Planning to travel to Borneo soon? Here’s is an essential guide to travelling in Borneo, published by Lonely Planet.

The time allocated to researching the book, according to a brief information posted on Amazon, was 110 days in-country, resulting in 50 detailed maps, 35 jungle adventures, national Parks colour section covers where to spot elephants, monkeys and the rafflesia flowers.

It also features specialists discussing local markets, the best Malaysian cuisine, ecotourism and conservation.

There is also a newer version titled Lonely Planet Borneo (Regional Guide) and is available for pre-order from Amazon.

Borneo, the world’s third largest island, is divided among Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. I would like to think, however, that the best of Borneo can be found in the two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.

If you have three weeks of backpacking in Borneo, where should you go? Where should you start?

I guess you can start the tour from Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of the Malaysian state of Sabah. You can access Kota Kinabalu either from Malaysia’s KL International Airport or Singapore’s Changi Airport. Budget carrier AirAsia also flies to Kota Kinabalu from these two airports.

Here are 14 things you can do in Borneo but first a brief disclaimer. This is neither a definitive nor a comprehensive guide as it only touches on tourist attractions in Sabah. Please check with Sabah Tourism or local tour agents for a more information.

This blog has no business relations with tour agents mention in this entry.

Without further ado, here are the 14 things you can do in Borneo

Assuming that you start your tour in Kota Kinabalu, you can check these out:

1. Explore the city on your arrival, go to the museum, night market, Gaya Street Sunday bazaar or laze on the seafront.

2. Visit Monsopiad Cultural Village for a unique cultural experience. Located 20 minutes from Kota Kinabalu, the village is a traditional as well as a historical site maintained by the descendants of the feared and legendary Kadazan head-hunter warrior Monsopiad. His trophies of 42 skulls and a thigh bone are still kept at the village, in a hut called the House of Skulls.

3. Visit Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, about 15-20 minutes by speed boat ride. The park is a cluster of five islands — Pulau Gaya, Pulau Sapi, Pulau Manukan, Pulau Mamutik and Pulau Sulug. You can dive, snorkel and learn how to scuba dive there. You can also do seawalking in Pulau Sapi where you’d get to walk on the sea bed as though you are walking on land.

From Kota Kinabalu you can plan your trip to:

Mt Kinabalu

4. Climb Mt Kinabalu (requires 2 days minimum). Mt Kinabalu is Borneo and Malaysia’s highest mountain.

The 4,092.5-metre mountain is used to be the highest mountain in Southeast Asia until someone pointed out that the Hkakabo Razi, at 5,881m in northern Myanmar or Burma, is the tallest mountain in the region. Myanmar is of course a Southeast Asian country.

So we now say Mt Kinabalu is the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. The mountain is the central piece of the Kinabalu National Park, a World Heritage Site, located about an hour’s drive from Kota Kinabalu.

5. Take a bath at Poring Hot Spring after the climb. The hot spring is located 40 minutes drive from the Kinabalu National Park.

You can also plan your trip (after climbing Mt Kinabalu or even before) to:

6. Klias Proboscis Monkey Cruise , a 2-in-1 excursion, where you are taken on a boat along the Klias River (two hours drive from Kota Kinabalu) to see proboscis monkey and then as night sets in, treat yourself with spectacular display of nature’s own neon lights — thousands of fireflies lighting up trees by the river. More info here.

Proboscis monkey... photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, via Wikipedia

By now, you would have spent about eight days of your trip. Now it’s time to take a flight to Sandakan (or six hours by land) to experience Borneo’s wildlife adventure. Sandakan can take you approximately five days to cover. Things to do in Sandakan:

7. Visit the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre. To many tourists, going here is among the main reasons — to some, the only reason — why they come to Borneo. Make sure you reach this centre by 9.45am in time for the orang utan feeding time at 10am. The orang utan are fed again at 3pm.

Why must you come during feeding time? Because that’s the time you’d get to see these men of the forest emerging from their jungle habitat.

There will be a video show after that and it is recommended that you go and watch it. It is enlightening, to me at least. More info here.

8. After seeing the orang utan, you can proceed to the Rainforest Rediscovery Centre not too far from Sepilok. It is dubbed as the most accessible rainforest in Sabah. More info here.

9. Visit Selingan Turtle Island and see marine life, turtles lying eggs and so on. You can also contribute to the conservation of this planet’s turtles by helping to release young turtles to the ocean.

10. Explore Sabah largest limestone and bird nests cave called Gomantung Cave.

11. Join Oxbow lake cruise for another wildlife excursion.

For more information about what you can do in Sandakan, the available tour packages and so on, refer here.

