🇲🇾 The Bako National Park 🏞️ in Kuching/Sarawak/Borneo

On April 25th, 2023 we took the local bus towards Bako National Park 🏞️. The bus takes you near the pier, just outside Kuching. We paid 1 ringgit per person per trip on the bus. The boats start at the pier into the national park and if you don't stay there overnight, you will be picked up again in the evening by the boat in the national park and driven back - by prior arrangement.

We paid the entrance fee and were informed that the boat costs extra. It wasn't a problem for us because we shared the price of the boat with two travelers and agreed with them when the boat should pick us up again. By the way, this all worked smoothly.👌🏼 A short moment later, we put on our life jackets, got into the boat and the wild ride began. I think it took 15-20 minutes before we arrived at the boat launch in the national park. Nature already impressed us.

We walked for a few minutes, always following the signs, to register at what I now call the visitor center. The friendly staff member at reception showed us the different hiking trails, how long it would take to complete the route and what you could discover on each route. We should avoid the paths to the beaches as much as possible or they were closed because there were crocodiles in the water everywhere and that was dangerous. Absolutely understandable in my opinion 😅🐊

We decided relatively quickly to take a hiking trail to a viewpoint - 3 kilometers there and 3 km back. Be sure to take enough water with you! We totally underestimated how much fluid you lose through exertion and sweating and stupidly ran out of water along the way and that became noticeable at some point...But I'll come back to that later.

Our hiking trail turned out to be quite challenging, because at first it was steeply uphill, we had to literally scramble and climb over hill and dale. But it was also a lot of fun. The couple we shared the boat with turned back at some point. It was too tiring for them. Of course we continued on 🙂 When we reached the top, the path became flatter, we often hiked over wooden paths or wooden bridges and took short breaks in between and enjoyed the view of the sea. In order not to lose sight of the path through the forest, we followed the colored trees, but there were also signs at junctions, for example. The many tree roots turned out to be real tripping hazards; we often had to watch where we were stepping. We heard the birds chirping, listened to the sounds of nature and even saw monkeys in the treetops above us. It was a great experience.

I don't remember how long it took us to get there, but when we got there it didn't matter. The view was incredibly beautiful, it was so quiet and we had this special place to ourselves for quite a while. We fortified ourselves first, everyone had a filled croissant from 7eleven and water with us. However, far too little water as it turned out. The thirst was great. It was very warm and the humidity was naturally high and we sweated a lot.

At some point on the way back we ran out of water and felt really dizzy. Not a good sign. My legs were really shaky at times on the way back, but we pulled ourselves together because after all we had to stay focused so as not to fall over the roots. Everything went well, but we were pretty thirsty and exhausted when we got to the restaurant. We pretty much underestimated that... the most strenuous 6 kilometers of our lives, we joked afterwards. 😅 First we fortified ourselves with food and drinks and rejoined the couple we came with.

At some point we called the man on our boat to come pick us up from the park. Since the tide was now low, he picked us up on the beach. We had to take off our shoes and walk through the water to get to the boat. The couple asked us if we would still like to look at the famous rock formations with them, this cost extra, but we agreed anyway. The driver drove us there and we were able to take a few photos and were amazed at the sight. (You have to specifically ask the men on the boat to be driven to the rocks). And it's worth it!

When we arrived at the pier, we wanted to give the couple the money for the spontaneous extra boat trip, but the man refused and invited us 😊 that was really friendly, we hadn't expected that.

What a lovely end to our day. It was also great that when we got back to the street, the bus was practically waiting for us and we were able to head home straight away 😊👌🏼 By the way, that was the last day in Borneo for us. The next day we flew from Kuching to Kuala Lumpur. 🇲🇾