New Year's in the jungle (Jan. 1/09 - Bako National Park, Borneo, Malaysia)

As if exploring a volcanic crater amongst lions and zebras wasn't unconventional enough for Christmas, we thought hiking in the Borneo jungle would be an equally unique way to spend New Year's Day. We paid our 70 cents and boarded the bus that would take us an hour down the road to the jumping off point where boats take people in to Bako National Park. From there, it was a quick ride down the wide and muddy river to its mouth, where the park began. It wasn't your usual boat ride though, as the tidally-influenced river was so low that we looked at each other in alarm when we realized that we were speedin toward an area of the river that looke a lot more like solid mud than flowing river! We were right - as the water disappeared, the boat slowed way down and the motor struggled as we literally tried to propel the boat across a virtually dry river bed. Even with the motor blaring, we slowed to a near stop a few times, and we both thought we were about to be beached and forced to wait until the tide comes in! But the driver knew what he was doing and got us through somehow! We pulled up to a big wide sandy beach that was surrounded by thick jungle and bordered by rocky headands on both sides. The park is quite small, located on a bit of a peninsula, but the fact that it is bordered on three sides by ocean has resulted in a dense population of wildlife and exotic plant species. Some of the highlights include the strange looking probocis monkey, bearded pigs, long tailed macaques, tons of birds several types of carnivorous plants, and rafflesia flowers - the largest in the word, measuring a meter across! Park headquarters has cabins for rent and a cafeteria to feed guests, so it makes for an easy access introduction to Borneo's rainforests.

Our room wasn't ready yet, so we went for a hike out to a beach that would take us through some pretty stretches of jungle and hopefully provide some wildlife sightings too. We hadn't even reached the trailhead yet when we saw a group of at least a dozen proboscis monkey running around in the sand and eating leaves off the trees. That was easy! These guys are supposed to be very rare, so we considered ourselves lucky to have seen them without even trying! They are the most unfortunate looking creatures - the males have a relatively bald face and a huge phallic-looking protrusion of a nose that looks like they were assembled incorrectly. Interestingly, their feet are ENORMOUS! They played around for a while and then moved up into the trees, swinging and grunting as we passed underneath. The trail snaked its way through the jungle, complete with some root ladders and log bridges that reminded us of the West Coast Trail at home. The humidity was almost unbearable - we were drenched within minutes! Eventually, we climbed down onto the beach and emerged onto the sand, where Ken suddenly stopped in his tracks and pointed straight ahead - a huge furry animal had its back to us and was grazing beside the trail. Then I recognized it from the "Endemic Animals of Borneo" poster - it was a bearded pig! This too was a weird looking creature - about 3-4 feet long with long brown hair an a bizarre long anteater-like nout with a bushy beard and tiny beaded eyes. Weird! We gave it lots of space since we didn't know if they were dangerous like Africa's warthog, but soon he picked up our scent and scurried off into the bushes.

The beach was beautiful, fringed with sandstone cliffs eroded into artistic shapes, with tide pools sprinkled between the cliffs and the sand. On the way back to the trail to head back, the same bearded pig scared the living hell out of me when we stepped within about 6 feet of him without noticing that he was grazing under the low branches of a palm tree. This time he looked right at us and didn't seem to care, but I caught a glimpse of his massive teeth and decided to back away slowly.

After a nap, we looked around in the park information center, where displays talked about the park's history, geology, flora, fauna, and conservation efforts. By then, it was dark and starting to rain, so we had some dinner at the park's cafeteria and retired to the room to play some cards and get an early night's sleep.