Crocs, prawns and primates in the wilds of Borneo

By CLAIRE TREVETT

Tell people you are going to Borneo and they get all het up about the orang-utans.

I was more excited about the food.

You can see wild animals on the telly any day, but you can't have a tasty Sarawak laksa.

I had seen exotic wildlife before of course, kiwi, dolphins, a weta, and to be honest it was not that big a deal.

I had never understood the fuss about seeing exotic animals in the wild or why they inspired such surges of superlatives in writers.

Things are different now.

Having seen orang-utans in the flesh, I know everyone who gets close to big wild animals has a Dian Fossey epiphany.

I know this because I saw Julia Roberts when she visited the orang-utan on the Indonesian side of Borneo, and I saw her eyes gleam up all Fossey-like. Ditto for Jennifer Aniston with the grizzlies.

My moment came when I was traipsing up a path through a forest, watching a car-sized ant blithely disregard my turbo-charged insect repellent, and I heard a rustling from above.

There they were in all their hirsute, brazen pre-Garden of Eden glory, swinging from the trees like huge ginger, bow-legged kiwifruit.

Like the All Blacks, the orang-utans were a lot bigger in real life than the two-inch versions on my 13-inch screen television.

Semenggoh Wildlife Park is a 264ha classroom for orphaned or illegally captured orang-utan who have never learned how to hang about in a jungle.

It is also a sanctuary for long-tailed macaque, gibbons and crocodiles, but the 20 orang-utans - two males, eight babies and 10 females - steal the show.

In my 30 minutes of living with the orang-utans, Delima was the one I came to know best.

While the others mounted swift raids on the feeding platform, Delima held court in the fork of a tree on the edge of a path, her two-month-old baby Selina clutching her side.

Her soft eyes batted at the cooing tourists, as she primped herself with long, hairy fingers and combed her chin.

She was quite enchanting and she knew it. The cameras clicked madly. When each burst of clicking ended, she changed position and waited. The clicking started again.

There were no fences, no barriers between us. I would have touched her, if not for the warning that she likes to grab handbags and toss credit cards and money from the treetops like a government in an election-year Budget.

But I am sure we bonded. I am sure our eyes met over the heads of the other 20 tourists, and as she shovelled banana into her mouth, she whispered to me the wisdom of the ages.

From the treetops, one of her colleagues took exception and decided to rain on her parade, peeing on the people below.

So I confess, I did come over all Fossey. I am sure everyone there did, with the possible exception of the guy who took the brunt of the pee.

Hooked now, we headed out to meet a different primate. After all, it's always nice to catch up with long-lost relatives, even if they are a gene or two removed.

We were on a small boat, its motor eggbeating at the back as we whisked down the Santubong River toward the South China Sea.

We were heading for the Salak Mangrove Reserve, heart of the feeding ground of the rare proboscis monkey, found only on Borneo.

Our captain told us that sometimes, when the monkeys go too low on the trees, a crocodile leaps out of the murky waters and - da-da - the monkey magically transforms into dinner.

The photographer's eyes lit up at this news. The photographic stakes suddenly moved from a snap of a monkey with a funny honker and Buddha potbelly to a full-on action shot of nature in all its visceral glory.

Then the captain told us that these were the things we would not see.

"They only come out at sunset." We were there in mid-afternoon.

In the end the only monkey we saw was a garden variety pet, chained up in a Malay fishing village on Salak Island, accessible only by boat.

We followed the rickety walkways, planks placed on poles which quivered and swayed, past the sporadic stench of salted fish, drying on trays and popular with the flies.

Small children, with big eyes, cocoa powder skin and gap-toothed smiles giggled and squirmed in front of the camera, making the village a worthy trade-off for the proboscis vs croc superstars of wrestling show.

Sarawak has a cornucopia of delights for the ecotourist. Its flanks are coated in primeval rainforest - some of the oldest in the world - and the equatorial humidity makes its nature worthy of science fiction horror flicks.

Even its flowers have a savage edge. The parasitic rafflesia, the biggest flower in the world, is the size of a coffee table, weighs up to 10kg, and smells like rotting meat. Now there's a way to leave a lover.

