So I have a flight booked to Borneo and I leave in 5 weeks, I’m going to be there for 3 weeks and I am super excited. Adventure, anyone? In the past many years, I have been taking local-ish vacations, usually in the backcountry somewhere in Ontario. My kayak old buddy Steve has been teaching in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) and a couple months ago asked me if I was interested in joining a trip he was doing to the summit of Mount Kinabalu in Borneo. I said sure! Mount Kinabalu is a 13,000ft mountain in North Borneo, Boneo being a large island in the South Pacific, comprised of 3 countries – Malaysia, Indonesia and a small city-state called Brunei.
The trip to the summit of Mount Kinabalu needs to be reserved half a year in advance due to it’s popularity. The issue being that it takes two days to make it up and back and there is limited cabin accommodations part way up on the mountain. From the trailhead (Timophon Gate) to the summit, the trail is actually only 8 kms long, but the problem is you have to climb 2 km in that distance. In other words it is extremely steep. We are also doing the Via Ferrata when up there. A Via Feratta is a semi mountain climbing thing where you are walking along the side of a rock face attached with safety harnesses, almost semi mountain climbing.
I am super excited about the rest of Borneo. Not to say that the Ontario backcountry is old hat, but Borneo is a very different almost alien environment and there will be lots of new things to experience. Other than the mount Kinabalu trip taking 2 days, my schedule is free. Borneo is an equatorial jungle island, with native . The wildlife is amazing with orangutans, proboscis monkey, pygmy elephants, not to mention the lesser liked creatures. Things that nightmares are made of such as flying snakes and jungle leeches that wait on branches and leaves for you to walk by and then attach themselves to you to gorge themselves on your blood expanding 2-5 times their original size. You have to use DEET or salt to get them off. Nice. Some use ‘Leech socks’, sort of gaiters that the leeches can’t bite through on your calf, so you can just flick them off.
Other than that craziness, there’s lots of other awesomeness – amazing scuba diving in Sipadan and other areas (haven’t been diving in 6 years, but great to do it again), whitewater rafting, sea kayaking, islands to camp on, huge limestone caves to visit, strange limestone pinnacles in the central region, lots of jungle trekking, and natives to visit in their long houses, hot springs and canopy walks. Yeah, that should keep me busy for a while.
I just bought on Osprey Waypoint 65 travel pack online after doing much research into travel packs. It looks pretty sweet – has a zip-off daypack to use and 65 liter capacity should be more than adequate for what I am doing.
Links:
Boreno - Wikipedia
Borneo – Lonely Planet
Mout Kinabalu – Wikipedia
Sipadan – Wikipedia
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