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...
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...
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.