The Man Who Rode Around Borneo - 5 Jungle Survival

Breakfast in bed

I got up with stiff neck on day 3 and managed to prepare our simple energy boozing breakfast, the papaya we bought from yesterday’s after the border crossing between Sabah and Sarawak. Not many know this (including myself) but you still need to provide your passport to cross between Sabah and Sarawak even though both are part of Malaysia. I believed it is for border and population control on the Sarawak side. Perhaps you can research on that or ask any Sarawakian friends if you happen to be meeting any of them soon.
 

The morning looking very promising, sun shining, until I smashed my Smartphone screen. Thinking positively, I convinced myself it’s just a small matter and I needed a new screen anyway and I could get it change along the way. We started the morning in a bit of a rushed after breakfast to avoid the morning heat. To save sometime, I had cuts the papaya and brewed coffee in the room while Heather was in the bathroom. I must also admit I felt a bit awful with my stiff neck and I felt a little disappointed with myself for letting this to happen very early in the adventure. This might slowed me down if it get worst later on. Well I guess this is part of the adventure and no point to let it bothering me, instead I focus on the road ahead.

We got all our bags down to our bicycle downstairs, loaded and left sometime around eight in the morning. Our first check point will be a small town, Trusan about 20km out of Lawas. I was still struggling with the heat and the slopes throughout the entire 20km. Though it was a lighter load today as Heather got the rear rack bag, I’m still in desperate need to get use to the heat and my weakness of all, continuous slopes and I really hope after my first week in Borneo, I’ll get use to the heat and the slopes so I can enjoy the ride and taking picture again instead of swearing. One thing that made me smile this morning was that even with those slopes, I managed to pedal continuously the 20km past small town Trusan rode through until the border town of Mengkalap and instead of taking a break here, we went on towards the border crossing somewhere about 2km after the main bridge crossing. Not bad considering this was only my third day and still getting use to the baking heat and endless slopes. Before approaching the border, Heather stops to put on a sarong as we were told about the ethic for female cycling in Brunei.

We are doing good time covering the sloppy 22km and before crossing the border exiting Sarawak and into Brunei, we stopped at a small 'makan' shop for breakfast and deserving rest. After an hour or so, we move on towards the border and by now the sun was scorching. I can either choose to stay at the rest stop longer until sunset and getting nowhere or go on out and get on it slowly. We rode towards the immigration, everything seems to moving so slowly. I remember other than Heather and I, there were two or three cars there and after clearing Brunei checkpoint, the sounds of cicadas got louder and louder. A sound very familiar which I seem to be having trouble remembers while trying my very best to focus on the road. The going get slow again for me in Brunei. My form was back to zero and this was only day 3. Everything seems to be going wrong. My stiff neck didn’t help at all. About 6km out of the Brunei checkpoint, we stop at a park thinking I can jump in a stream or a river and cool myself down. I felt bad holding Heather back. We didn’t get to jump in the stream of river but we managed to freshen up using the tap water provided just outside the park toilet. At least the water came from the nearby streams.

After a slow ride towards Bangar, about 5km from where we last stop at the park, I past by my old army training base in Temburong and stop for a moment to take some photos of the surrounding.  This is where my army days memories come rushing back to me. Temburong Jungle Training Base, lease to the Singapore Government for use by the Singapore’ Armed Forces. Many moons ago in 1989, as a young soldiers, at the age of 19, I was trained the skills of jungle survival, section live firing and jungle warfare here with the rest of my buddies. One exercise I remember vividly was our first jungle exercises where we were to navigate our ways through 6 or 7 checkpoints for a duration of given days (5 days if I am not wrong). That day before the chopper flew us deep in the jungle, we were thoroughly search for foods, money or anything that might assist us to survive through the exercise. All we have with us was our skeleton battle order (SBO), one parang (machete) each slung behind our backs , 2 water bottles with purification pills, our rifles, condoms to protect our rifles muzzles during river crossing and our ground sheet for rain cover or to build hammock for sleeping. There were seven of us in the team and all seven were very close like bands of brothers, the only different was this is not a movie. Our then section commander and a good friend of ours, Chang Ee Chia (Chang) was leading the team and before the chopper arrives we have some time to discuss safety procedures, patrol formation, final equipments check and of course photo shoot. What I knew then was that everyone was eager to get out of the base and live in the jungle. Before long, we heard the ‘whoop whoop whoop’ sound of the chopper blades cutting through the thin air. An old Vietnam War workhorse Bell helicopter swung beyond the tree lines and came down low before it landed on the pad and all seven of us rushed towards it and took our designated seats (not like there were many). The gun crew did a quick head count and gave a thumb-up to the pilot and the big machine roared up towards the sky and bank low immediately to our right and get low just above Temburong  river, flying low enough above the river to avoid detection and the gun crew swinging his machine gun scanning his firing arc just outside the chopper flight path. It was like we were born for this.