From Sandakan, you can access either Semporna or Lahad Datu, both about two hours by land:

12. Ah, time flies. It going into the third week already. If you are a diver, diving in Sipadan is a must.

You haven’t seen anything yet if you haven’t dive in Sipadan. Maybe that’s an exaggeration and coming from a non-diver, you need not take my word for it. But you should really take Jacques Cousteau’s word seriously.

13. If you are not a diver, and want to see Sabah’s own version of the Amazon rainforest, you should really come to Danum Valley Conservation Area in Lahad Datu. There’s a jungle lodge there.

It is an ancient jungle, minus T-Rex and co, of course. There is also an ancient burial ground which is not really a burial ground but rather a place where the dead in their timber coffin are stashed away in caves.

14. I guess, by now you have seen most of the major attractions Sabah has to offer. By now your three weeks is almost over. You can now return to Kota Kinabalu to catch your flight back.

However, if you still have a day to spare, you can make a quick dash to the northern part of Sabah to the village of Tinangol where you can see the traditional longhouse community.

That’s three weeks for you… and you still haven’t discovered the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Well, you can come back later for another three weeks of experiencing Borneo from Sarawak, the Land of the Hornbills. Lots of amazing things there… limestone landscape, people, world’s biggest cave and so on.

To the people of Borneo, being in Borneo is being somewhere. To many people around the world though, Borneo is a complete middle-of-nowhere — a place you can get lost into.

Which isn’t exactly a bad thing if travel to a remote location on the earth is what you have been looking for.

The Single Minded Women website recently posted an entry suggesting “middle-of-nowhere” places where you can go. It lists Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Sandakan, Sabah, as one of the places.

Proclaiming that nowhere is the new somewhere, writer Allison Neves also listed several other rewarding places to visit despite their remoteness, namely Mission Beach, Australia – The Sanctuary Yoga Retreat and Eco-Lodge; Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica – Lapa Rios Ecolodge; Amazon Basin, Peru – Cayman Lodge Amazonie; and Maputaland, South Africa – Rocktail Bay Lodge.

This is not good. Instead of moving up, Sipadan Island is falling behind in the race for the New Seven Wonders of Nature.

It is now ranked No 15 after moving up to number 14. Sipadan will have to climb up to No 11 to qualify for the next round of voting.

Those who want to see Sipadan listed as the new Seven Wonders of Nature, will have until mid-July to put Sipadan in Number 11.

Vote for the island by clicking on the widget on this blog’s sidebar. One vote for each email address. An email address is all you need to qualify to vote.

There is still plenty of nature in Borneo notwithstanding reports of habitat loss due to logging and oil palm plantation.

A vast portion of the world’s second largest Island (well… third, if you count Australia as an island) will remain protected and covered in pristine jungle if the initiative to conserve the area known as the Heart of Borneo succeeds.

Cruise into the Heart of Borneo

This is where you will be if you choose to take the brand new six-star luxury river cruise on the Rajang River — Malaysia’s longest river — starting July this year.

The cruise is called “Into the Heart of Borneo”, based on the title of a book by Redmon O’Hanlon.

O’Hanlon will be among 60 passengers on the cruise’s maiden voyage using a replica of an American paddle steamer, which will set sail from the town of Sibu on July 9.

It will sail up to the Baleh River, a tributory to the Rajang River, which recently shot to worldwide fame following the release of two pictures, purportedly those of the Borneo giant snake, the 100-feet Nabau.

The pictures show a serpentine figure swimming in the river. The photos later turned out to be a hoax. Good thing… now we can cruise in peace.

RV Orient Pandaw

The cruise, onboard the RV Orient Pandaw, is operated by Southeast Asia’s biggest cruise operator Irrawaddy Flotilla Company which has carved a name for itself in specialised river cruise excursion under its Pandaw cruise brand.

The New Straits Times newspaper quoted Sarawak Tourism Board chief executive officer Gracie Geikie as describing the cruise as the first of its kind in Malaysia.

The Rajang River (in red marking)

“There’ll be stops along the river to enable the passengers to go hiking and visit longhouses and towns,” she said.

Rajang River into the Heart of Borneo

There will also be a stopover at Kampung Rajang, near Tanjung Manis at the river mouth, for a visit to the songket factory.

Another stop is Sarikei to visit a pineapple farm, for which the town is famous. Passengers can also choose to shoot the Pelagus rapids, the New Straits Times said.

Up to Baleh and back

The cruise, however, will not cover the whole of 640km Rajang. According to the cruise operator, “The Rajang is navigable on a ship of Pandaw’s size for at least 250km until the Pelagus Rapids.”

After the Pelagus rapids, the cruise heads upstream Rajang’s main tributary, the Baleh River.

The area along river is populated by the Ibans who were headhunters until in the 1950s.

Lonely Planet, the world leading travel publisher, has posted an alert on its website, warning travellers not to go to the eastern part of Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island.

