Jungletastic

Jungles. They are horrible things when you think about it really. Imagine exercising in a sauna whilst every few minutes someone opens the door to throw in random creatures, most of which bite or sting, all of which look like nothing on earth. Now imagine what one looks like after six days of that.

We loved it.



Jungles are everything I should hate, so being a little bit deluded; I decided that they must be included in my trip. Being very deluded, I decided that doing a survival course in one of them was a far better way to get to know them, and for all the creatures to get to know me too.

Loving the cold and hating insects, whist retaining a healthy fear for anything which can kill me, jungles should have been off limits. Something in my head made me want to investigate why jungles polarise people so much. Some love, others detest. No-one comes out of the jungle without an opinion one way or the other.

After a brief trip to see Agra and the Taj Mehal in India, I arrived on a late evening flight to Brunei (part of Borneo: )

Here I was greeted by our team (from right to left):


Stuart: The ‘local’ who runs survival trips into the jungle. He is originally Welsh.
Patrick: A head survival instructor from a Scottish survival school who already has experience in the jungle and is along for the ride.
Scott: A fellow Scott who works with Patrick.
Mark: A newly qualified survival instructor who is also Welsh.
Me [taking the photo]: An enthusiastic survival hobbyist, with much to learn!

Over the next few weeks, we were to get acclimatised to the oppressive heat and humidity, before moving into the jungle for four separate trips.

One day excursion to get used to everything and check our gear works.
A six day trip into the jungle for the survival training
A trip to meet a tribe of x-head-hunters and learn skills from them
A nice couple of nights in the jungle for Christmas day!!

Before setting off into the jungle we had a day to acclimatise to the heat and humidity. Here we spent the time spotting monkeys using a river taxi and realising that although Brunei is a Muslim society, they aren’t as strict as one may expect... Either that, or they didn’t understand the not-so-hidden meaning of the middle poster.


Once our food had been purchased and everyone had double checked the contents of their bags, we were off for a day’s trip to a local lake in secondary jungle (i.e. “Jungle Lite”) to ensure that everything held up and no-one was a walking liability.

This was a great day, with some improvised rafting. It also provided an excellent opportunity for everyone in the group to really bond and get to know each-other in the relative safety of jungle which wasn’t too far away from humanity.

Stuart demonstrated a technique whereby trousers could be used as a flotation device, and we all just enjoyed a paddle around the smaller rivers. Meanwhile, Scott decided that one of the more menacing spiders should get to know him a little better, giving it a ride across some wet-land before realising and flicking it into the reeds.

Things were laid back. Living was easy. From here it was to get a little tougher.



The day after, we set off on a two hour drive to a more remote stretch of jungle. Summarising a rather lengthy story, there’s been a lot of logging in the world’s jungles, but luckily with the oil wealth of Brunei, they have been able to protect much of their jungle, so we were actually heading for one of the x-SAS training camps which until very recently was used by the British special forces to train their guys in jungle warfare. It’s currently winter selection for the forces, so there was much military activity around, however, they have moved their selection site a few km away from this site, allowing us to take over an old clearing for our own use.

This was real jungle boys and girls. I was certainly under no illusions about the dangers – something clarified when I later saw a book entitled “Snakes of Borneo”, which ran to over 250 A4 sized pages, despite Borneo being smaller than Wales.



After a one hour trek, we arrived in the allocated camp-site and proceeded to take a brief shower.


Up a slippery, muddy bank, and drenched in humidity and out own sweat, we finally arrived in our home for the next five nights. Clearings in the jungle are to be treasured, offering brief rest bite from the fear of what may be lurking under the next leaf.

Before I go any further, I feel a desire, no, a need, to clarify a few points. Earlier I stated that the walk was about an hour. Big deal you probably think. What’s one hours jaunt? Well, I’ve taken a video to show you what the jaunt is like [actually taken on day 4, after 5 hours walking]; even then it does a poor job at illustrating how moving through a jungle is hard work.

Every rock hides an unknown; every leaf provides camouflage for another hidden nasty. Crossing a barrier, which is a frequent occurrence, involves many decisions as to if you want to step over, risking whatever is underneath biting you, or step on, risking a slip on the constantly wet surface. “Why not hold on to something to stabilise your crossing?” you may think, well, what if that thing is covered in spikes, or biting insects, or itchy hairs, or worse? I think I’ll keep my hands to myself thank you. Now imagine doing that walk in the sauna. Now imagine doing it with soaking boots, a 20kg pack, surrounded by noises you’ve never heard before, whilst swatting away hornets the length of your middle finger, as mozzies bite you constantly. I told you to watch where you put your feet!!

Yep, you’re getting closer to the jungle experience.


Luckily, setting up camp was easy. I’ve had enough experience with using my hammock in the UK to make it something I can do in the dark, whilst drunk. With the collective experience of the group, we soon had a fire going and all the thoughts of the jungle nasties were being put to the back of our head. “Mind where you sit – there’s a web under that log.” Back-ish of our heads then.

Dangers in the jungle come in forms that I’m rather surprised by. Spiders and snakes may be deadly, but scary spiders, such as the Recluse, Tarantula, and Black Widow, mostly want to keep out of our way. We saw both the Recluse and Black Widow – the latter being on a pile of wood which I was carrying, albeit very swiftly once I realised the unintended passenger!

Snakes often can be just a few feet away from you, but you won’t notice. Many snakes hunt at night, so locating them is hard, that assumes you want to, which we didn’t most of the time.

What you have to be careful of are things like the hornets, which are known to “get their mates involved” if you start to annoy them. With a description of the sting from one victim being the same as having a burning hot rivet put into your skin, I think I want to keep clear. However, one of the most surprising was the account of the head SAS survival instructor of a centipede bite. He once got bitten by one of these nasties and promptly proceeded to “Curl into the foetal position, and wept and wept and wept, cried and cried and cried”. He’s a hard-as-nails b*astard. I’m a soft-skinned computer-geek. I’ll be keeping clear of them then!

As my rambling is going on a little, I’ll finish this later (you’re probably reading this at work, if so, get back to work!) But don’t worry; in the next article we have traps, blazes, hunting trips and random foodage – full marks will be awarded to those who can work out what the kebabs in the picture below are resting on...



I’ll see you then!

Note: Most of the photos have been uploaded, and I now have a youtube channel with all the india videos too:
Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/hbevan/HadynsTravelBlogPhotoDumpBorneo
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/hadyntravel