Borneo To Be Wild

October 30, 2025 by
“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the jungle.”  
“Just another 40 minutes”, yells our trekking guide. 

It’s the same answer we got the last three times we asked. 

Come on, Karyn, adjust that pack on your back and keep walking. The only thing to do is keep going. Keep climbing up—and then down, reminding yourself of muscle groups that once existed.

It may be time to question the old hippie motto, “If it doesn’t feel good, do it!”Maybe it’s the other way around.Navigating through this verdant landscape requires resilience—and a sartorial dress code for a certain age termed “Powerfully Likeable”.

Clad in breathable synthetics, as our ancestors foretold, and reviving a style of pants widely believed to be lost to time, I sought to cover up the most skin without sous-viding in my own sweat. I adjust my pearl and diamond earrings and trod on. 



Research suggests that there are two kinds of people who tolerate the heat well: indigenous Amazon-like groups —and no one else. It has also been found that people who live in next-to-the-sun climates have evolved to be slightly less stout and to have shorter limbs so they have less surface area from which to expel heat. 

For some of us, there is always “behavioral adaptations”—like not going outside. It can make such a difference to your level of discomfort. I mean, I can go without air-conditioning for a few minutes, but this is outrageous.

It’s hot. Approximately the same temperature as it would be if we’d  been sitting on the sun. Only hotter. And the humidity! It’s at 100%. But I do though, look great in my full-brimmed hat… 

So with an assertive display of athleticism, I persevere. My shirt is so soaked it could be wrung out to water a few jungle plants. Not that they need it. Sweat continues to pool around my lower back and into my eyes. 

And as soon as I entered the jungle, I swear every insect lifted its head and turned their antenna in my direction. For a personal visit. Visits. Many visits.

 

Slogging through a deluge of gnarly giant roots, grasping at twisted vines to climb over igneous boulders, navigating undulating boardwalks, clinging to rope and bamboo bridges, and traversing muddy trails—trekking in Borneo is the real deal. It’s the raw adventure of just putting boots on the ground. 

But this stress could be wrecking my complexion, and also there is a disturbing lack of cappuccino breaks and mint-chocolate-chip ice cream in stinky-sweet waffle cones. Self-care is essential.

To paraphrase Diane Keaton in “And So It Goes, “You don’t stop walking, you just pretend that everything is fine.”



There is not a dot of anyone anywhere, except us. And I like it this way. It is a certain kind of magic. Maybe we are walking in the legendary footsteps of the tattooed Marut headhunters.

Sunlight drips through the towering canopy, canopies older than empires, casting patterns of light and shadow on the forest floor that harbours a myriad of lush flora and fauna. Leaves and branches rustle overhead as unseen and elusive creatures move through the vegetation in all possible shades of green. 

Connection deepens with each step. This soul-shaking raw interconnectedness, this indivisibly. Echoing the great naturalist John Muir’s observation that “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” There is a distinctly primeval feeling, like a single living breathing organism.

This is real rainforest, which means every wondrous thing you see here is pure chance.Lizards scatter. Scorpions crawl. Hornbills call and trails whisper. It’s like being immersed in a David Attenborough documentary.

Finally, we reach our night’s rest and achievement at our homestay refuge sans electricity or service. Bliss.

After a simple, delicious traditional meal, I settle in for the night. Wide-eyed and sleepless, it’s darker than black. I lay on my floor mattress listening to the symphony of sea and chirping cicadas. I close my eyes against the darkness, stretching out my arms. Soon comes the deep labyrinth sleep of tree trunks.

                          
                           

Borneo isn’t just one story; it’s many. 

 Borneo is not just about sweating and swatting insects. It’s hard to think of anywhere more distant and remote than Borneo (the world’s third-largest island) from a western perspective. This is a place where the biodiverse haven and storied wildlife reign supreme, offering a rare glimpse into Earth’s most primal beauty. Being here is a way of pledging allegiance to a poetic freedom available only in the ravishing wildness of remote places.

We live such a manicured life in North America. Here there is relief from the urbane precast world and the cacophony of sound: the mating calls of pings and buzzes, the jack-hammering of pavement, the honking of horns.

Borneo is a bucket-list raw beauty marvel offering a front-row seat to unspoiled sugar-like beaches and crystal clear water, mangroves creeping inland and dipterocarp rainforests, kerangas heath and padang scrub. Subterranean caves and coastlines are sculpted with stunning sea arches and secluded coves, its trails leading to breathtaking viewpoints and gushing waterfalls.



The rainforests of Borneo are one of the world’s last remaining and the oldest, estimated to be approximately 130 million years old. They are so ancient they were here when dinosaurs walked. Home to more than 15,000 species of plants, the rainforests have changed little.

