The oldest rainforests on this planet are not to be found along the banks of the Amazon in Brazil, but along the meandering rivers of Malaysia. They are home to more than 20% of the animal species in the world, many of them being endemic to these forests.
The flora too is extremely diverse; and it’s believed that there are more plant species in one square mile of the rainforests here than in the whole of Europe put together. To give an idea of this diversity, in the mountain ranges of Kampung Bako alone there are over 400 varieties of palm.
We started our exploration of Borneo from Kuching, the capital of the Sarawak state. It was here in our hotel that we met Rives Puon, the finest forest guide I have come across in my three decades of travel. Born into the Bidayu tribe, he was educated in Kuching. He was extremely knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of the rainforests, and also about the various indigenous tribes of Sarawak. He spoke fluently, clearly, and had a tremendous sense of humour.
Semenggoh, the Orangutan Reserve
Three decades ago, a journalist named Ritchie rescued an orangutan held captive on the Indonesian border and brought him to the jungles of Semenggoh. Here he was nursed back to his wild ways and released into the forest. He was named Ritchie after his rescuer, and soon he inspired many such rescues. Today he is all of 40; and Semenggoh is a world-renowned rehabilitation centre where you can study the behaviour of the endangered orangutans in the wild. As the oldest member of the 27 orangutans living here, he is the master of all he surveys from the treetops, and is their alpha male.
My first glimpse of Ritchie was when he was swinging on the Tarzan vine like a consummate trapeze artiste, his orange fur lit up by the sunlight peeping through the morning mist. He then plunged headlong through the branches, bringing a huge branch down with him. And he walked towards us with the nonchalance of a king. He indeed had a tremendous presence: he was 5 feet tall, weighed 100 kilos, and had an arm span of 8 feet. The guides asked us to make way for the king, and warned us of his lethal ’love bite’. We all quickly moved aside, but not before I managed a shot of his captivating face, up close and personal.
Strictly speaking, these orangutans are semi-wild. Because, after their release into the wild they keep coming back to the centre for food. Initially, every day. Once they learn to gather food in the wild, infrequently. But during fruiting season, never. The second reason is that Semenggoh is a small patch of rainforest, measuring just 650 hectares and floating in a sea of human settlement merely 24 kms from the bustling city of Kuching. Cut off from any other rainforest, these primates are actually living in open captivity.
Orangutan in Malay means People of the Forest. The tribals here believe that once upon a time the orangutans lived with the humans. But being non-communicative and solitary in nature, they preferred to be left alone. And one day they eventually moved deep into the forest, thereby earning the sobriquet of People of the Forest. But the tribals never let them to go completely out of sight. Because it’s the orangutans who teach them all about the ways of the forest, including telling them which fruits to eat and which ones to avoid.
Orangutans have a lifespan of around 50 years. But the tragic biological truth about them is that females can only give birth to one offspring, that too once in eight years. This low fertility, combined with the destruction of habitat, probably explains why they are critically endangered.
These primates are extremely territorial. And the reason is that each one needs a large tract of forest which has the choicest fruit trees in great abundance. But equally importantly it’s also because they have the peculiar habit of moving house every day. So they abandon their nest-like resting place of the previous night, and painstakingly build a new ’nest’ on a different tree. Every day.
On our return, we saw a cluster of pitcher plants. Slender and elegant, with a beautiful lid that’s perennially open, it looks like anything but a carnivorous plant. The open pitcher emanates a smell that’s a fatal attraction for insects. And once the unsuspecting insects (it’s been happening for millennia; and at least by now they should have caught on) land on the slimy insides of the pitcher, they become totally immobile. The plant then closes the lid to make doubly sure there’s no great escape. The insects are slowly dissolved by enzymes and sucked into the digestive tracts of the plant. Rives told us about a glorious exception: the ’Jain’ pitcher plant! It too keeps the lid open; but when a few dew drops fall into it in the wee hours of the morning, it closes its lid in sheer bliss. And remains happy and content, drawing its nutrition from the dew.
Bako National Park
The oldest National Park in Malaysia is also one of South Asia’s smallest. But amazingly in just 2700 hectares of forest it holds a very wide range of habitats. And you realize it the moment you reach Bako jetty. As you pan your eyes from one side to the other, you see beach vegetation, mangroves, marshes, grasslands, forests and even cliff vegetation. Each one holding in its bosom its own distinctive wildlife.
A 30-minute drive and a 30-minute boat-ride brought us here from the city of Kuching. En route we saw some awesome paintings created by Nature on volcanic rocks: in blue, brown, red, yellow, green and white (did I leave out any colour?). And a few sculptures floating in the ultramarine sea to match. It was God’s own art gallery.
