Jungle Boogie!

Saturday 18th December

We are currently on our way to Kota Kinabulu having spent two days in the heart of the Brunei Jungle.

The place (Sumbling Eco Village) was literally in the middle of nowhere and had just three small wooden huts for accomodation and a communal area for food.

We were initially met off of the plane by the owner who proceeded to drive us to the port where we picked up a speed boat through to the local town.

It started raining enroute and I have absolutely no idea how we made it there alive as the boat sped around sharp turns and narrowly avoided rocks and trees whilst being unable to see through the windscreen.

Apparently its the rainy season here though so I guess they must be used to it by now.

We were met at the other end by two of the local guides from camp and whisked off to the village looking for all intents and purposes like a couple of flood victims.

We had wisely chosen to upgrade our initial tent accomodation to one of the wooden huts and whilst this may have been cheating to an extent it still had enough local wildlife inside to keep David Belamy amused for several hours.

We even had our very own frog that seemed to be the master of his domain, commandeering the only table in the room and delighting in jumping at your feet whenever you moved.

That night one of the local guides took us out on a night walk through the jungle and take it from me it is a terrifying experience.

Your imagination runs riot and you have visions of being set upon by wild animals or falling foul to one of the local snakes or spiders as you take every step in the pitch black.

Every time we saw a leaf move or stepped on a twig our hearts missed a couple of beats and a foul stench emenated all around that had nothing at all to do with the forest, if you catch my drift.

It was'nt until the following day that we discovered that our guide was terrified of snakes so would have been as useful as a chocolate fireguard if we had encountered one.

Luckily on this particular outing the only wildlife that we encountered were birds and stick instects but secretly I was quite relieved as its probably not good for a son to see his dad crying and running off into the distance.

An Australian couple joined us the next day for a trip to the national park and I got to realise one of my childhood dreams, to ride through dense jungle on a long boat.

It was totally exhilirating as he traversed the rapids, water spraying over your face, whilst always keeping your eyes peeled for snakes in the trees overhanging the boat.

Our first port of call was the tree canopy, a man made aluminium structure that defied the law of gravity and provided a 360 degree view of the jungle fron a somewhat daughnting height.

It was a heart attack enducing climb that had us all wringing out our shirts by the end of it but the view was spectacular and well worth the potential cardiac arrest.

We then headed to one of the local waterfalls and were still so hot that we all jumped in fully clothed with Tyler leading the pack. 

The Australian couple looked somewhat bemused but at least it saves us doing laundry for an extra day :-)

On the way back to camp I spotted a huge Python swimming past the boat, it was massive and I was gutted that we could'nt stop and take pictures, much to Pauline's relief.

When we got back the manager allowed us to go tubing down the river which was awsome as it gave me another excuse to wind Pauline up about all of the snakes that she was going to encounter again.

Tyler lost his tube and it proceeded to navigate it's way through the rapids until it was out of sight, but hopefully the Smiths have provided the local snakes with a lazier way to cross the river down stream.

It was great to get away from everything for a few nights and whilst we won't miss the ants and numerous other winged beasties, we will definately miss the village and its fantastic staff.