Known as ‘the lungs of the world,’ these verdant rainforests soak up more carbon dioxide than trees in the Amazon rainforest. They’re effectively slowing down climate change by reducing the amount of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Unfortunately outside the protected and Unesco World Heritage-listed areas, much of Borneo’s forest has been logged, developed or replaced by palm-oil plantations, and mining operations are polluting the ecosystem through the water.

Here there are creatures as extraordinary as they are unexpected. The flying lemur, gliding across distances using flaps of extra skin, the ninja slug” that fires love darts at its mate, a catfish with protruding teeth, the world’s longest insect, and overachiever mouse deer, as females can conceive just two hours after birth and newborns can stand after 30 minutes.

Borneo is one of only two places in the world where the wild charismatic orang-utans still roam the rainforest, but they are slowly being pushed to the brink of extinction by habitat loss. They are among the smartest primates. They build a fresh nest out of tree branches each night, craft tools, make medicine, and even exchange gifts at Christmas.

You can never be guaranteed to see an orang-utan, as they appear whenever they feel like it. In Sepilok’s Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre, which reintroduces displaced apes into semi-wild habitats, the rangers put out food on a feeding platform twice a day. How many orang-utan’s turn up is how many you will see. This morning—two. 



And yes, there are crocodiles in Borneo. The locals are quite nonchalant about living with these salt-water creatures, even though they are the most dangerous and biggest reptile on Earth measuring in at around six metres long fully grown. In Sarawak, between 2015-2024, there have been 93 attacks with 67 being fatal, and in Sabah, 99 attacks with 73 being fatal. In other words, it’s best to avoid lingering around the edge of muddy jungle riverbanks for extended periods of time.  



There are hornbills soaring above mangrove forests (the males’ eyes are red and females’ eyes are white), with their mango-coloured quiffs, kingfishers, and a plethora of bird species, sightings of twilight fireflies, cheeky pig-tailed macaques, silver leaf monkeys, and tree-swinging howling gibbons. And numerous snakes. One drop of venom from a banded sea krait can kill three adults and there is no antidote. Or the pitviper snake with its brutal fangs.

 

The proboscis monkey has got to be one of the oddest-looking primates on Earth with their Dr. Seuss’s Whos floppy bulbous nose and pot-belly. Unlikely to win any beauty pageant, their nose can exceed 10.2 cm in length in adult males, serving as an amplifier for their mating call. In fact, the longer the grumpy-old-man nose, the better to attract a potential mate. Endemic to Borneo, their population has plummeted by half in the past 35-40 years due to deforestation for timber and palm oil plantations, as well as hunting.



Borneo’s plants can challenge the senses. Like the gigantic parasitic Rafflesiaarnoldii. It’s the prodigy of the flower world, reaching over one meter in diameter. Finding it is an adventure that requires impeccable timing, patience, and luck as it only blooms for around 5 days in a year before it dies. Known as the “corpse flower”, it has a malodorous odour of rotting flesh. It wasn’t blooming while we were there, so this is the closest I came to a sighting. Just as well. 



Then there is the macabre carnivorous pitcher plant that lures its unsuspecting insects to slide down a slippery rim into a pool of fluid where they are digested and absorbed. The plant’s large pitchers are an important adaptation, allowing it to capture sufficient water and nutrients to thrive in an area where other sources of sustenance are scarce.



We are privy to an overnight visit to Turtle Island to witness nesting green and hawksbill turtles. A team of full time rangers patrol every evening, working tirelessly to prevent predators. At each female nest the ranger carefully removes her eggs and re-locate them to a new nest dug in the safer confines of the island’s hatchery.

Brimming with excitement, we had the unforgettable experience of digging up baby hatchlings and then watching as they made their way into the ocean.

 

From monkey encounters and poisonous snake sightings, watching foraging squirrels and the somewhat aesthetically-challenged wild bearded pigs, avoiding swarms of bats in caves, swimming beneath waterfalls, traversing suspension bridges over rivers, slipping on muddy trails, and experiencing downpours of biblical intensity, we knew enough to be awed when we found it.
It was an opportunity to witness the enduring power of the natural world and the critical importance of preserving it for generations to come.



Now I must adjust to regular life—which so far, is watching black squirrels from my kitchen window wrapped in a multitude of layers—leg warmers, wrist warmers, and forehead warmers. 
It was an opportunity to witness the enduring power of the natural world and the critical importance of preserving it for generations to come.



Now I must adjust to regular life—which so far, is watching black squirrels from my kitchen window wrapped in a multitude of layers—leg warmers, wrist warmers, and forehead warmers. 
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