Leaving behind the sounds of dusk prayers ringing from a distance, the last semblance of civilization was the towering 1800-room palace; a gold, jewel-encrusted masterpiece, which we passed in our rickety wooden boat, cruising toward the mangrove swamps. We waved excitedly at the Sultan’s private guards, overseeing the red-carpeted and regal-looking jetty, an emergency back-door exit to the Brunei River.
And then we were alone. Surrounded by murky brown-green water and thick buttress roots, my senses came alive with the sounds, smell, and sights before me. There was no time to digest the cacophony of sounds before I heard: “Look, there’s one!” I glanced up at a creature staring back at me, its distinct red-brown Pinocchio-shaped nose glistening in the rays of the auburn-lit night sky. It was a proboscis monkey, an endangered species and native to Borneo. I heard more rustling in the leaves nearby and soon spotted another. They were all around me, in their natural habitat, basking in this bewitching sunset hour.
My amazement at seeing wild proboscis monkeys coupled with fire-blazened skies was soon extinguished by pitch darkness. Our boatman Ali powered up his fluorescent torch, which illuminated the still water bringing us some momentary relief. “Mau liat buaya?” he said, which I quickly deciphered when faced with glowing red eyes lurking in the muddy waters before us. In an instant, my life flashed before my eyes and I thought “How did I end up here?…” a world apart from my current home, a city perpetually engulfed in winter. I realized as his bright light shone through the waters that I was outnumbered. I learnt through Ali’s limited English that the brightness of a crocodile’s eyes relate to age, and their size relates to physical length. I counted about 50, some mere metres away. Ali reassured me that the crocodiles were well-fed due to ample wildlife in the river. Even as we cruised along slowly through the swamps amidst the symphony of cicadas, monitor lizards and who-knows-what-else, passing glowing fire-flies and white egrets glistening in the dark, the only thought racing through my mind was that I was surrounded by crocodiles.
A sense of self-realization dawned on me. In a country replete with ironies and shifting paradigms, its official motto was tested and stands true – I had never felt so alive exploring and unearthing what lurks below the surface in the Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures.
