The jungles of Borneo are everything I’d hoped for:

Dense tangles of green that cast shadows in sixty shades of verdant grey, alive with the sounds of birds and bugs and a billion tiny creatures that reveal themselves if you take the time to look.

I felt a bit like Alice, shrunken to a minuscule size in a world of wonders that dwarfed her as we hiked beneath giant trees and over a tangle of roots that looked for all the world like snakes frozen in a wooden mass, writhing beneath the carpet of leaves.

The waterfalls were lovely.

We spent a long hour wading and sliding down the rocks, worn smooth by countless millennia of rushing water. When we took off hiking into the deep, dark, green we were squelching in our shoes and kept cool by our damp skin. Three hours later, we were still wet; nothing ever really dries in the rain forest.

Lambir Hills National Park, about a half an hour outside of Miri, in the direction of Bintulu is absolutely stunning. If you want to get off of the carefully built paths and into the real jungle, this is your place. Bring solid walking shoes, plenty of water and your sense of adventure!! The hike is not for the faint of heart, those with bad knees or young children. It’s strenuous; up and down hills that are almost a vertical climb, covered in mud and layers of decomposing leaves that turn a downhill misstep into a decomposing slip and slide adventure.

We saw lots of fabulous creatures:

• Tree nymph butterflies
• Giant forest ants
• Superhighway and tunnel building termites
• Killer-looking wasps (they didn’t kill us!)
• A banded coral snake (we didn’t step on him… but almost!)
• Some fantastic beetles
• And nutmeg! I found my first wild nutmeg!

Did I mention the leeches?

There were leeches.

Of course we didn’t KNOW there were leeches until hours later, in the grocery store when Ez started hopping around like a frog and screaming like a girl trying to brush a great, grey grape off of the side of his foot and then proceeded to abandon the creature in the check out lane, blood leaking from the wound and dripping into his shoe.

Upon closer inspection, we all had them, Hannah’s was the worst, with blood running between her toes. Ez got the gold medal for head count, at four. He has four bandaids plastered on his feet tonight as the woulds are still seeping. Evidently they can bleed for up to three days. Lovely.

The hike was fantastic, even the parts where we were making near vertical climbs and Tony and Gabe were positioned in the path pulling us up one by one. I could talk for days about it, but none of what I would describe could do it justice.

Happily, Tony took some pictures!

Anyone ever notice that, in group pictures, our boys take turns looking like they want to kill someone? Yesterday it was Gabe, today, Ez. Sheesh.

Look carefully… they’re building a super highway!

Only after did we find out that this fellow is quite venomous and in the same family as the cobra… fortunately, eats mostly other snakes and little creatures… shiver.

Dead bird: flies, magots and ants at war for the carcass… very National Geographic!

Giant forest ant at a run

Nutmeg husks

Termite nest

Termite superhighway!