He chuckled. “If it bites you, I won’t
be able to do anything,” he said,
and with that, trained his light on the
ladders leading up the canopy frame.
It was, despite all of our climbing, still
dark when the guide shone his flashlight
on the ladders leading up the canopy
frame. “Just hang on as you
climb. No two people on
the same ladder, and
if you decide to stop
on top of one of the
observation towers,
only one person
at a time,” he
explained. “Go
on. I’ll wait here,”
he said, sending
us up.
I shined my light
up, and still I couldn’t
see the top of the ladder.
But climb, we did, and
dawn broke as we were still
on our way up. There were the first
pink fingers of light over to the east.
Another 20 minutes of climbing and
walking between the towers swaying
in the wind, and there was finally no
higher to go.
As Easter mornings go, this one
was simply glorious. The mist still
hung heavy above the treeline, but the
canopy rose far above it all. You could
almost hear the forest exhale, as if it
were also just waking up. At night, the
forest is noisy, but somewhere just
leading up to the dawn, everything
turns really quiet, as the nocturnal
creatures return to their lairs and begin
to hide from the sun. But as the sun
comes up, the forest became alive
again with sound — birds singing,
all manner of animals calling out
cautiously. Somewhere there was a
Bornean gibbon, a common monkey
in these parts, with its distinctive call
carrying through the jungle.
There had been no way to tell in the
predawn dark, and as the sun came up,
we were too busy focusing on the rungs
of the ladder in front of us. So it was
only when we got to the top that we
could really stop and take in where we
were, and it was one of those moments
that could reduce you to tears.
UNDERWATER
DISCOVERIES
I took a nap, and when I woke up, I was
in Malaysia.
B R U N E I ’ S G R E A T O U T D O O R S
Above: Enchanting
forest mist; (inset)
a Bornean gibbon
70
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It was not an accident. Brunei is
peculiar in that the small country is
actually made up of two unconnected
parts: the “mainland,” where the
capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, was
with the rest of the country; and
Temburong, where the forests were.
Temburong is not an island, but it is
cut off from the rest of Brunei by a strip
of Malaysian territory. The 45-minute
speedboat back to Bandar Seri
Begawan passes through Malaysian
waters about halfway through the
ride. I was on my way to the capital
because I’d heard good things about
diving around Borneo, and Brunei
presented an opportunity to check out
an underexplored area.
There is, I had been warned prior
to my arrival, “not much to do in
Brunei.” The warning came from
other people who had spent time in
Brunei — mostly on business, or to
work, because tourism hasn’t been
