Just Surviving the Jungle...: road rage... that means trippin' with a vengeance...

After 3.5 years of crippling covid lockdowns, 2023 was set to be the year of travel, driven by the fumes of post-cabin fever vengeance. The highlights had to be Africa, Sarawak and Royal Belum...

The quick list in chrono order:
1. Fraser's Hill (February)

2. Cameron Highlands (February)

3. Sarawak (April)

4. Batu-batu (June)

5. Kenya, Tanzania + Uganda (August)

6. Royal Belum Hornbill Expedition 2023 (September)

7. Jakarta (December)

I won't go into details of all the trips, only the more interesting ones:

Sarawak (Ba'kelalan)

Ba'kelalan was the main aim of me wanting to do this trip and the highlight would have been a stay at Ba'kelalan Owl House, with Andy & Maureen hosting us. Unfortunately, I never got to meet Andy, even though I was in touch with him just a day before he passed. This unexpected turn of events meant that my booking was still uncertain but on the advice of several locals, we decided to bite the bullet and go anyway, not wanting to cancel the MAS Wings tickets that had already been bought. A long story cut short - we ended up staying at the house of the Penghulu, Pak Yudan and his lovely wife.

Ba'kelalan is very far off any beaten track and is idyllic in all of its remoteness - there are no roads, very few vehicles other than for practical (haulage) use, the people you will come across are from the local Adan tribe (and are all related, somehow) or transient visitors to Gunung Murud and where simplicities of city-living such as electricity, running water and broadband connection are never taken for granted. And it is an awesome place to do some birding.

However, it doesn't mean that the people aren't friendly and that life is hard here. Far from it.

By the end of our five days in Ba'kelalan, we were acquainted with everyone and at the airport (a shack, really) we were hugging our goodbyes with everyone like rellies we won't see again for a long time. And as for how hard life is here - well, we were so well fed at Pak Yudan's home that we had likely put on 7kgs collectively, which was coincidentally the same amount of Adan rice that was gifted to us - rice that was grown in their own fields, by their own hands. One could argue that it is, in fact, a pretty charmed life IF one could be so privileged to live here, away from the humdrum of a city.

Kenya (The Mara Triangle)

This was a trip of a lifetime. A whirlwind 2 weeks spent in East Africa along with 6 other good friends on a trip that was 3 years overdue.

Starting off in Kenya, this was our first taste of safari airlinks that would make the uninitiated (that was us!) very nervous - from the lack of physical structures for an airstrip (some were literally just trees for shade), to the loosey-goosey parking of aircraft on the strip, to the constant re-arrangements of schedules and passenger manifests, to the inevitable delays of take-offs and landings due to wildlife intrusions on the runways, to the claustrophobic cabins onboard aircraft that look like they could fit into your back pocket if you folded them up enough times.

That aside, wildlife in the Masai Mara Triangle was alive and well, with us ticking off four of The Big 5 within the first two days - all that was left was the (VERY) illusive African leopard. Our guides were abundantly & generously knowledgeable, our accommodation super luxe (where else would you have wild hippos lazing in the river right outside of your room's balcony?) and the excursions were long & rewarding.

Tanzania (Serengeti & Ngorongoro Crater)

Our second stop was across the border to neighbouring Tanzania. Here, we spotted a very shy leopard to make it five for five, witnessed the great wildebeest migration, enjoyed the famous Serengeti sunset and morbidly watched many wildebeest carcasses being scavenged in an unending cycle of life. The first of two stops in Tanzania was Nasikia Mobile Migration Camp somewhere on the great Serengeti grasslands, where sounds of lions, warthogs and hyenas can been heard lurking around the camp during the nights.

The second stop was the Ngorongoro Crater, where we experienced a safari in very different terrain and geography than where we had been. There was a lot of wildlife thriving here and it is said that this was one of the best single locations to sight the Big 5.

Uganda (Bwindi Forest & Mabamba Swamp)

Third and final country in East Africa for us was Uganda. First into the impenetrable Bwindi Forest to track the silverback mountain gorillas - it was a humbling experience where we were just feet away from these great beasts that were larger than us and without a doubt, could snap our necks like toothpicks if they so chose. We were on their turf, after all.

And finally, a brief stopover to the Mabamba Swamp on Lake Victoria in an attempt to spot the humongous and prehistoric-looking Shoebill storks. Just an hour's boat ride out of Entebbe, we came across abundant birdlife and of course, the Shoebill...

Royal Belum Hornbill Expedition 2023

This would be the third time on this expedition in 4 years, thanks to our friend, the intrepid Birdman. Royal Belum is in north Perak state and is the only area where you can sight all 10 species of hornbills in Malaysia at this time of year. We manage to spot eight over two days - Oriental Pied, Rhinoceros, Great, Wreathed, Plain Pouched (migratory), Black , Helmeted & Wrinkled (no photo). All this while rain was always present, ranging from mildly misty to downright torrential. Note: the remaining two species of hornbill that were not spotted on this trip were the Bushy-Crested and White-Crowned.