Trekforce Borneo – Kelabit Cultural Site conservation project – April 2010
After our gruelling introduction to the wild brilliance of the Sarawak rainforest during jungle training, we enjoyed some hearty celebrations to conclude our first venture 'into the wild'. This involved relaxing and repairing in the palatial longhouse in Bario and imbibing 'Bar Y2K''s locally renowned and tasty combo of karaoke and moonshine. The vocal talents displayed have spawned a group-wide desire to create a new musical phenomenon - 'Mouth Full Of Wax' (Watch this space for the full band line up
and tour dates).
Once packed and thoroughly re-hydrated, we headed back into the jungley fray for a fortnight of incredibly challenging conditions on our first jungle conservation project. Despite now being trained to a level of expertise rivalling both the majestic Mears and the ludicrous Grylls, the weather, insects and the group’s collective malco-ordination had other plans for us. They clubbed together to provide some quite remarkable challenges and frequent unscripted drama in this unfolding jungle epic...
The start of project brought with it four skilled local guides backslash Jungle Supermen: Ken (the climber), Josh (the happy accident-prone hero), Migan (the permo-giggler) and Timor (the most efficient swordsman to ever wield a perang).
Over the next two weeks, we were led to a total of five fascinating Kelabit cultural sites including giant stone megaliths (allegedly carried there by Kelabit warriors as a display of their strength) and several burial sites with intricately carved dragon burial jars.
Our task was to GPS mark these sites before cutting and marking 300 square meter boundaries around each site. In four competitive teams we scythed through the jungle to cut and mark our own sides of each boundary. The benefits of this project are manifold as we are simultaneously protecting this valuable Kelabit cultural heritage, creating large areas of protected rainforest, protecting the wildlife within them, as well creating a both barrier of legally impassable rainforest to the onslaught of the logging companies (due to the profligacy of the sites in this area rendering it uneconomic to harvest). Finally, the site protection creates alternative employment for local people in the form of guiding eco-tourists rather than working for the logging companies.
For some, the project also served as a period of advanced perang training. For Rhi, Mike and Andy however, it was a case of lessons learned as they soon became a trio of thumb related casualties and the three most likely to try to blag a lift back to Bario.
The daily challenge of cutting the boundaries brought together some legendary partnerships, such as Oz and Ben (who recreated the film ‘300’ with their fierce perang attacks on the vines and thorns while bellowing King Leonidas quotes with every step) and then Rian and Josh’s breath-taking boundary cutting pace.
Due to the aforementioned triumvirate of insects, weather and sheer clumsiness, the medical kits were in almost hourly use. Also our Jungle Guide Rian providing us with his cryptic riddles, magic tricks, card games and occasional supply of surprise chicken and sausages.
The most influential challenge of all however was the RAIN. The continuous, torrential, tropical, thunderous, angry, lashing, all-powerful rain that hammered the jungle and our camp in particular for almost the entire duration of project. The camp became a boggy quagmire (with mud somehow climbing up your clothes to shoulder level even on just a short walk to the water collection point). Legs were weighed down with around 2 stone of mud per foot and keeping ‘dry kit’ to bearable moistness required extreme skill and labour.
Two weeks of these conditions barely dented the groups collective enthusiasm for jungle life, but when dead fall began to compete with the rain for air space, Al and Oz decided to de-camp and retreat to Rian’s village Pa’ Umor for safety’s sake.
One cultural site remained, the site previously abandoned on the wasp infested trail. To avoid a rematch, we decided to reach the site via boat and while the continued rain rendered the river un-navigable, we happily soaked up the comfort and warmth of the Pa’ Umor long house and hospitality of the local people. Daily mud/rain/thorn/insect endurance was pleasantly replaced with the consumption of vast quantities of pineapple curry, tapioca chips, coffee with condensed milk endless 'Milos' (heart-warming and bowel-shifting hot chocolate). The dark gallows banter which had developed in the jungle even lightened to the odd possibly printable joke. Maybe not.
During this period of anticipation, Bario became an enormous lake. This left the herculean Oz (who had scampered there alone to retrieve additional medical supplies and several crates of Oranjeboom) stranded (in the palatial luxury of Raja Inn).
The river eventually receded and we piled into a long boat / colander - which required continuous bailing of muddy river water to stay float throughout each trip. Such trifles, were quickly put aside however as we witnessed the beauty of the primary rainforest from the outside for the first time. This included a truly magical sighting of a large short-tailed Macaque (We await the development of Mike’s disposable camera to see if he was captured)(On film that is. We left the monkey well alone).
With our final cultural site protected, we celebrated the completion of our first conservation project and Andy's birthday in epic fashion. The weak-stomached scamp was forcibly dressed in some bizarre attire to raise his spirits and with a hearty Raja Inn feast inside us, we retired to our local – the Y2K bar – for hilarious chat with the Bario locals, electric shape cutting on the dance floor and some riotous renditions of 80’s power ballads.
Happy days with lovely people. Bring on project two...
