Borneo is the third largest island in the world, divided between three countries: Indonesia with the biggest southern part Kalimantan, Malaysia with districts of Sarawak in the North-West and Sabah in the North-East and small Brunei on the northern tip. Kalimantan is the heart of the wild Borneo, with impenetrable jungle and transportation often limited to a boat ride through the jungle rivers. Greatly affected by the infamous palm tree plantations and related illegal fires that cause the island to drown in thick smoke several months a year. The northern part belonging to Malaysia is much more "civilised", with relatively big cities, much better infrastructure and economy more similar to the countries of eastern Europe than poor Indonesia. The tiny Brunei on the other hand, ruled by a Sultan, is known for being quite conservative, following the rule of Sharia law.

The island is all about the remoteness and wildlife so make sure you have time to move around to reach them. Due to scarce time, we had to limit our stay only to the Sarawak region but we plan to come back to Sabah for its turtles and paradise beaches.

We arrived to Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, on a rainy equatorian morning. We were surprised to see a clean and vibrant city with a lot of hotels on the riverbank, lively food stalls and hipster bars. The city is known for having two mayors, one of the South and one of the North part, who seem to be competing for the cleanest part of the city award. Kuching's most emblematic building sits right accross the river downtown and houses the local parliament. You cannot enter but it's a nice walk along the bank to check it out. Make sure you explore the city on foot to find all the interesting spots. The pink mosque is very nice, surrounded with a small picturesque cemetery, and the non-Muslims are allowed to visit, including women! Check out the Little India district, and the nightlife downtown. We felt safe in Sarawak at all times, there wasn't a single uncomfortable experience, let alone a dangerous one.

We spent one night in Kuching before going to the jungle but saved three more days after coming back to visit the surrounding national parks and it was well worth it!

Once back from Batang Ai, we went to the nearby Semenggoh Wildlife Centre for the morning feeding. The park is a scientific base to study the local orangutans. It's no zoo and there are no cages, the animals are wild and free to come and go as they please, therefore seeing one is not guaranteed. Nevertheless, due to scarce food in the nearby forest, there's a good chance some of them will show up for the feeding. Note it's not quite recommended to visit for those with limited mobility and small kids as crying babies can trigger an aggressive reaction of male orangutans and in case anything goes wrong, you're expected to be able to save yourself. We were lucky enough to see a good bunch of the primates in action, including most probably the future leader Edwin.

In the evening we headed to the Kuching Wetlands National Park for some more wildlife experience. A bus took us to start on a small boat on the Santubong river towards South China Sea and then into the Salak river. We were not lucky enough to spot the dolphins in the sea but were rewarded with plenty of proboscis monkeys, a species endemic to Borneo, and macaques, a small crocodile whose eyes glowed in the dark and a beautiful spectacle of fireflies on the riverbank trees. The cruise was a beautiful photo experience during the golden hour. Our luck got us some more adventure as on our way back through the South China Sea, the furthest from land during the cruise, the boat hit something in the water and the motor just.. broke. So we got stuck there for more than an hour, waiting for some help to come and tow us back to shore, with a crazy American aboard shouting random, not very respectful things about Muslims, and evening mosque calls all around us; quite an evening :)

The next day we took off on another day trip from Kuching, this time to the Bako National Park, known for its iconic shaped rocks next to the coastline. It's the oldest Sarawak national park and offers accommodation, trekking routes and is packed with wildlife. Again, you need to get pretty lucky, we heard many stories of visitors seeing none. Just next to the park's visitors centre we got to see a group of long-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys, a Bornean bearded pig with some horrifying stories about it tearing monkeys apart and two poisonous pit vipers sleeping on a branch. In the bungalows area of the park we came across two, very rare, flying lemurs. We went on a trek through the different types of Bako landscapes: the mangroove on the coastine, rocky passages and the pure Bornean jungle. We ended up on a beach where some silvered leaf-monkeys joined us to chill. We then took a boat to see the sea rocks the park is known for and then back to the base and back to Kuching, roughly 30 km away.

