Back from the Wild

Just back from five days in the deep mountainous jungle of Borneo. At the back end of Bumi Bertuah sits the majestic Mulu Mountain range, dominating the skyline and standing there longing to be conquered.

There we were, a group of target-oriented corporate citizens, having a common passion for trekking and armed with Annapurna and Everest Base Camp experience, we set off for a 4-day trekking to conquer the highest summit of the mountain range – Mount Mulu. The offer to take on the Mount Mulu challenge was something that could not be refused.

Our logo – “Bring It On”.

Our group was made up of Hj Zainal, Leong, Hj Rosly, Al-Jeffery, Pg Khashiem, Hj Yakob, Iscramuon and yours truly.

We set off from Miri on the twin propeller plane for a short 30-minutes flight passing through the meandering Baram river, the land to the right almost completely savaged for the sake of palm plantations, whereas to the left still sits pristine jungle of the land known as Bumi Bertuah – Brunei Darussalam.

We landed on a small landing strip next to some protruding hills, on a flat land next to Melinau River that forms the boundary with the mountainous South. As we landed, we felt belittled by the Mulu Limestone Mountains that dominate the place.

There are a couple of prominent peaks that could be seen at a distance. Mulu summit is about 25.5 km from the Mulu Park HQ. It will take 3 days to reach that summit. The base camp is only 20 m in elevation and the summit stands at 2376 m. In fact in terms of actual climb this is higher than climbing Mount Kinabalu.

But the real challenge for the Mulu climb is that most of trekking have to be done in the most humid of condition which makes it really hard and tiring. The track is also seldom tried, a testimony of its reputation of one of the hardest mountain to climb.

We were expecting the worst, armed with some stories from previous trekkers. Our check list was extraordinarily detailed, but to limit 8 kg of stuff for each person for our porters to carry is difficult to achieve without sacrificing some basic needs of our modern living. On top of that it is needed (actually critical for survival) that each one had to carry 3 litres of water each day to overcome the steaming condition and the fast dehydration of the body.

We got the service of a very experienced guide by the name of Andrew, a native of the Bakalalan of Limbang, helped by another guide and a troop of 6 porters. Between them they have to carry our luggage, food and other basic amenities for the 4-day trek. Indeed it was quite a large group, 16 in total but the next few days would see that each person would be on his own to try to make the climb, even the experienced porters would face a real ordeal completing the journey.