Sumbiling Eco Village - Rainforest Discovery

Water crossing

The words "eco village" for me are usually synonymous with "unkempt" and an excuse to not maintain facilities, and after the Mulu accommodation I wasn't actually expecting much. I couldn't have been more wrong. From the moment I arrived at Sumbiling I fell in love with the place. It's not that different to the Mulu concept, but it's done properly. It's right on the river, which due to a lot of rain was flowing far too fast to consider swimming (well, I did come in monsoon season!) There were hammocks by the river and I was glad that I picked up a dodgy Jackie Collins beach novel to read from the guesthouse in Miri.

Centipede

We sat down to refreshments on arrival - pulut and banana fritters! - and after a briefing and putting my things in the room, we headed off to the rainforest. I was the only guest, and yet I had two guides - Rudy, plus a local Iban guide as well. This was by far the best jungle walk I have done, simply because they explained everything as we went. There were a lot of Dillenia plants (Brunei's national flower and the name of the Miri guesthouse) which it seems are used for everything. Many of the trails are muddy and they have come up with an ingenious way to install handrails. They stake a living piece of Dillenia wood into the ground at an angle with another vertically to support it, and somehow it lives and grows and sprouts leaves - and of course since it's living, it doesn't rot. Very important in a RAINforest. My Keen H20 sandals have finally been put to good use as we had many water crossings, and I was delighted to find that unlike Teva sandals, when wet your feet don't slip in Keens. In fact they were just as comfy to walk in wet as dry.

Jungle ferns

Part of the walk was tasting the jungle fare and I tried banana stems (part of the leaf, not the fruit) which are cooked as a vegetable, jungle ferns (much nicer when cooked!) and this berry which tasted a little like a kiwi or a more sour strawberry. After a while we crossed from secondary into primary rainforest, which has never been cleared. There was no grass and it was cool and shady. The walk was a big loop and we emerged back in the secondary rainforest into a big clearing. This was the helicopter pad used by the British troops - it was easy to imagine waves of soldiers heading into the jungle.

After a few hours of trekking we headed back across the river for lunch, where I was delighted to find that jungle ferns were on offer! There was also fish and rice. The trek was really tiring (up and down small hills) and I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the living area under the fans and reading my book. There was endless tea available and Rudy was there the entire time. We got along very well together - lucky since there was nobody else around!!