Borneo. Heard of it? Of course you have. Considered going? Probably not. And that, is precisely its charm.
I had heard of it too. Everyone has. It floats around in our collective imagination like a half-remembered bedtime story — dark rainforests, head-hunting tribes, orangutans swinging through mist, maps with more ‘green’ than roads. But travel there? Honestly, it...
Mount Kinabalu does not need marketing. It does not try to seduce you with adjectives. It simply stands there — granite-heavy, cloud-wrapped, unconcerned. At 4,095 meters, Mount Kinabalu is the highest peak in Southeast Asia. But height, as I discovered, is the least interesting thing about it. Mount Kinabalu sits inside Kinabalu National Park, Malaysia’s first UNESCO...
Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre is about learning how to leave things alone. There is a moment at Sepilok when you realize this isn’t about you. No sweeping music. No dramatic announcements. Just a wooden platform, forest all around, and the faint rustle of movement somewhere above. Then they appear. Orangutans do not make entrances. They arrive. The Sepilok Orangutan...
Sandakan does not overwhelm you at first glance. It doesn’t announce itself with drama. It looks almost… ordinary. And then you begin paying attention. Sandakan sits on the east coast of Sabah, edging one of the most biologically dense regions left on Earth. The forests here belong to the great Bornean lowland rainforest system — ancient, layered,...
Gomantong Cave does not ease you in gently. You smell it before you see it. This vast limestone cave system near Sandakan is one of the largest and most biologically intense caves in Southeast Asia. It is home to millions of bats and swiftlets, and to centuries of human labor that still continues today. This is not...
"Tribes of Sabah" evokes images of of Head-Hunters, Blowguns, and the Long Life of a Misunderstood Past. In fact, every time Borneo is mentioned in casual conversation, it doesn’t take long for the phrase “head-hunters” to surface. It is usually delivered with a half-smile. A shiver of theatrical danger. A colonial hangover masquerading as curiosity. And like...
Mulu Hills is where the Earth seems like it is showing off... If Borneo’s rainforests feel ancient, Mulu feels prehistoric. Gunung Mulu National Park, in Sarawak, is less a destination than a geological statement. It is a place where water, limestone, and time collaborated for millions of years — and did not bother checking whether humans would...
Kuching does not try to impress you. It doesn’t rise dramatically. Nor does it overwhelm with scale or spectacle. It simply unfolds — gently, patiently — along the banks of the Sarawak River. And in a region where rainforest and river dominate the imagination, Kuching offers something quietly radical: a city at ease with itself.
Tabin Wildlife Reserve is not a place that you “do.” You submit to it. Located in eastern Sabah, Tabin Wildlife Reserve is one of Borneo’s last intact lowland rainforests — a protected pocket surrounded by plantations, logging scars, and roads that creep ever closer. Getting there is intentionally inconvenient.