Bako National Park

What was the first thing we saw after paying our park entrance fees? A snake attacking a frog. It was all very calm; the snake had hold of one of the frog’s legs and the frog was sitting calmly enough plotting his next move. Luckily for the frog, the snake lost concentration when an unsuspecting tourist almost stepped on it.

Getting to Bako was half the fun. We boarded a local bus in the city (running the customary 30 minutes late) and took it to Bako Bazaar where we then had to get on a boat. The boat was like an 8 seater canoe with an outboard motor on it. The river was calm and narrow so we thought it funny that they insisted we wear life-jackets. Halfway into the trip we all frantically secured the lifejackets to our bodies the best we could seeing most of the zippers were broken – suddenly the river had become the ocean and while the driver was most skilled in zig-zagging through the waves, it was still a bumpy ride. A fun ride. We decided that people pay good money for these sorts of adventures on Sydney Harbour. The water was beautifully warm and then the beach came into view. We jumped into the knee deep water with our luggage on our backs and made our way to the shore.

Little monkeys – (long-tailed macaques) – were all around the beach area trying to steal things from tourists. We tried to scare one away from a tourist’s bag that was left unguarded but the monkey came running after us instead. The Sarawak Museum had a stuffed version with very sharp little teeth so, assumming this one did too, we backed away.

There were giant lizards, bearded pigs, birds, squirrels and butterflies, but the proboscis monkey remained elusive. We spent hours in the mangroves in the morning waiting quietly for them to appear but they didn’t. Must’ve been the rain keeping them away.

On the first day (and it felt like a long day) we trekked to the beach along a track called Telok Pandan Kecil. Who would’ve thought that walking to the beach could be so difficult? OK, so it was really hot, really humid so we should’ve known better. The first park of the trek was an almost vertical climb through beautiful jungle and then the top of the mountain cleared and it looked just like an Australian beach landscape….. flat, reddish rocks and bush like scrub (I’m sure Holly, my environmentally aware companion, could give a more accurate description and possibly even botanical names). There were wet sandy trails to negotiate before we got a spectacular view over Pandan Besar. We continued onto Pandan Kecil for a swim and it was the first time we’d be cool in days…. sadly it didn’t last long. We had the entire beach to ourselves and so stayed for as long as we thought we could before the tide would cut off our track back to civilisation.

Civilisation? Hardly. So you’ve made it this far into the entry and I still haven’t mentioned the food or accommodation.

I’ll keep it brief because it’s nothing to write home about. Mouldy accommodation with a semi-manual toilet. Think that’s bad? You should’ve seen the ‘cafe’. The western food consisted of kinda frozen chips, chicken nuggets and hamburger patties (they were in the buffet so I’m really not sure if they were going to get cooked at all… yes, that troubles me too), and there were ‘local’ choices but my travel doctor always told me not to eat chicken that had been sitting at a warmish temperature for possibly days. Oh and if you didn’t eat it at lunch it’d still be there at dinner time… at least that’s what it looked like! The image of those brownish hard-boiled eggs with flies over them will stay with me for some time. Ugh. I’m glad we had some soya crisps with us.

The scariest part of the Bako trip was the last morning when it was pouring with rain for hours. We were scared of having to stay another night in the smelly accommodation and having to ration the few remaining soya crisps. We asked if we could get a boat if it was still raining and were told ‘Some say yes, some say no. I say no. I’ll book you a boat for 12pm!’ What? Luckily it cleared up by 12 and we were soon back at Bako Bazaar stocking up on a kilo of bananas for 30 cents.

Kuching… again

I finally get it. Kuching is suddenly all making sense now that we have less than 24 hours left here. Maybe we just needed the contrast of roughing it in Bako national park, or the hilarious-ness of the Damai Beach and what it had to offer. More on those later because we’re just back from dinner with fellow lodge people (including an Aussie from Newtown who went to school with someone I work with), and now we’re going up to the roof top bar.

So why does Kuching now make sense? We found a supermarket. Asian supermarkets rock. We realised that eating at the authentic looking local places are not the way to go. We’re just back from a pretty good meal at a boring western looking place. Sure, we’d never heard of the cheap Australian wine we had with our Malaysian food, but the food was more interesting that most of the roadside stuff we’ve had so far.

Posts on Bako and Damai to come. Do tune in for both because they’re sure to be hilarious. Firstly because Bako was like being in the army (I imagine), and secondly because Damai and its “cultural village” involved audience participation. That always makes me cringe.

Oh and no, the Proboscis monkey hid from us this morning but tomorrow we shall definitely see Orang Utans.