Very early this morning, Peetee drove us about an hour north of Kuching to the jetty at Bako Village.
From there, it was a 20-minute speedboat ride to the headquarters of Bako National Park. Mashor will continue to be our guide for our stay in Bako.
Bako National Park is the oldest national park in Sarawak. It covers 27 km2 and contains 7 different ecosystems. The park is organized into 16 colour-coded walking trails, mostly wooden walkways to protect the forest floor. Animals are mostly active in the earlier morning, so we will be getting up at the crack of stupid while we are here!
Almost immediately we were met by the wild bearded pigs that hang out near the park headquarters. The older pigs didn’t mind us watching them but the piglets were very skittish.
The bearded pigs forage for crabs on the beach at dusk.
It was too early to get our room, so we walked along the boardwalk behind the lodge and veered off onto the Ulu Assam Trail. About 280 proboscis monkeys inhabit the park, so we were hopeful! Sure enough, we found a lone male happily chomping on young shoots in a screw pine tree.
Proboscis monkeys tend to be troop animals, so Mashor figures that this guy is either quite old or he did something naughty and got kicked out of his bachelor troop.
Then on our way back, we saw another big boy who walked right in front of us on the ground before ducking into the forest behind an outbuilding.
Once back at headquarters, we were able to get our room. The lodge is very rustic. Our room is in a housing block with four beds and an attached bathroom. Unfortunately, there is no air conditioning. A large fan helps blow some of the extremely hot air around but we’re pretty sure we won’t get much sleep in here tonight.
In the later afternoon we were supposed to take another hike but there were silver langur monkeys playing in a tree near the beach so we stopped to watch them instead.
There were several youths in this troop who were total goofs and so much fun to watch!
And there was a mama with a very young baby. The silver langur babies are born with bright orange fur, presumably so the troop can all keep an eye on them when they are young and vulnerable. The fur starts to change to a silver-gray color at about 2 months.
Our last hike was short but quite technical, involving a series of stairs/ladders and tree roots as we moved along a ridge toward a pretty beach.
We checked out of the lodge after the hike and took the speedboat back to Bako Market where our driver was waiting.
Another quick drive and we were back in our beautiful suite in Kuching.
Tomorrow we have a free day in Kuching to do some more exploring.
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