The #6 bus from Kutching is on its last legs but it costs only two ringgits, about 70 cents for the 45 minute ride to Baku Village. Once you pay the ten ringgit entry fee you are free to negotiate a boat ride to the park proper. The open boats usually carry up to six passengers but they insisted that it was too rough and ‘muddy’ for more than two people at a time so we hired a boat for ourselves. They didn’t have to convince us to wear the life jackets though and we hunkered down for the half hour ride, somewhat protected from the worst of the spray and the rain by a canvas tarp. Of course it was raining!
Halfway out the boat ahead of us ran aground and we noticed three others were also stuck solid. It seems ‘muddy’ means the boats are actually floating on mud. Our boat stalled a few times and the driver had to clear the prop but we made it through the ‘muddy’ section OK then successfully negotiated the quartering waves foaming towards us. We knew we were near the park when the skipper asked, “Are you ready to take your shoes off?” We were already wet and it was only 20 meters to the mudflat and another 200 meters to the park, all in a downpour.
We were the first arrivals in over two hours and were received like minor celebrities when we came dripping into the canteen area. Everyone was anxious to find out what had befallen their friends in other boats and those waiting to return were curious about their prospects of getting back. In another half hour as the tide rose people started arriving. They were a sorry looking lot after sitting in the rain for two hours.
Accommodations are basic and the best that can be said of the food at the canteen is it is cheap but the animals are active at dawn and dusk so you have to stay over. During one of the lulls in the storm we took a short hike climbing trail through thick jungle to a nice viewpoint and returned just before the real downpour began. Baku is home to hundreds of bird species and the rare proboscis monkey but all we saw on our first outing was a huge bearded pig which is just as ugly as it sounds. And there was a macaque attack at the canteen when two of the cheeky monkeys jumped on a table and snatched an apple from in front of a very startled woman. No wonder they tell you to keep your door and windows closed and not to leave anything outside your room.
There are only about 1,000 proboscis monkeys left in the Sarawak and 150 of them live in Baku National Park. We have seen several troops in the treetops munching leaves. They are among the largest monkeys; males can weigh 20 kg and females half as much and there is no doubt when they go crashing through the treetop. The males have huge bulbous noses that apparently drive the smaller females crazy. The sky never brightened even when the rain stopped so photographing their Jimmy Durante-like schnozzes took some doing. How does David Attenborough get those shots anyway?
Every time we set out for a hike it pours and if this were the only chance we had to go into the forest we would be more persistent. It’s not that we are wusses; we have hiked in the rain plenty of times but we will have six weeks in the jungle of Indonesia so there is no rush. We did get in a hike along the beach among the mangroves and another on one of the lowland trails. It doesn’t take long to feel you are in the middle of Borneo. This place makes the forests of Uganda seem tame. The first explorers to penetrate Borneo’s jungle must have been real men worthy of being called Explorers.
