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Places featuresYou are in: Suffolk > Places > Places features > Borneo Trek  Pulau Sibuan Borneo TrekBy Sam Mellish Suffolk photographer Sam Mellish puts a collection of images together from his trek in the Highlands in Borneo. It's not Suffolk, but it's a varied selection of photos which I shot whilst spending a month wandering around Malaysian Borneo. I met up with an old friend in Sabah's capital Kota Kinabula, who had been a volunteer at an orang-utan rehabilitation centre based in Sabah. Together with a local from Kutching, Sarawak, who sported traditional tattoos of dolphins and tribal patterns, we headed for the Kalebit Highlands, the reason to embark on a 3-day hike through dense, steep bug ridden jungle!  Reflections - Just one of the spectacular views. It was after a slow 6 hour journey in a rather comfortable Toyota 4*4 which took us along dirt tracks, through immense virgin forest, that we eventually arrived at our starting point of the trek, the awesome Ba-kelalan. The village itself sits in the foothills of a spectacular valley. I've travelled through plenty of European alpine valleys but they don't come close to the site that we met; it was quite literally breathtaking. I was later to learn that the government had quite rightly banned logging in the area.  Rest Time - A friend of Kaya rests for a while. Having settled, ordered coffees at a sleepy guesthouse and spotted a few other 'orang-puti' (white People), we met our guide. He certainly made quite an entrance. Bleary eyed, wide smile, slightly swaying he sat down and quietly introduced himself as Kaya. Then out of the blue he broke into song "Mama, Tell your son not to grow up to be a cowboy!" A smile spanned wide across his face and his eyes crossed the room. He pulled out another can of Tiger beer and took a deep swig. Hi Kaya, so your taking us into the jungle hay? The trek took us through dense jungle, up long climbs, down steep declines, traversing past streams, over bridges and through some of the most stunning places I've ever seen. Nature has its way of introducing herself in the wild. While the others were well adapted to life in Borneo, I however, had been in the country less than a week.  Arriving back in Bario after a 3 day slog. My first encounter of the true elements was just after we entered real jungle territory. It was here that I was introduced to the leeches, or rather the leeches introduced themselves to me, and in a rather uncomfortable place I'll add. The rest of the day was very bloody not to mention worrying. Those of you who have seen the film 'Stand by me' will know where I'm coming from! Lucky for me, all the blood was all part of a leech assault. It's more of a nuisance than anything else, still it put the creeps into me for a good while. Day soon passed to night and just after sunset we reached the jungle shelter where we were to make camp. The first day was gruelling, a good 10 hours of hiking, leech biting fun! Or so it's meant to be? With night drawing to a close a fire was built and Sarawak tea was served. We ate our rice packs which were made for us prior to our departure, and sleep came upon us very soon after.  In the Jungle - Trekking: Kalebit Highlands The next 2 days of trekking were considerably easier, no more leech attacks, just a constant up and down trek through jungle. It turned out that Kia was the most humble of guides; how anyone can trek through dense forest, with no real path, and only a good sense of direction, is way beyond me! last updated: 16/07/2008 at 11:05 SEE ALSOYou are in: Suffolk > Places > Places features > Borneo Trek |
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