After all the activity of the SECSTATE visit, everything calmed down very quickly. Most of the TDY crew was on a flight out of Brunei the next day, but I had postponed my flight just a little longer to have time for one more excursion - Temburong Rainforest.
Temburong is a funny little district of Brunei. In order to get there, you either have to drive through Malaysia or take a boat across open water. There's a town at the mouth of the river, and beyond that is the jungle. So I joined forces with one other TDYer lingering around and booked a one-day tour that would show the highlights of the district. The tour involved water taxi + minivan + longboat + short hike and then all back again to the city.
The longboat ride (motor-powered) was lovely - sun shining, water splashing, the jungle getting denser all the while. There is a Chinese word for forest, 森林, one of my favorite character combinations ever. Trees packed on trees packed next to more trees. Foliage so dense it blocks the sun and a jungle humming with invisible activity.
Once you get to the edge of the forest reserve, you sign in at a guest house and then start a short hike to the canopy bridge. Ulu Temburong National Park is 210 square miles, but only a small part is accessible to tourists. The rest is reserved for science (probably for the best, considering the rate of deforestation across much of the island of Borneo). After 30 minutes of walking up wooden staircases, we came to this:
A little scary at first, but a quick climb once you found a rhythm. And the reward?
A carpet of green and blue covering the land, birds in the breeze, and near silence. Just what one needs when posted in a city of 22 million.
The rest of the trip included a stop by a waterfall where we tramped upstream and got nibbled on by hungry fish (much larger and less pleasant than those Thai spas advertising fish pools) and a picnic lunch prepared by our guide's wife. Curry chicken, steamed fish, and bananas - delicious!
The best thing about the jungle day trip was being in the midst of the glory of creation. We saw how thorny rattan plants aggressively climb their way to the sky. There were black butterflies with a flash of neon green across their backs and a stream of millions of termite ants moving camp from one corner of the jungle to another. The ants were terribly fascinating, each one carrying one ant larva in its mandible. How did they know it was time to leave one hollow tree and find another? Who picked the new home, and who led the way there?
Such grand design, such a Grand Designer.
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