mean jammed. From the time we reached the edge of town, it took another 35 minutes (normally a less than 5 minute drive) to reach my hotel. Ugh. So I did not reach my hotel room until 5:35.
Now the plan was to meet up with Alohazizay who was going to drive me to the night market at 6:00 p.m., but he texted me to tell me that he would not be able to arrive until 7:00 because of the traffic, which was actually perfect because it gave me some time to actually clean up.
By 7:00, Alohazizay and I were heading in the opposite direction from the festival to the Pasar Belbegai Barangan Gadong, aka Night Market where we were going to do a once around and pick out some dinner. I love markets so the chance to go have dinner at the Night Market was perfect.
Anyway, we wandered around and saw a number of fruit stalls, picked out some mangosteens and then made our way to the cooked foods section where there was every kind of fried and barbecued food under the sun. We ended up going to the barbecue section where we selected a smoked mackrel. We also picked up this pancake like desert that was covered in a peanuty concoction (similar but not actually similar) to peanut butter as well as some drinks.
Now the smoked mackrel was to die for. It had been marinaded in tamarind, lemon and spices and then smoked and was without a doubt some of the best fish I have ever had. Absolutely spectacular. And along with the fish, they had included rice and a spicy soy sauce. Everything turned out to be absolutely delish.
Anyway, after the meal Alohazizay took me back to my hotel. I was done in. And wouldn’t you know it, at 9:30 the fireworks started and I had a bird’s eye view to the show from my hotel room window. The fire works didn’t last long, maybe ten minutes, but the traffic jam afterwards had traffic continuously backed up in front of my hotel for hours. (I woke up around 11:30 p.m. and I could still hear the traffic outside the hotel.)
So tomorrow I am doing a city tour with Alohazizay and then have a flight at 6:45 p.m. to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia where I start my almost two week adventure in Borneo. And there, I am certain to see animals.