"Stingray"

Before we could settle, the gun crew indicate with his fingers we got  2 minutes before approaching our landing zone (LZ). Or in his service language, it read: "go get your farking shit sorted!" and the pilot steadily control the machine low by the river bank and hoovered about 2 meter above ground for us to disembark (jump out of the blardy chopper) as there wasn’t much space to land the chopper safely.  All seven of us kicks our heavy backpacks out and jump out as per practice at the base, got our stuffs and quickly formed up all round defense position until the chopper disappeared behind us. That was it; we were on our own from here on until we find the blardy checkpoints. To be honest, we were ready for this and instantly what we have trained for took over. It was the familiar cicadas mating call that we were hearing throughout the 5 minutes of “stand-too” observing our surrounding. No movement until it was safe for us to do so. This is my very first experience operating in a vast jungle in army fatigue, automatic rifles in hand, parang slung behind our backs and I have no ideas what to expect for the next couple of days. I know the team and I was ready and can survive this if we stick together but what we didn’t know then was that area we were going to be navigating was a vast jungle untouched for probably a hundred years if not thousands. We moved out from our LZ tactically after Chang ran a quick briefing
with the routes we will be taking. First order of the day was to find the first check point and if it too late after, we were to find a higher ground to set our camp.

Off we go into the jungle of Temburong

We found our first check point without sweat and there wasn’t enough time to celebrate and quickly we moved to find our camp ground since it was getting dark. Following the detail map, we went up to a higher ground and bingo; we found a perfect camp ground previously used by earlier batch of trainees. Quickly we set our hammock completes with shelter above and set out small fire to brew our tea. Our first night together in the vast jungle of Temburong and we felt at home already. The next day we unanimously decides to stay put and what a fantastic holiday we going to have until one other section came our way and saw we were all in our hammocks (improvised ground sheet) joking and having fun up there.  We just shrugged it aside thinking not many others will come our way.  Wrong! One after another teams from other company “visited” our camp ground and every time we told them we were having our breaks. Of course they weren’t convinced. I remember this one Staff Sergeant with a Ranger Tap on his sleeves from Charlie Company with his men in tow “visited” us twice not admitting he was lost. What a scumbag.  We were joking how he had earned his ranger tab when he appeared the third times. Bollocks, Chang pulled him aside and laid his map on the ground and drill in his hollow brain where he was and where he was supposed to go in order not to return back to our camp. Since most of the other had seen us, we figure it is best we scooted and find a new camp. (In truth, we do not want the wanker Ranger to see us there on his fourth visit). The only mistake we made was to break camp late in the day. We were making rash decision and dramas ensued immediately after.

We break camp and left in a rush around 4pm an hour before sunset (in Brunei jungle, it gets dark by 5pm and at night, you can’t see more that your arms length). We had decided to look for another camp ground for the night. Half way through, my buddy Ng Chor Yong shouted, “Guys stop! I left my machete behind!”. Since the machette is considered a weapon, in our world, it is a serious offense to lose your weapon.

