Rhinoceros hornbills are the state bird of Sarawak. Photo / 123RF
For nature enthusiasts and adventurous souls, there's gold in the forest of Malaysia's Sarawak, writes Sophie Barclay.
Wiping off hunks of gibbon poo from a khaki-ed shoulder may not be every traveller's cup of tea, but the tropical rainforests and mist-cloaked peaks of Malaysia's Sarawak are dream destinations for tourists with a taste for adventure and a love of wildlife.
A one-and-a-half hour flight from Kuala Lumpur, the state of Sarawak stretches along the western and northern edge of the island of Borneo, meeting the South China Sea at the coast. One of two of Malaysia's Bornean states, Sarawak encircles the Nation of Brunei and rubs shoulders with Indonesia along its southern border.
Sarawak is fast earning a reputation as Malaysia's eco-tourism hub. The semi-autonomous state is rich in national parks, with 30 strewn across the state and many new parks and reserves in the pipeline. Standouts include Mulu National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site that boasts the world's largest cave chambers (it's rumoured that 10 Boeing 747 planes could lie side by side in the chamber), and Niah National Park where, in 1958, archaeologists unearthed a 40,000-year-old skull of a modern human.
At 37km from our base in Sarawak's capital, Kuching, Bako National Park is the oldest (gazetted in 1957) and one of the smallest national parks in Malaysia. To get to the park, we wind up the mangrove-fringed river, through Bako village, a tiny settlement first established in 1953 by a descendant of the Brunei Royal family, whose economic mainstay is anchovy fishing. The trip affords glorious views of Santubong's mountain peaks, and precarious, sea-carved sandstone cliffs that jut into the South China Sea. The 30-minute journey costs 94RM ($33) a boat, which fits four people.
Within 10 minutes of our arrival we've already spotted mud skippers (small fish that hop across the sandy mangrove flat), bearded pigs snuffling around the chalets and a lime green venomous Bornean pit viper, resting its enormous, distended stomach on a branch. In the treetops above us, docile silver langur monkeys with David-Beckham-esque mohawks laze around.
We also catch a glimpse of a family of proboscis monkeys, with their hilarious-yet-obscene saggy noses, webbed feet, and honking "danger calls". Unique to Borneo, they are one of the few primates that survive mainly on leaves. Their protruding, pregnant potbellies teeming with digestive bacteria, is proof. More than 200 individuals live in the park.
The park also achieves the sizeable feat of showcasing 25 different types of vegetation and seven different ecosystems, including beach vegetation, mangrove and peat swamp forest, and heath forest (known locally as kerangas). It's a botanist's delight offering ancient, cycads that evolved 17 million years ago, bizarre spiky palms, looping vines that corkscrew up into the canopy and an assortment of strange mosses and ferns.
With long treks for seasoned trampers, or shorter 30-minute jaunts, the park caters for all levels of fitness. Bako is easily day-trip-able but overnight stays come highly recommended and allow for more flexibility for the tidal access.
The park offers guided night walks for overnighters to catch a glimpse of the illusive tarsier (part monkey, part mouse with huge round eyes), bats and the bizarre scaly pangolin with its hexagonally plated body.
The real drawcard, though, is the beautiful, coppery-coloured monkey that shares 97 per cent of human's DNA and possesses five times the strength of a human - the orang-utan (literally "person of the forest").
A population estimate about 10 years ago guessed that 59,000 endangered Bornean orang-utans remained in the wild. Numbers have declined by more than 50 per cent over the past 60 years and available habitat has shrunk by 55 per cent in the pasts two decades.
The burgeoning palm oil sector, of which Malaysia is a world leader, supplying 35.2 per cent of global palm oil in 2012, is the leading cause of rainforest destruction, according to the UN Environmental Programme. Land clearing, logging and the associated burning of fields (forest fires in Indonesia's Kalimantan in 1997 and 1998 reduced the population by 33 per cent in just one year) are taking their toll to such an extent that orang-utans could become extinct by 2020.
Bornean orang-utans are not native to Kuching, but there are two small populations in local wildlife rehabilitation centres. Orphaned, injured and confiscated animals in the illegal pet trade are brought to the centres and, where possible, returned to the semi-wild.
The Heart2Heart day tour, organised by Sarawak Forestry, offers insight into the rehabilitation process. The morning is spent at Matang Wildlife Centre, a rehabilitation centre set in Kubah National Park. Here, tourists tackle cage cleaning and food prep and try making monkey-treat (a concoction of honey, raisins and sunflower seeds dished into banana leaves).
The afternoon is spent at Semingoh Wildlife Centre, an educational park and tourist mecca, boasting 27 semi-wild orang-utans hidden in the park's 653ha. It no longer undertakes rehabilitation onsite as it is deemed at capacity. New entrants to Matang's rehab programme are kept away from human contact.
In the afternoon, they head for the jungle with Aligo, a 6-year-old orphaned orang-utan, who trains them in nest-building and food foraging. Candidates progress through to jungle sleepovers and, if they successfully graduate, they are monitored to see how they fare in the jungle.
The future plan is for rehabilitated creatures from both centres to be released into the central part of Borneo.
Between 200 and 500 baby Bornean orang-utans enter the pet trade each year, which usually means that poachers kill the mother. Semmingoh and Matang are trying to stem demand by running outreach awareness programmes with communities.
Alongside the orang-utans are a poo-throwing gibbon, a beautiful, silvery-grey clouded leopard, the lesser adjutant stork and porcupines. There are also several rhinoceros hornbills, the state bird of Sarawak. This swan-sized, breathtaking bird has a red, curved, bony protrusion above its beak.
Semmingoh is the preferred option for those wanting to see primates in their natural habitat. The resident orang-utans are semi-wild but some return to one of the twice-daily feeding sessions where the mainly frugivorous orang-utans (they eat over 300 different kinds of fruit constituting around 60 per cent of their diet), snack on sweet potato, papaya, jackfruit and banana, much to the delight of camera-clutching tourists.
We were lucky enough to spot 6-year-old Ganya testing his climbing skills on spindly-looking branches that keeled over under his weight, and his 42-year old mother Seduku (the centre's oldest resident) within 15m of our group.
Because orang-utan babies stay for up to eight years with their mother, the longest childhood dependency of any animals, females have very few children. They also give birth quite late, usually at around 15. It's no wonder then that populations are incredibly sensitive to any losses.
Visitors to Semmingoh can also opt to take one of the many jungle trails dotted around the centre. The cacophony of frogs, cicadas, the bizarre whoops of the red-crowned barbet and the crack of falling leaves is incredible, but keep your eyes out for interesting-looking, more discreet creatures - I spied lizards, chameleons, lines of maroon ants marching their meals over motley-coloured trunks, berry-red centipedes and bright-blue-legged spiders.
Park entry for those outside of the Heart2Heart Programme is 10RM and entry is valid all day so visitors could squeeze in both feeding sessions, exploring the park in between (leech-proof socks and mosquito repellent are musts).
Tourism is still a fledgling industry in Sarawak. It's empowering to think that by supporting eco-tourism measures, visitors can play a key role in providing an economic incentive to keep forests, and the creatures that dwell within, safe from the chainsaw.
CHECKLIST
Getting there: Malaysia Airlines flies Auckland to Kuala Lumpur daily. There are a number of flights daily from there to Kuching, Sarawak.
Details: Borneo Adventure offers 100 different tours in and around Sarawak. Their guides are highly recommended.
Further information: See sarawaktourism.com and tourism.gov.my.
The writer travelled as a guest of Tourism Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines.
The trendy spot is just six minutes from the Waikiki beach.