Our Arrival

Several long flights later, we arrived in the airport of Miri, a town in the north-east of Sarawak (the western state of Malaysian Borneo), only to be stunned by the incredible wall of humidity that greeted us.

It was natural that, due to the conditions, a certain amount of acclimatisation was required in order to prevent ourselves drowning in our own sweat (a concept that became familiar as the trip progressed), and indeed the first week was spent getting used to the heat and humidity.

For seven days we sweated profusely in the beautiful settings of Niah and Lambir national parks, seeing such wonders as the huge limestone caves of Niah, inhabited by thousands of bats and giant cockroaches, as well as the beautiful Latak waterfall (which was a pleasing aesthetic contrast to our own sweat waterfalls... by now you have probably understood how much sweating was involved) at Lambir, which played host to a tense game of aquatic rounders, played with a tennis ball and nearby plank.

Bario

The next two phases of our expedition were to be its two main parts: the trekking and project phases. For these we travelled to the Kelabit Highlands, named after its inhabitants the Kelabit, former head-hunters whose elders are famous for their ears, which have been extended since birth with ornate brass weights. It is a very remote region in the north-west of Sarawak that is impenetrable by road, though it took only an hour to reach with the tiny propeller aircraft that barely accommodated the fifteen group members and its mountain of luggage.

We landed in Bario, the only main settlement of this dense jungle region, to find a charmingly ramshackle town of tin-roofed longhouses. On our first day we met a group of equally charming eight-year-old urchins, whose imaginative and welcoming use of hand-gestures was a joy to see – I suspect that previous World Challenge groups had taught them the significance of the middle finger in western culture. We enjoyed a high-spirited game of football with them, Andrew ‘Sexy’ Shaw particularly impressing the young locals with his silky skills. This was the first of many more encounters that were to follow when we returned from trekking.

Jungle Highlights

We spent a week in the jungle, sleeping each night in a hammock with a basher to keep us dry – necessarily so, for it is not called the ‘rainforest’ for nothing.

Having spent the night in a comfortable homestay in Bario we were met bright and early by a man who would have borne a remarkable resemblance to Popeye, had only the Sailor-man been a Kelabit. Johnson Puding’s diminutive height of 5’2’’ did not conceal a powerful physique that would put most rhinoceroses to shame. Johnson was to be our guide in the jungle, along with his cousin Nixon (the Puding family seem to have a great reverence for the American presidency), as well as our host for our project phase. The previous week had been an entirely novel experience, but even with that behind us, nothing could quite have prepared us for what was to come. Experts tell us that man is destroying the jungles and rainforests of our world, but when you are in the jungle, you feel insignificant and small. The sensory experience, of sight, smell and sound, is overwhelming; the latter of the three can prove to be a little troublesome, for at dusk the jungle comes alive with noise. The cacophony of monkey- calls and birdsong can make sleeping a little difficult, and for this reason Kev, in an uncharacteristic bout of maternal concern, had supplied us with earplugs.

Project Phase

One week with no facility to wash ourselves later, fifteen offensively smelly people found themselves at Johnson’s longhouse, ready not only to indulge in rather homoerotic communal showering, but also to embark on the long-awaited project phase. This involved us clearing mud and leaves out of a reservoir so that the inhabitants of Johnson’s village, Arur Dalan, could enjoy a fresh water supply again.

Under the excellent leadership of Ricky, a somewhat over-imbibing engineer (who one evening kindly granted Adam a personal rendition of the ‘Hornbill Dance’, throughout which balance was not steadily maintained), a job of hard physical graft that was supposed to take us five days took only two, a demonstration of the sense of teamwork and purpose that had already been instilled in us by our experience.

As well as working, we spent a lot of time getting to know the local people in a week that was to be one of the happiest of the trip. We regularly met the afore-mentioned eight year-olds, taking part in mock battles fought with rolled-up newspapers, or playing football.

Conclusion

However to our credit, nobody gave up, and we all reached the summit at about 4.45 a.m., preparing in the darkness to await sunrise. This, when it arrived twenty very, very cold minutes later, was truly spectacular, and for many was one of the trip’s best moments. The gradual but nonetheless vibrant scene that emerged was unforgettable.

We finally left Borneo a month after our arrival, all of us changed people (a healthy appetite for cross-dressing clearly developed as many group members proudly sported their sarongs on the train home from Heathrow). Borneo gave many benefits, and better people-skills, teamwork and a sense of self-confidence are only the most obvious of these.

Many thanks are due to Kev: a month of one’s holidays is precious time to sacrifice but he did so without complaint. Not only did he allow us to continue our expedition without interfering in our running of it, but he made it an enjoyable experience for everybody.

Even more gratitude is owed to Mr Mair. Not only did he give up his summer for us, highly praiseworthy in itself, but he took part in one of the world’s toughest races in Mali, in which he endured biting conditions in order to raise money for the expedition. For this we can hardly thank him enough, or for his excellent endurance of our company, about which he rarely complained.