The rest of us turned to him and let out, “What the fark?!” and whatever vulgarities the army’s taught us.  Chang quickly gathered us and figured how we can retrieve the machete the safest and quickest way possible. I volunteered as I can vividly remember where our last stop were. Ng Chor Yong suggested that we removed our SBO so we could move faster as it was getting dark. I sense the nervousness in the team as we were repeatedly told by the instructor not to move in the dark especially in an area we are not familiar with.  Sometimes the rules are laid there to be broken so the two of us dashed from where we came from to retrieve the machete. It wasn’t more than 5 kilometres when we spotted the area where we last stop and there smacked on one tree where Ng Chor Yong last struck his machete to rest. We were lucky and there wasn’t much time to jump for joy and we quickly backtrack to where the rest of our team were waiting. We got back just in time before darkness fell on us, grab our SBO, drink up and Chang figure it was too late for us to carry on in darkness and he led the team out to the village road. We were at risk of getting caught by the trainers patrolling in the land rovers on the roads so we form an “Indian file” spreading as far as the eyes can see in the darkness and if we hear engine sound, everyone has to jump for covers and that came numerous times. We found a small village and me being the friendliest among the rest went knocking on one door to seek refuge. This is where my buddy Ng Chor Yong redeemed his mistake when he reached into his army pants and pulled a crispy S$50.00 note!

“Tell them we will pay if they can cook us dinner tonight”. I grabbed the fifty, removed my SBO and handover my rifles to Chang and marched towards one house while the rest still laying low by the side of the road. I am more determined now to have steaming hot meal tonight! It didn’t need any convincing after I told the friendly homeowner that I was not feeling well and I needed somewhere safe to recover and with me there are six others. That was it, I was told to wait and 2 minutes later I was given a set of keys and the homeowner pointed the Kampung house just next door about twenty meters away.
“Is there any possibility for us to eat around here?” I asked in Bahasa Melayu while showing them the fifty notes. She smiled and replied, “Just wait in there”.
 

I whistled the rest of the team to come out of the hides and we walked like we just strike gold in Brunei! That was the happiest days of our life! We store our gears neatly and the next thing we knew ‘Tour Of Duty’ were playing on TV and we realized it was Sunday night! We took turns to bath and steaming hot dinner came in between our wash up, enough for the 7 of us! All fed and cleaned, we went to sleep just after midnight and the next day we were woken up to a freshly brewed coffee and tea, completes with Nasi Lemak. Life was tough in Brunei.  We packed gears afterwards, run across the other side of the road, went back inside the jungle and disappeared to continue with our exercise. No, we went to find another higher knoll to set up camp and towards the end of exercise; we popped two smoke grenades for the chopper crew to locate us and flew us back into base camp. We failed our first exercise and retraining was looking at the seven of us. When the rest of the unit were resting sometimes the following week or two, we were send back in the jungle for "navigating retraining" exercise, we completes the mission within two days and we set up camp for the third day before reporting our location to the trainers. We were that good.The temptation to take some picture of the old camp got abruptly stop. Long story short, I do missed the life then and the idea of taking the boat out of Temburong came along and also to have a different experience, moreover with my stiff neck, it is a good break. After limping in the last 10km, I caught up with Heather in Bangar. We have a long way to go and most of the time we will be on the road. Before lunch we discuss about taking the boat out of Temburong and the decision was made to be on the 3.30pm boat to Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB). Since we have more time now waiting for the boat, I set up my laptop for some Wi-Fi time and finishing up day two report.  Heather was still in her sarong and I am still feeling the strain in the neck. I hope to find a place to massage my neck when we arrive in BSB or the going to be slow until recovery.
 

On the fast boat out of Temburong, I realized it’s really hard to be riding on a bicycle and at the same time trying to coordinate meeting and other social event. It’s just not possible. We are on the bicycle most time and we bound to miss calls, sms or messages. It’s just impossible to also reply to every message instantly (or later on at the end of our ride) as there would laundry to be done, equipments needed to be charged, we need to be fed and reports need to be done. What more, we have photos to sort out. By the time we end all this, it’ll be late and we need to get up early and get moving again to avoid the heat. As it it right now, I am not able to cope with all that. Personally, I wanted to have the balance between good ride and enough rest. Whenever possible, we will write on the same day at the end of the ride and have our Base Camp Manager post it the following day. In a perfect world, that would be possible, but not here cycling around Borneo where my mind is constantly battling the heat and our safety on the road and at the end of the day, I am knackered to do anything else but to sleep.

I must say, I am really slow the past few days and each day, nature will throw the unexpected. I am still trying my best to get used to the heat here. It’s that brutal and on my fourth day, I’m still swearing riding in the heat. Ok, I can handle the sunshine but not when it get hot from 8am and lasted up until 5pm.

