Sarawak: exploring Malaysia's lesser-known island region

25.08.2023 - 07:03 / nationalgeographic.com

Growing up, Borneo seemed like the wildest corner of our planet: a vast, far-away island where orangutans swung through the rainforest and remote tribes hunted with blowpipes. It was the sort of place that stoked the imagination; if you were a kid spending a rainy afternoon writing a story of adventure and exploration, you couldn’t start with a better backdrop than the jungles of Borneo. 

Four decades on, I find myself on the island, on a 10-day tour of the forested Malaysian region of Sarawak, which lies along the northwest shore. Strolling along the bustling waterfront of Kuching, the region’s capital (home to its international airport), I realise the real Borneo is more varied and textured than the Borneo of my boyhood visions: a place with modern, urban attractions as well as the tangle of nature beyond.

The city has busy bars, shops selling crafts and a restaurant scene in the midst of reviving kampong (village) cuisine. I pass costumed street artists entertaining pedestrians and admire the architecture of the towering Borneo Cultures Museum. Inside are immersive, multisensory exhibitions that offer a contemporary dive into the island’s past. Where I expected to find bronze effigies honouring the country’s revered great ape, there are quirky statues of domestic cats instead peppering the streets. This part of Borneo is vibrant — and a little bit bonkers; a curious gateway through which to pass into a landscape of ancient rainforests and colourful, charismatic wildlife. 

South of the city, at Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, high in the canopy, the trees bend and swish as apes move through the forest. Just a few feet away from my tour group, the orangutan troop’s dominant male descends to eat coconuts on a wooden feeding platform. 

In the north of Sarawak, I watch as a tribesman in traditional dress fires a blowpipe — albeit a demonstration of the art at the Sarawak Cultural Village, in the shadow of Mount Santubong. Here, reconstructions of longhouses, complete with rattan mats, cooking utensils and model skulls hanging from the rafters, offer a glimpse into the traditional practices of ethnic groups living in the interior.

From here, I go east, rounding the coast in a little motorboat towards Bako National Park. We head towards a sandy cove, cruising past rocks shaped like spitting cobras, carved that way over thousands of years by the push and pull of the waves. Besides myself and the crew, there’s no one else in sight. Alighting, we trek the park trails. Among the leaves, a green pit viper waits motionless on a branch like a coiled spring and brazen long-tailed macaques scavenge for titbits by the accommodation huts. We keep our eyes peeled for endemic proboscis monkeys, but they remain elusive. 

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