The jungle of Batang Ai was the remotest and wildest part of this trip. After 8 long hours (but only 300 km!) in the car, we arrived at a jetty terminal, which is the gateway to the National Park. Batang Ai is an artificial lake created in the 70's to supply a power plant. Despite its recent creation, it's pure nature all around and the jungle above the water level is mostly untouched.

There's just one hotel in the area, the rest of the visitors stay in the famous longhouses. As some fellow travellers explained, they have a truly local vibe to them - cockroaches scratching the floor during the night combined with the dogs howling around. We were happy to stay in slightly calmer Batang Ai Resort, a hotel built by Hilton that fell in decay over the last decades and made us travel back in time to the 80's. You can feel the jungle around at all times, the noise from the bushes is constant and far from anything other equatorian spots can offer. Everything seems at least three times bigger than usual - every bug, plant and sound.

We got tempted by a one day trip to an even remoter spot by the lake. We got into a longboat with legless plastic chairs loosely placed inside to sit on and rode into the Heart of Darkness. We passed by some locals on their plantations of rubber and pepper (make sure to bring some home!), all living in very simple conditions. Each minute the jungle got a bit closer and thicker, until all midday sunlight was barely visible through the canopee above our heads. The river branch got drier as we moved forward to the point where we couldn't ride the boat anymore but walked up to the ankles in water. We arrived at a longhouse where we met a local guide to take us to the jungle. I gave up quite quickly as we stormed right into a steep hill, making our way through the bushes with bare hands, with ants the size of a small cockroach beneath our feet. Michał continued and survived, with only few scratches, one leech in the shoe and convinced he saw a wild orangutan's hand in the canopee. We finished the trip with a simple yet delicious fish stew, traditionally cooked in a bamboo stalk.

Kuching has a great selection of hotels to pick from, all very reasonably priced. Most of them are located by the river of Sarawak and it's a really good location to start all your trips from. We chose a quite charming, slightly oldschool Imperial Riverbank hotel. Near Batang Ai on the other hand, the accommodation selection is very limited. If you want to stay in a hotel and not a longhouse, the only choice is located on the lake Batang Ai Resort that will take you right back to the 80's. The food is quite good, which is important when the closest shop is half an hour boat and another half an hour car ride away. Within Kuching you can move on foot as everything is quite close and if too far, Grab app (Asian Uber) is the best option. There are "tambangs" cruising between the Sarawak river banks that didn't look tempting enough for us, especially as the locals claim there were crocodiles spotted in the area :)

We made a mistake of not thinking of the transport to Batang Ai jungle in advance. We counted on the hotel to provide some reasonably priced transportation but their offer was very expensive. We know now that taking a car would be the most reasonable option but we didn't quite know what to expect of a road of 270 km that was supposed to last 6 hours. We ended up taking the transport along with a small tour going to the longhouse on our way there and coming back in a car of a Belgian couple we met on site.

If you're planning on booking some day trips to the surrouding parks, the agencies usually offer a pickup from your hotel. We used CPH Travel for all our trips in the area and can recommend them 100%. Something I'd like to have explained before I went to Malaysia is that the chicken is not what we are used to in Europe. In the old continent, chicken is kids food, a safe choice; in Malaysia, it's always cut in chunks along with bones and usually has very little meat on it. We definitely can recommend to try fish as it's usually fresh and local. A good place in Kuching is a hawker-like Top Spot, filled with restaurants offering a great selection of fresh fish and seafood, try the local delicacy - red snapper.

Malaysia is no Thailand or Vietnam when it comes to food experience but it's THE place for laksa, a heartwarming, spicy soup served for breakfast. Depending on the region and even restaurant, it tastes differently. The Sarawak laksa is quite spicy, with coconut milk and is filled with rice noodles, shredded chicken and shrimps. Following late Bourdain in the search of the best one, we headed to the place he ate in Sarawak dedicated espisode of "No reservations" - Choon Hui Kopitiam in Kuching - and had the best possible experience.

If you long for some hipster bars, make sure to hit Carpenter street, where all the foreigners hang out.