a trek in the jungle!

last weekend was chinese new year! as such, we had a four day weekend. meagan and i decided to hop over to sarawak to see what it had to offer. our plans were roughly sketched, but as it turned out, it all worked out pretty perfectly. i'll speak to kuching later, but first i want to talk about our time in the jungle!

we arrived in kuching on saturday evening, and were picked up sunday morning to head out to the jungle. we found a longhouse home stay online which offered one night stays, plus a trek in the jungle. it ended up definitely being an experience we'll probably never forget. onwards!

our trek was advertised as a three hour trek, ending at a three tier waterfall. we'd have lunch, play in the water, then head back. there was ALSO the option to go by car for most of the trek, and end with just a 20-30 minute walk to the waterfall. i wondered how that was possible, and later you'll see.



we saw plenty of fruits. first some durian (blegh), then starfruit.



the trek was extremely muddy. a lot of the places where steps had been set in place, we wiped them out. i wonder how often they have to go through and recreate the steps.



i only saw one little berry the whole trek! and the biggest bug we saw by far - this little THING. not sure what it is, but he was a big bug.



we were panting, sweaty, exhausted. there were three little stops along the trek up the hill. our guide promised after the third stop we just had one more mountain to climb, and it'd be almost finished. we were excited, the end was in sight! AND THEN. THE ROAD. like. where did it come from? as it turns out, we had to walk down the mountain on the road to get to the next path of jungle to get to the waterfall. and now i understand how they're able to shorten it for people who don't want to do a full trek. we felt cheated.



the clouds looked ominous, but they weren't terrible. we had a little bit of sprinkle-age on the way back, but that was it.



oddly enough, walking down a mountain you just climbed up is KILLER. you'd think it be a better feeling, but it was actually much worse.



and finally, the waterfall!



our guide got fast to work on our lunch, while we played in the water. apparently you can reach the second tier of the waterfall, and even the third if you're really adventurous. we just hung out at the bottom.



i was highly amused by these worker ants. they moved whole peanuts across sticks!! amazing.



finally, lunch was served. i don't like to complain here, but i had a big issue eating while in the jungle. mainly because they eat fish, lots of it, and cook everything in fishy sauce. along the way on our trek, our guide was picking out ferns that would later be used in our dinner. i was pretty excited to try the jungle fern, because it's what everyone talks about, but then it was cooked in fishy-ness, and thus, completely inedible to my sensitive little taste buds. i just couldn't do it. THIS lunch, at least had some chicken, but of course, on the bone. i ate around it as best i could. i think i did a pretty good job. still, not to complain, i was prepared for this to be the eating situation. that's why i packed my own snacks =)



i never knew what pineapples grew on!



the longhouse had tons of kittens and baby dogs all over the place. interestingly enough, each had their own "side" of the longhouse. cats vs. dogs lives on in the jungle.



bamboo is widely used around the longhouse area - the most noticeable part is as the floorboards in the main walking area. it's the responsibility of the associated house (i.e., your home is in front of that walking area) to replace the bamboo as it becomes weak with age. they replace it about once a year. that's a lot of bamboo!



on the left is pineapple in its baby form!! it's just growing. the same with the bananas.



the longhouse had a showroom of what a longhouse looked like in older village times. essentially, your home was one large room, with a high ceiling. a storage area was built towards the front, above the kitchen. they built it above the kitchen, since the smoke from the kitchen would cure the wood and thus make the storage area more sturdy. facts! we went up to the storage area - full of huge round bins where they'd store rice. it was pretty amazing.



i had almost no mosquito bites throughout the entire stay. why? apparently chickens keep mosquitoes at bay!! secondly, the longhouse also had a showroom for the ceremony room. YES, the headhunter legend is true of this region of the world. those are real skulls, which our particular longhouse village kept throughout the years. headhunting was common even as recently as the world wars, we were told. not today, though. we kept our heads.



one of the bathrooms in the longhouse had a resident Charlotte. aside from this picture, i avoided THAT. we ended our stay with some fresh coconut. we drank the juice, carved the fruits for later, and enjoyed our little snack before our next adventure in sarawak!

so, all in all, the trek was worth it. i've been on trips to plushier parts of the world where people have complained, and in witnessing that i vowed to never be one of those people. nothing you visit is ever going to be like the comfort of your own home, there will always be some fault. and, admittedly, there were quite a few faults in this, but we kept our attitudes optimistic and eager to keep taking on the adventure. it also helped we had a lot of nap breaks. it was interesting to see a culture so completely separated from our own. i think we take for granted today all the things we buy and use without thinking of how it came to us. i think we assume workers are living the same standards of life that we are. but here, we learned, they are not. and yet, they are not in want of anything more. they have what they need, and that's a good life. it makes you appreciate what you have that much more. and ALSO, the trek we took to the waterfall just for fun? that trek is taken by workers to get to a farm to harvest their rice. in old times (not sure about today), they'd do that trek every day. we were wiped out after just one. so, would i stay another night in the longhouse? probably not. would i bring someone to visit during the daytime? probably yes. it's just a very interesting place.

what's next? only my favorite ever. the happiest part of this trip for me!

Categories: borneo, jungle, jungle trek, longhouse, malaysia, sarawak, touristy things