On our way to the guest house, we were welcomed by a strange-looking creature: a bearded pig loitering aimlessly on the beach. After freshening up, we headed to one of the 18 colour-coded trails that were drawn out by the forest department. The idea is to prevent the uninitiated from straying into the lurking dangers of the unknown. And right enough even my semi-trained eyes could not spot the venom of the perfectly camouflaged green pit viper that was just an arm’s length away. Sometimes in Nature, it makes sense to walk the trodden path.
On one of the trees nearby we spotted the clown of the Malaysian forest: the proboscis monkey. With an oversized nose, it looked as if it had just walked out of a Pinocchio comic. Close by were silver leaf monkeys with their silvery fur glistening in the sun. Though both these monkeys are leaf-eating, they don’t get into territorial fights. Simply because their choice of trees is completely different from each other. To each his own leaf.
Rives, a master in seeking out wildlife, spotted the elusive flying lemur on the tree top. It had its face turned towards the trunk, and it was after 15 minutes of patience that it turned and glanced at us for a few nanoseconds.
In the evening we walked along the mangroves. There, male fiddler crabs were flaunting their colourful and abnormally large claws to attract the females. But unfortunately some of them attracted the unwanted attention of crab-eating monkeys and ended up on their dining table.
Rives showed us a unique mangrove tree called sonarika that’s a delicacy for the proboscis monkey. It has leaves so brittle that it crackles like potato chips when you break it; and the leaves are sweet on one side and salty on the other. Rives explained that the side that touches the seawater is salty, and as the water slowly passes through to the other side, it becomes sweet. It’s literally a desalination ’plant’. Is there a technology here for humans to adopt? Nay, exploit?
It was becoming dark, and Rives knew exactly where the fireflies would be. Each species of fireflies has a different timing for flashing their torchlights. But sometimes females of a particular species imitate the timing of another species just to attract their males. And when these males do get attracted and land in the waiting arms of the femme fatale, they are killed and devoured.
And as the new moon started rising, Rives showed us the bread-fruit tree. On the third crescent of the new moon, tribals in Sarawak peel off the bark of this tree (when it’s at its softest and most flexible) and make their costumes with it.
Another interesting flora we saw was a fern that had a symbiotic relationship with a frog. A group of this fern would grow in a circle forming a large bowl that would trap rainwater. The frog would lay its eggs here in thanksgiving, and in turn give the fern its nutrients in the form of droppings.
Gudung Gading National Park
Here’s where you pray you find the largest flower in the world: the rafflesia. It’s rare, endemic, and endangered. It takes all of nine months for the bud to blossom but the flower only lasts for seven days. And the flowering can occur anywhere in the 5,000 hectares of forest. At the park gate we were told that our prayers have been answered, and just the earlier day one had flowered very close to the jungle path. This flower is at its most colourful on the second day, after which it starts turning dark till it becomes as black as coal on the seventh day.
Rafflesia is a parasite with all its organs in a defunct state except for the flower. In fact all that you see with your naked eye is just a huge flower clinging on for dear life to its host liana or the Tarzan vine. The vine itself is an incredible specimen; and one single plant is recorded to have travelled as many as 5 kms in the rainforest here.
The flower is blood red in colour, and has the texture of flesh. And it also has the smell of rotten flesh to match. This is to attract the attention of the blow-ants that pollinate them. Despite these desperate measures pollination is rare, and that makes this plant endangered. The reason is that a male flower and a female flower have to blossom in close proximity for the tiny blow-ant to pollinate them in one go. And Nature being whimsical, such synchronization is few and far between. The rafflesia we saw was small: just two feet in diametre. Compared to the largest one recorded here that’s close to four feet.
As a double delight we also saw the tallest flower in the world: the amorphophallus. It was about three feet in height, whereas the bigger ones among them are known to grow up to about eight feet.
At Gading I also met the exuberant Anthonia, a female forest guard. When she saw me clicking pictures, she took me to a tree to show me a lantern fly on one branch, and a flying lizard on another. She then showed me a few hundred amazing photos she herself had taken of the flora and fauna here. Ever since someone gifted her a camera five years ago, she has been documenting the life in these forests from dawn to dusk, round the year, year after year. That’s when I realized the difference between being there for a day and being there every day. On most days, she goes into the forest at 5 in the morning and spends close to three hours in the lap of Nature. Anthonia was born in a village near the forest, grew up in the forest, and now works in the forest. Truly, a daughter of the forest.