We arrived in Bandar Seri Begawan a little jaded. I had send message to and fro with our Bruneian counter parts on the planned meeting. Miss-communication on some parts let the one event to be cancelled abruptly. Well, we sort all that out and hopefully Ride Around Borneo will go into full swing when we are in Sarawak. Somehow, I am feeling Kalimantan; if not Sarawak will give us the adventure we are looking for.  We headed straight to BSB Youth Center to stay for the night. Upon arrival, we quickly get our laundry done, wash up using the swimming toilet and waited for a while for the hostel manager to return from his evening prayers and handed over the room keys to us. Heather and I walk out to a nearby street to grab dinner and headed back to the hostel to meet fellow cycling friends. We slept early to be ready for tomorrow.

We woke up really early as we have decided to leave from wherever we are staying earlier than before to avoid the heat. I didn’t get enough sleep as I was struggling to finished day3 report. By four thirty, I was up and started to pack. We are getting the flow now. Wake up at latest by five in the morning and packing getting more efficient as we now know what goes to where and this is only day four. Imagine how was its going to get on the second week. I saw Heather who was sleeping in the girl’s side of the hostel all smile with her panniers in hand. By six, all our bags are loaded on our bike and I was brewing coffee. Somehow I can feel today’s ride just going to be rough. We had aimed to be in Miri, Sarawak by 5pm but I doubt that will happen as we have shirts delivery in Jerudong and the shop will only open at 11am. After a mug of instant coffee each, we set off to our first “tourist destination” that Heather had arranged for us to visit. I am as always, game. Nothing to me is a waste of time. So off we went six thirty on the dot.

After the formal touristy visit over, some photos taken, we are off again to our first checkpoint, Jerudong.  I was told by our Bruneian contact Jerudong is about 30km away. We should be there by 9.30am, this after factoring the slopes, early morning traffic and stopping to ask for direction. We started real slow getting out of Bandar Seri Begawan traffic. We were doing 10-15km an hour.  Once we are out of the city center, both of Heather and I pick up speed and I was clocking average 25km/h and smiling. Not fast but I can feel my mojo is coming back to me and I am enjoying this morning ride. It was pretty straight forward to Jerudong with clearly marked signpost. A city dude can never get lost in BSB. Sometime around 9.20am, we stop at a place name Kampung Tutong. Heather took some shots of a beautiful kampong home and when I saw the sign “Ketua Kampung”, I called out to Heather to come where I was and by luck, I casually asked the gentleman that welcomes me how far more to Jerudong?

“Oh Jerudong? It’s 20km back where you come from.”
“Really? Back there?” I asked slightly dismayed.
“Yes, you’re now in Kampung Tutong...Tutong District...”

In my head, the word panic running all over the place. We aren’t pedaling back 20km. Those slopes back there, don’t get me started.  We needed breakfast anyway and the house owner pointed to us just next door a restaurant. We are just lucky we met a helpful waitress who gave us her hand phone to make calls with our contact. Heather get everything sorted even top-up the waitress phone card so we can continue making and receiving calls. While waiting for our contact, Faiz, I managed to get some tailoring done, get my bike clean and checked. Faiz arrived at ten in the morning and collect the RAB shirts and also gave us some navigational instruction to Tutong and beyond. All in all, we stayed 2hr at the restaurant. We get moving again fifteen minutes before eleven. We have a huge distance to cover today.  A big one hundred and ten kilometres to Kuala Belait, at the end of Brunei and another 18km to the border checkpoint between Brunei and Sarawak and another 40km or so to Miri. Wow! I mentally worked the distance backward and told Heather we should be able to be in Miri town by 6pm. Oh boy, how wrong I was. For the record, I have been pretty accurate with my estimation of my time of arrival in all my previous cycling tour. In Borneo, I am not going to estimate anymore, I am just going to take one checkpoint at a time.

