Borneo Photos

Well, finally finished editing Borneo Photos as much as I feel like:

Kota Kinabalu           Flickr
Padas River Rafting  Flickr   Everytrail
Mount Kinabalu        Flickr   Everytrail
Mantanani Island      Flickr
Mantanani Diving     Flickr
Maliau Basin Trek    Flickr   Everytrail
Sepilok Orangutans  Flickr
Kinabatangan River  Flickr   Everytrail

More posts to come later.

Back from Borneo

Well, I had a pretty awesome  three week vacation in Borneo.  I was busy every day seeing and experiencing  different things.  For the past several years I have spent the majority of my vacations doing backcountry trips in Ontario, but this year my friend Steve, who happens to be teaching in an International school in Kuala Lumpur in peninsular Malaysia, wanted to climb Mount Kinabalu.  The waiting list is like 6 months long for it so it needs to book early.  He asked if I wanted to join and I said sure…   Borneo looks like a good place for adventure with many things in close proximity to experience – pristine rainforest, whitewater rafting, scuba diving, nice beaches, mountain climbing, exotic tropical wildlife, huge limestone caves, great trekking…  kinda hard to beat all that, sounds great!

So several plans came together right before my departure and it lead for a nonstop action packed vacation.  I managed to get 3 weeks away from work. 

I flew in to Kota Kinabalu, the largest city in Borneo in the northwest, in the province of Sabah. After a day or so of acclimatisation, we  got started with rafting on the PADAS river.  After that was the two day rather tough climb to the summit of Mount Kinabalu, one of the highest peaks in southeast Asia.  On the way down, we basically walked down the cliff face on the Via Ferrata. After that was a 4 day stay at the Mantanani Islands, a small group of islands close by to the North of Kota Kinabalu, nice and relaxed, not very expensive, not many tourists and not developed (yet…).  There Steve and myself got our PADI night dive certification, did a bunch of daytime dives, and even got to dive a WWII wreck, the Eikyo Maru, a Japanese merchant vessel torpedoed by a US sub in 1945.  At a depth of 40m it is at the limit of sport diving  and we did our first decompression dives on the wreck as well. After Mantanani, Steve went back to KL, and I continued my adventures..  first on a 5 day, 4 night trip to go trekking in the Maliau Basin to check out the awesome old growth rainforest, and the 7 tiered Maliau Falls while I was at it. Then I finished off my trip with a trip to Sandakan to check out the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center and to the Kinabatangan River to check out all types of wildlife – birds, crocodiles, orangutans, pygmy elephants, monkeys.  A lot of cool stuff.  I only wish I got to visit the huge caves at Mulu, or had a bit of extra  time to hang out on the beach instead of diving all the time.  Other than that, it was an excellent vacation, many memories and experiences to be had.  After that,, the tiring 20 hour commute home. 

I will be doing a few write-ups on my thoughts and tips on specific locations or trips soon.  I also got to use a bunch of new gear a lot, namely my Osprey Waypoint 65 travel pack, and my new boots.  I had second thoughts on the Salomon 4D boots.  They are a bit too full-on boots and too large, so I went back to MEC to exchange them a couple days before my flight.  I was planning on trying on the Vasque Breeze boots, but they had none in my size in stock.  So I ended up with some Keen Gypsum MID.  These wouldn’t have been my first choice but in the end I am very pleased with them and they have performed quite well on my trip. More to come…

Countdown to Borneo

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

Jungle Leeches