The road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Bilbo Baggins’ ditty on the lure of travel somehow seems to be the most appropriate “walking song” to me while trekking through the rainforest in the Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Borneo. The crude paths, the towering trees and the play of sunlight on the forest floor cannot but call to mind J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
Lord of the trail: (from top) Traversing the Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak involves braving rivers full of snakes; shaky rope bridges;; and a squadron of bats swarms out of Sarawak’s Deer Cave. Photographs by Ayeshea Perera / Mint
And while the sprawling vistas of New Zealand were possibly more cinematically suited to the filming of Peter Jackson’s epic movies, this 130-million-year-old rainforest might just really have seen hobbits and elves journeying through, heading perhaps to the nearby Gunung Api (which, strangely enough, translates to “fire mountain” in Malay) to destroy a certain ring.
Such flights of imagination also help to distract us from the fact that we’ve been walking for nearly 8km, along a path infamous for its thriving population of leeches. We are on our way to Camp 5, so named because it was the fifth base camp used by the Royal Geographic Society, which initially mapped the region. Before we started walking, though, we’d had to survive a 45-minute boat ride. Many of those minutes were actually spent negotiating the very slippery riverbed on foot, as the water was too shallow for the boat to navigate.
After that experience, the trek doesn’t prove very difficult at all, though we have to walk along shaky rope bridges, watch out for fallen tree trunks and constantly keep our eyes fixed on the ground to avoid tripping over tree roots.
Camp 5 is a congregation point for outdoor enthusiasts, many of whom are here to see the Pinnacles, razor-sharp limestone points jutting out of the roof of the forest. The viewing includes clambering up 2.5km of the impossibly steep Gunung Api—the feat is advisable only for those with a high degree of physical fitness, and even then only with a guide. The climb to see the Pinnacles is considered the high point (no pun intended) of the outing.
The next day, we have an option to stay behind and nurse our aching muscles, make our way back or tackle the Headhunters Trail. Of course, we make the toughest choice: An 11.5km path that meanders through the jungle to a river, where a boat waits to take us to a traditional tribal longhouse for the night. The sheer joy of jumping into a river after such a long walk is indescribable. But it’s short-lived, since we spend the next 4 hours in a little banana-shaped boat.