The alert says:

Travel Warning: Don’t Go to Eastern Sabah

The islands and coastal areas of Eastern Sabah are considered very dangerous for foreigners, who are at high risk of being kidnapped by terrorist groups.

Severity: High-level alert.

I don’t know since when the alert was posted but I don’t think the situation at the moment warrants a high-level alert. Probably a travel advisory would suffice. Definitely not a high-level alert. Sabah’s east coast is not the Gulf of Aden.

The situation in the east coast of Sabah now is not as dangerous as it was in 2000.

Following two hostage-taking incidents in resort islands in the state’s east coast in May and September 2000, security surveillance has been stepped up in the area.

Three US Pacific Commanders had visited the area since then and all had acknowledged that the security surveillance put up by the Malaysian government was sufficient to thwart any terrorist threats.

I’ve been following several blogs written by tourists and visitors, relating their experience in Borneo, particularly in Sabah, the state where I come from.

One such blogs is “100 Days of SoliDude” run by this Erik Page guy. I think he is an American engineer based in Thailand.

Two-week adventure in Borneo

He recently had a two-week adventure in Borneo, spending most of the time in Sabah.

While in the Malaysian state on Borneo island, and he explored many places, several of which I myself — a Borneo guy — have never been to. He had climbed Mt Kinabalu, dived in Sipadan, gone off the beaten tourist track in Sandakan, met the proboscis monkey, and gone stone age in Long Pasia jungle.

I like his style of writing, although he misspelled Kota Kinabalu as Kota Kinabula.

An experienced driver — with six years of diving experience no less — he initially appeared to be skeptical about Sipadan being one of the world’s premier diving destinations.

Let’s see what my six years of diving has to say about that, he wrote; I can’t recall the exact quote though.

Spellbinding Sipadan

Then he went to Sipadan and came back to report that he might stop diving forever after this. Quote:

“I ended up doing 14 dives overall there! Saw sharks, turtles, barracuda, sea snakes, morey eels, cuddlefish, and a billion other things. It really was an amazing place.

“I think I need to stop diving forever now because I’m pretty sure everything else will be a let down.” [Source]

Way to go Erik, hope you’ve had the adventure you were looking for in Borneo; and hope you don’t mind me quoting your blog here.

As for the diving, well, you can always come back to Sipadan.

[Pix by Kota Kinabalu City Hall] Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of Sabah, is AirAsia’s most popular destination. The city by the sea beat 56 other destinations serviced by AirAsia, Asia’s biggest budget carrier. Kuching and Langkawi came second and third respectively, according to a survey conducted by the airline.

The airline’s inflight magazine, “Travel 3Sixty”, says the other seven most popular destinations in its top 10 list are Bangkok, Jakarta, Macau, Bali, Kota Baharu, Shenzen and Phuket.

The magazine based its findings on the number of passengers flying to each destination per month.

But the magazine should get its facts right

One complain though. The next time the magazine wants to publish articles about Sabah and Sarawak — the two Malaysian Bornean states — it could use some double-checking of facts to avoid making glaring factual errors.

Take for instance in the column about Kuching being the second most popular destination. Why did the writer urge tourists to visit the 56Okm Kinabatangan River Wildlife Sanctuary in that column?

First of all, no Kinabatangan river in Sarawak, let alone in Kuching.

And the 560km Kinabatangan River Wildlife Sanctuary is non-existent.

The sanctuary is located in the lower Kinabatangan area or also known as the Kinabatangan floodplain or in Malay, the Dataran banjir Kinabatangan, which is 27,000 hectares in size, not 560km long.

Kamurang jangan main-main, nanti itu Bung Moktar Radin kasi tunjuk dia punya sleigh of hands baru kamurang tau.

I’m a RSS subscriber of several tour and travel forums and often times I come across questions such as where to visit in Borneo, when is the best time to visit Borneo, how to go to certain places in Borneo as well as cheap flights to Borneo.

Recently, a member of the AardvarkTravel.net Travel Forum, for instance, posted the question, “Where to visit in Borneo?“.

I wish I had the time to compile a report on all the must-visit places in Borneo — covering Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan — but I’m too busy with work.

Even if I do have the time after coming back from office, my mind would already be so tired up and bordering on fatigue that any possibility of engaging in productive research and writing is as good as none.

But I still harbour the hope of being able to come up with the report one day. If you have the time though, you might want to suggest the places through the comment section.

When The Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler went to Borneo with his wife and children, nature awaited them. He says:

“When my wife and I thought about bringing our three children closer to nature by taking them deep into the jungles of Borneo, we didn’t realize how close we’d actually get.”

Read the exciting story and enjoy his crisp writing as well in the article titled “Hanging out in Borneo on a family vacation“.