The Adventures of Sham: Ulu Temburong National Park

This post has taken me absolute ages to put together because I took over 300 pictures and sorting through them all and picking some for the blog was hard work! So this post will be done in 3 or 4 smaller posts becasue there are a lot of pictures!

We booked a package holiday with a company based in Brunei called Intrepid Tours. The price covered absolutely everything- the water taxis, the nightime safari, visiting a long house, taking the long boat to the national park, entrance to the park, river rafting, accommodation and all the food. We only spent one night there yet covered everything. It was the best holiday ever!

(This is what we eventually climb up)

We went with a friend of ours called Salome. The tour company was based in the capital Bandar Seri Begawan which is only 20 minutes form Rimba (like most things!). From there we were taken to the water taxis which would take us direct to Temburong. This should have been a 40 minute boat ride but it broke down half way through the journey. It was ok for the first 10 minutes but then the heat just got unbearable. I really started feeling very claustrophobic as the boat was absolultey packed. Salome then had the nerve to say at this moment, "They call these boats floating coffins"! I could have killed her! We were stranded for about 30 minutes when the rescue boat arrived. I had never felt so relieved!

(Boat breaking down!)

(The view was something I suppose!)

Our tour guide was waitng for us in Temburong when we got off the boat and took us to our accommodation. As we arrived I saw a huge mansion of a building and thought that was it! Turned out it was the house of the owner of the tiny house next to it which was our accomodation! We hadn't paid much so it wasn't too much of a disappointment.

(The lounge! You can imagine what the rest of the guest house looked like!)

After refreshing up a bit we were on our way to the nightime safari. This was such a brilliant experience. It is always very hot and humid but the boat rides are just so refreshing and cooling. We went along the river for ages and spotted lots of monkeys. At dusk we decided to turn around and look for crocodiles! We had a few torches and were looking for the reflections of the crocodiles eyes as this is the only way to spot them. On the way we came across a huge barge carrying the tree trunks and nearly crashed right in to it as there was no room on the side we were on. The barge had swung right in and missed us by inches! The thought of falling into the river at night with crocodiles about really shook me up! I don't think I have ever panicked as much as I had done then! We did however spot a baby crocodile in the river and was told the mother will be around but is probably hiding. Is was soo cute! Its the only word to describe it! It was very shy so we only saw it for a short while. My camera had died at this point due to the humidity but I probably couldn't have taken a picture anyway.