It was just as well, because I had to
be up and about hours before dawn
for our Easter morning canopy walk. It
was still pitch black out when we — an
American family that included a very
sleepy two-year-old strapped to her
mother’s back and I — boarded the
longboat. The suspension bridge had
washed out months ago, so we had to
take the boat to get to the foot of the
steps that led to the canopy trail.
It was a good half-hour climb up the
stairs, the night air chilling the sweat on
our backs. Ed, our guide, was hustling
ahead of us. “I have to make sure there
are no snakes on the trail!” he had
called out. “If you don’t see me, just
keep going up. You won’t get lost.”
“
Oh,
good
,”
I had muttered,
remembering with some alarm an
article I had read many years ago about
the vipers of the Bornean forests. Kraits
were among the deadliest creatures in
South-East Asia, I remembered, vicious
and fast, and highly venomous. Each
small snake had enough venom to kill a
village, and though antivenins existed,
the poison works too fast for anything
to be done.
The couple with the baby seemed
unfazed by this — they were too busy
struggling with their little princess,
who was still fast asleep in her carrier,
and acted more or less like a twenty-
pound piece of luggage on her mother’s
back. After ten minutes of huffing and
puffing up the trail, the white flag
was finally raised. “You have
to take her,” supermom
finally admitted.
It was another
twenty minutes or
so before we got to
the bottom of the
canopy, and when
we got there, our
guide was waiting,
having had time to
rest before we arrived.
He reached into a plant
and shone his light into
the leaves. “Come look!”
he said. I peered in, and blinked
and squinted to no avail. “What are
we looking at?” I said, giving up.
Wordlessly he took a branch and
poked one of the branches gingerly.
Something green moved a bit and
raised its head. “Pit viper!” he said, as
I nearly fell over backwards trying to
get away.
B R U N E I ’ S G R E A T O U T D O O R S
Top to bottom:
Brace yourself
for a challenging
hike over slippery
moss-covered
boulders; felled
trees double as
makeshift bridges
in the jungle;
one of the many
colorful residents
of the rainforest;
a botanist's dream
hangout
69
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