A Journey To Nature’s Arms

By Hoang Son An eco resort with villas on the sea in Kota Kinabalu, where luxury is blended into nature One hour and 45 minutes flying from HCM City to Brunei, 25 minutes from Brunei to Malaysia’s estern state of Sabah, another 25 minutes back to Brunei, and finally one hour and 45 minutes flying back from Brunei to HCM City are all the boring parts for any who dislikes flights. The rest of our five-day tour to the two destinations provides new experiences. And they are very good experiences at that, when one really returns to the wide arms of nature. We find ourselves landing in Sabah, knowing little about a water-clogged land with pristine beaches, pristine rainforests, the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, the brightest examples of eco villas, and the joys and excitements ahead. Even the trip organizer — Royal Brunei Airlines, Brunei’s Freme Travel Services, and tourism agencies of the host countries — seem to hide it all from us. They rather let the secrets unfold themselves. We plunge ourselves onto dinghies for rafting on the river, full of thrills and fears despite very detailed guidance in advance from a rafting man who introduces himself by a nickname of Spiderman. He really looks like that, which helps soothe our worries. Apart from all rafting techniques, Spiderman calls our attention that rafting is a teamwork effort, and he proves it well throughout the 15-kilometer-long trip. Five or six are seated in each dinghy and we row downstream. It starts easily for us all – 15 of us including travel agents and media representatives from HCM City. Then come rapids when control of the boat becomes more challenging, when the boat rotates itself, when its bottom hits the rock, and when, all of a sudden, Spiderman pushes any one of us into the river amidst big laughters and yells. Of course the life jacket does its part well, although several have the chance to taste the river water, which is guaranteed to be clean. Time elapses quickly, and we cannot believe it when rafting comes to an end, meaning we have traversed 15km on the river full of quickened heartbeats and unexpected funs. When in Brunei, we also have the chance to try rafting again, but it is less exciting when one already knows it. However, Nguyen Van My, director of Lua Viet Travel, and Truong Hoang Phuong, marketing director of Vietmark, still wish rafting is launched in Vietnam. “The stream in Madagoui [in Lam Dong Province] can do,” says My of Lua Viet. But rivers not only offer travelers with rafting. On the Brunei River next door to Sabah, one can easily get lost in admiration of the livelihood there. Thousands of vast stilt houses in the Water Village on either side of the river give us a new perception of prosperity when we take a water taxi zigzaging through the river. There are some 20,000 people living in such houses – connected with each other through endless wooden bridges – with thousands of boats for their daily navigation, and tens of thousands of cars for these well-to-do people when they come on land. Sugumaran Nair, manager of inbound and MICE division of Freme Travel Services, says Brunei with a population of less than 400,000 has 1.2 million cars in all, averaging out at three for every residents. The man with a good sense of humor, who prefers to be called Sugar only and who serves as our tour guide throughout the trip, also takes the occasion to brief us on the great social welfares in one of the world’s richest countries with a gross domestic product per capita at some US$33,000. But we are on our trip to the Temburong National Park, and care less about such development figures. After an hour or so on long boats upstream the shallow river, we arrive at the National Park Center, go through the registration process, and enter an “ordeal” of climbing up the Canopy Walkway hundreds of steps uphill. The painstaking trekking is richly awarded, though. The flora biodiversity in the tropical rainforest that has been recognized as a world heritage site is comparable to the Amazon in South America, as we are told, with numerous layers of evergreen foliage, and few sun beams can sneak through these thick layers to the ground. On the top of the mount are several metal structures that look like scaffolds for construction workers some 40 meters high into the sky, each connected to the other by a narrow footbridge. We cast our eyes on all the tree tops, which form the crown canopy, and run into rupture at the great sight of nature, while cool breezes are making us tremble a little when on such a high altitude. As Brunei and Malaysia’s Sabah are on Borneo Island, both share the same climatic conditions and primitive rainforests there are also more or less the same. We also have the similar feeling when trekking through the Kinabalu National Park, where the magnificent Crocker Range as the highest mountain in Southeast Asia is situated. While Brunei may astonish visitors with its imposing mosques whose tops are gold-plated amidst the great treasures of nature, Malaysia’s Sabah with Kota Kinabalu as the capital city of the state may stun travelers with green development. There are villas on the sea in Kota Kinabalu associated with a private Marine Ecology Research Center where seven out of eight species of giant clams of the world are preserved, there are in Brunei those villas nestled in the rainforest allowing visitors to soak themselves in nature, and there are many many more for those travelers wanting to shy themselves away from shopping tours to discover. At the farewell party in Brunei, when asked what Brunei has to offer to guests, especially those wanting shopping tours, a senior tourism official cannons the topic to nature. “We have the pristine beaches. We have the pristine forests just a short ride from the city. We have a safe and peaceful country,” boasts Jean Christophe Robles Espinosa, director of marketing and promotion under Brunei Tourism. Asked if there are specific programs to lure Vietnamese travelers, the grey-haired official of Central American descent simply says his agency is coordinating with Royal Brunei Airlines to think out new products to attract guests from Vietnam seen by Brunei Tourism as a new but highly potential market. “But we are open to proposals from Vietnamese partners,” he stresses, and repeats it again that “nature is the great treasure in Brunei” for people to explore, with the least reference to shopping. He does mention two shopping complexes whose names I quickly forget. I myself enjoy shopping tours when going places, but after the trip, after all excitements and joys and funs throughout the five days, and after the journey to nature, I also once utter to myself: “Damned with the shopping tour!”