Ralph Luku, our Dayak guide, is passionate about Sarawak's often bizarre offerings and is ever so slightly miffed that we are not here for longer than three days.

There is controversy over the logging, farming and forest fires that eat at the habitat of the orang-utan and indigenous Dayak tribes, and there are hopes that the financial spin-offs of eco-tourism will save its rainforests.

Vast national parks offer everything from the limestone caves of Niah and Mulu to beasts such as the orang-utan, the hornbill bird, bearded pigs, and proboscis monkey.

But ecotourism in Borneo is not for the faint hearted.

In the clutter of the quaint and musty old Sarawak Museum I admire a taxidermied wild pig with plastic flies glued to its rear. I see a human skull hanging from a longhouse roof, whale skeletons, and fish called grunter and croaker.

Then I find a Seiko watch, slightly corroded, its hands stopped at 3.45.

Its owner, a villager and father of 11, was taking his early morning bath in the river when a croc got him.

After the police blew up the croc with hand-grenades and rifles, the watch was found in its gut. Perhaps the ticking from the croc's stomach had given it away.

The croc's stomach lacked the fortitude to digest the watch, but had better luck with the arm that came with it.

And yet, many visitors take up the chance to bathe like the villagers on a trip to a longhouse, the traditional communal home of the Dayak tribespeople.

Ralph brushes trivialities such as dinner-plate sized spiders and hungry crocs aside.

"Whatever animals are out there, you don't care if you are tired from the walk."

And it is true that most people who have braved the waters have returned alive, the usual ill effects coming courtesy of the locally brewed rice wine.

However, I have grown fond of the air-conditioned longhouse of Orang Wimpy Tourist, loosely translated as the Hilton Hotel.

Fortunately, there is a wimpy tourist option for longhouse visits - so the next day we are ricocheting off the walls of the van bouncing along the road to the Sarawak Cultural Village at the foot of Mt Santubong.

"This is your free massage," Ralph chirps. "Added perk. One on the way out, another on the way back."

The village has examples of the longhouses of the different Dayak tribes and the nomadic Panan shelters. It has a Chinese farmhouse and a Malay urban home.

The walk around the longhouses ends with a concert and a mighty feast, which is very well done. I could even book my wedding there if I wanted to get married Sarawak-style.

But it is Rotorua-esque in nature, snapshot culture, potted up for tourists.

Back in Kuching, I look for a keepsake.

On the waterfront stand the Astana and Fort Margherita, remnants of a century of rule by the White Rajahs.

On the other side of the river are the homes of Malay fishing villagers, a cacophony of sagging and leaning rooflines, and rickety jetties. New Zealand's resource consent officers would have a field day.

I wander along streets of traders' shops, many run by the Chinese who make up about half of Kuching's population and a third of the Sarawak population. Signs above their doors date back to the early 20th century and provide hours of entertainment.

I wonder if anyone ever applies for jobs at Sak Soon travel agency, and exactly what kind of services are offered at the Cheng Brothers Breeding Farm, a small establishment in the middle of town.

I find traditional crafts galore - woven mats, elaborate beadwork and woodwork, everything from homo-erotic carvings to skull-shaped mugs and pots from the pottery quarter on the city's outskirts.

But all I end up buying is a couple of beaded prawn keyrings in memory of the ones I have eaten.

Because the food was pretty good, too. Especially the laksa.

* Claire Trevett travelled to Sarawak courtesy of Tourism Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines

Case notes

Getting there

Malaysia Airlines has return economy class flights from Auckland to Kuching, via Kuala Lumpur, starting at $1539.

When to go

February to October is hot, humid. November to January is hot, humid and rainy. The Dayak tribespeople celebrate Gawai, the rice harvest festival, from the end of May through to June.

Eating out

In Kuching, try the Hornbill BBQ Restaurant, about NZ$7 for all you can eat. Diners cook their own food in broth in a saucepan or a hotplate on each table steamboat style. It is popular with the locals and an old All Blacks poster welcomes New Zealanders to the toilets. Take a glutton with you - you have to pay more if you leave any food uneaten.

Further information

Tourism Malaysia

Sarawak Tourism