THE THREE ALPHA TRAVEL

In the last post I mentioned Hans and Rose. Well that is who I met when I flew from Kuching to Miri. They let me live on their boat and even fed me in many occasions – I would have to be their crew while they were out sailing looking for a particular ship wreck. They are a couple from Australia and the last two to three years they are based in Miri doing what they love most – treasure hunting with their yacht.

Mapping for shipwrecks

The deal was ideal. Free scuba diving and food and shelter. In exchange I would have to help with navigation, knots, ropes and all those skipper-related tasks that are needed on the boat while on the sea. Gladly we were joined by Roy, a British gentleman that had way more experience than me – lucky for them. Thus I learned some things about that too!

We had to wait a bit while Roy could say that he would come with us. The days in waiting, I read, visited the Niah Caves (see previous post) and used the free Internet provided on a 3G network on board! Who would have imagined it! Living in the boat beforehand gave me a head start and when on the sea I had no problems adjusting to the whole up and down, right and left movement of the vessel – which proved quite a problem for Rose. I got to know a bit more about the “yachties”, the community of people travelling and living in their ships. I always thought of them as rich with a lot of free time but it is not necessarily always so. A good example was – yet another – Australian couple, Stu and Lisa with their son Fletcher that joined us, arriving in the marina of Miri and staying there for two days. I wish them well wherever they are Overall a great experience and a great way of travelling – offering yourself as crew in peoples’ ships. It can get you a long way!

At the end we might not have found a shipwreck or a treasure but for me it was already a priceless experience. I hope we all meet again sometime; who knows… at a marina somewhere in the world. Until then safe travels and may the right wind blow on your sails always!

After spending two nights in Kuching I realized that I did not have thaaat many days in Borneo altogether, so I had to move. Bako National Park seemed a brilliant idea at the moment and so I went.

Bako sunset

There I stayed two nights out of the originally “planned” three. The reason is that the information about the tracks was not exactly accurate. Since the private company called Forestry took over the management of Sarawak’s national parks (2002), I am told and I can understand from what I saw that it is just not the same story. And I have to explain myself for saying this. The story goes that the first day I did the tracks; T. Pandan Kecil, T. Pandan Besar and T. Paku. All was well and I enjoyed myself a lot. I saw macacos and even bearded pigs. I met some nice people and had a swim in a beach just for myself. The second day I began walking at 10.00 and I was about to do the second biggest loop track of the forest. So I began. I took the Lintang track beginning from its south side with the intention of following the connecting Ulu Serait track. After finishing Ulu Serait too I realised I had to go back. But it was not easy to realize. I got lost for about two hours and needless to say I became very afraid. The good point here is that inside the dense and not-so-accesible-anymore thickets of the jungle I saw a proboscis monkey! It is not very easy to see so at least I was happy about that. When I finally came back backtracking (which I hate in trekking) I had a word with the rangers who told me that they did not know the path was closed. Oh well I thought, this is Malaysia. But I was wrong. This is privatization of public and natural resources for you! I strongly recommend to everybody visiting the park to double check on the paths with somebody that has already tried them. Later I found out that the path I tried to do yesterday it is only done by 2% of the visitors and that is why they did not bother telling everybody that it was not safe to go this way…

The other good thing coming out of the bad situation is that I met Rowan; an Australian guy that gave me the card of a couple of other Australians based in Miri. They were treasure hunters (shipwreck finders to be exact) and they wanted somebody as crew on their yacht. So after returning to Kuching I took the first flight to Miri. I was to spend a week living on their boat (see post to come).

While there and before we embarked, we visited the Niah Caves national park. That was very interesting as the park has one of the biggest caves in Borneo (both Malaysian and Indonesian).

Niah Caves

The tribes that used to live in the park (before the privatization of their management – remember?) have a very interesting story behind them both in the paleolithic period and the contemporary one. For more information you can visit The Great Cave of Niah. It was indeed very interesting and I realised it had been a lot of time since I last visited a cave. Thanks for that Rose and Hans!