Bako National Park, back to Borneo

Bako was one of the very few things left to do on Borneo island and it's also an easy one do-able over a 2 days WE so during the busy month of December, we managed to squeeze it!

We spend Friday night in Kuching, a nice town with a lively Chinese temple and a surprising big number of bars for a Malaysian city!

Saturday morning, after a bit of mis-timing with the tide, we finally get to Bako around lunch time. Bako is not an island but for some reason it's only accessible by boat.

 

Once registered and fed, we are ready for our first hike, a loop around the park. First 20m and we bump into a wild pig! Woohoo what a start! Unfortunately that will be it for this walk :-(

But the walk is very varied, vegetation, temperature and humidity degree keep on changing.

3h later we are back in the room where we are apparently supposed to spend the night. I'll let you dream about the place...

Anyway, a shower and we decide to go for a walk on the beach where we met an entire family of wild pigs! We are in a Muslim country so I suppose they are safe here!

 

As we were disappointed with the number of animals we saw during the afternoon, we decide to go with a guide for the night walk. That was the best investment of 10 ringgit we could have made: monkeys, snakes, flying lemur, kingfisher birds, frogs, all sorts of insects and a very scary looking tarentula!

On Sunday we decide to combine 2 walks both leading to a beach. The walk is as per the day before: up and down in the middle of roots with varied vegetation. The photo below is the path!

The final beach is beautiful and feels really isolated from the world. We go for a swim and enjoy a wash in the fresh water stream.

Coming back, in the last 200m of the walk, we finally meet a proboscis family!

Now we are done and we can head back to the camp, then the boat, then the airport and finally Singapore!

Now, The last trip left on Borneo will have to be the Iban long houses but the organisation looks complicated! So you may have to wait a while before hearing about this one!