After leaving the Mono Restaurant where we met Faiz, we didn’t stop and aimed to hit Tutong within an hour around twelve noons. I don’t remember if we stop at all at Tutong as we didn’t feel hungry.  We followed Faiz direction and get on the new highway towards Kg Lumut. As our water supplies is depleting, we make a quick stop along the highway to get bottles water and bananas. All look set, we have the sun up directly above us and the highways were baking. I am ready to call it a day anytime actually but the adrenaline rush pushes me forward. Five minutes into the ride, Heather pointed to me at the cloud and ahead I saw shaded highway as far as my eyes can see. I pick up speed going between 25-30km/h taking advantage of the 1-2 degrees drop of temperature. Not long, the highway ended and we are back on the old road with no shade to be seen. I was by now swearing on the lack of roadside trees or at least shade. I kept focusing to be behind Heather and the moment I saw her signalling left I saw something like roadside stall, I knew we are going for a water break. No, better than that, it was a water-melon stop and to top it off, if was free of charge. The owner thought it was just a small gesture.  The stall owner, both husband and wife cut one water melon each between them. I kept going like I haven’t been eating for days. I also found out the the stall owner was actually from Kalimantan (Entikong) and copy his hand phone number in case if I need someone to talk too regarding Kalimantan at a later stage. Not that we do not have Kalimantan contact, but to have a few more is the best insurance. I laughed when the husband told me he saw someone on a “sleeping bicycle” a day before us rode right in front of his stall. I told him it was Simon Sandi attempting to ride Tip-to-tip of Borneo.

Before we left, we gave some money to the stall owner daughter as we thought it was the right thing to do.

Next, we headed to Kg. Lumut our third checkpoint for today. About 20km from the Water melon stop but felt like it was 40km! I kept pedaling like Kg. Lumut was just in front but nothing ahead, not even a blardy trees. We kept going up until 2pm when I saw Heather stopping at a traffic junction and as practice; I came alongside to hear her.

“KFC?” Heather asked and smiled.
The next thing came to mind was, is she having heat exhaustion or something? We are in the middle of the freaking nothing (well there is one oil refinery on our right, along the coast) and she asked me if I want KFC??? To play along and I thought to make our ride slightly fun, I asked, “really? Let go! Where?”

Heather pointed me to one KFC signboard on my right shoulder diagonally across the traffic junction. It was like heaven to see the KFC sign which I usually ignored back at home.

I just let Heather made the choice for me as at that point of time, I was just ready to eat anything. And very quickly, it was 3pm and we have 36km more to go to Kuala Belait and by now, I realized it’s going to be impossible to make it to Miri. We stopped couple more time as the heat is on my face. We reached Kg. Lumut and were greeted with nothing, really.  There wasn’t anything on Kg. Lumut but a name. So avoid it if you’re attempting to Ride Around Borneo.

After the stop and go, heat on my face with my teammate being patient enough, we saw the sign, Kuala Belait – 22km. It was the most brutal 22km so far. We took the last stretch real slow as there was a road widening/ construction going on. At some stage, we were on the newly paved road, just the two of us, pedaling and pedaling and after pedalling like an eternity, I saw the sign, K.B 14km. “What????”. I hear myself screaming in my head. I did time check, twenty minutes past four. We need to be at the border crossing before dark. Heather stop ahead of me and I saw her popping one more electrolyte (her third I believe in a single day). If Heather need another electrolyte this late in the day, I am screwed. She is the strongest rider! I took a sip from her bottle and we made the decision to get back out to the old road and sped. She flew right in front of me and I was fairly closed behind. We were on Kuala Belait junction in no time and talked ourselves to go on to the border crossing about 18km away. At this stage, 18km can multiply if we factor in how long we were already on the road, the amount of water left and our fatigue setting in. At the toll booth, we checked with the officers if there is any accommodation across the border in Sarawak. No, was the answer. I asked if there's water tap for me to top up? Heavenly there is one tap just at the side of the road. I pour some water over me, top up Heather's and my water bottle and I poured some more water over me. We made the hardest decision to pedal back 4km into Kuala Belait town for dinner and look for a place to stay.

Well, it was one of my longest days though the ride was short. 110km in baking hot Borneo is brutal. We didn’t find any cheap hotel and when pushed come to shove, we go find a shelter. Heather suggested Police Station and I suggested Fire Station. We end up at Kuala Belait Boat Club and were taken care by senior staff, Helen until we left the next morning.

It was one of my toughest riding, I got to admit that.