Wild Encounters from Borneo to Bali - 4

September 21 - 24, 2014

Kuching and Bako National Park, East Malaysia, West Borneo

Two Days At Sea

September 21 we arrived on the island of Borneo at Kuching. Borneo is occupied by three countries: a slim section in the northern part belongs to Malaysia, a little hunk of that is the country of Brunei, and the rest of the island belongs to Indonesia. Kuching is the capital of the East Malaysian state of Sarawak.

In the morning we took a bus into town and around a bit. Since we didn’t exchange any money, we didn’t buy anything. We walked along the nice waterfront and browsed through some of the shops. Some people found some interesting things to purchase.

After lunch on the ship we took the city tour. One quick stop was at the Cat Monument, since the name Kuching means cat. The other stop was at the Sarawak Museum. It had some interesting things but was in bad need of renovation.

Dancers on the ship

Back aboard we had the usual recap and briefing, and then we all went out to the back deck for a Cultural performance by local dancers. They were very good and everyone enjoyed the show.

September 22 found us at Bako National Park. In the morning we took the Zodiacs along the steep cliffs to a sandy beach landing. The hike was actually a climb up a long flight of rickety stairs to an ocean overlook. Along the way we saw a several species of carnivorous pitcher plants.

Carnivorous Pitcher Plant

In the afternoon we landed on a larger sandy beach near the park headquarters. There we encountered our first primates. After seeing the viper in the bushes we spotted a number families of Macaque Monkeys. They were doing the usual grooming and a mother was nursing a small baby. One had found a can of Coke and used a number of methods to drink it all. 

Next came the Proboscis Monkeys playing up in the trees. They are large and have very prominent noses, as their name suggests. These are very unusual monkeys.

September 23 – 24 were days at sea in the Java Sea. Time was filled with a number of interesting lectures. They included Brian Skerry, the National Geographic Photographer; Dr. Lawrence Blare, the Global Perspectives guest speaker; Dr. Birute Galdikas, founder of Camp Leakey and an orangutan researcher; Tom Ritchie, naturalist; and Jack and Rikki Swenson, photo instructors. All were very interesting and informative.

Eating on the back deck

The weather continued warm and humid. Since the Java Sea was so shallow, we did not see any interesting sea life or mammals, as we are used to seeing. It was also a good time to get caught up on photo editing.

That's it for now. Grace and Paul