Welcome to the real jungle

“At one time or another, I imagine that we have all dreamed about how wonderful it would be to live in a Shangri-La where the climate is ideal, food is plentiful and the girls are beautiful.” -- W.M. Toynbee, Canadian schoolteacher and author, on Borneo’s Kelabit Highlands

Toynbee’s words became a neon news crawl through my brain as my puddle jumper arched over the mountain into the heart of Borneo. The Baram River wound its way through the countryside like a giant anaconda.

Inside the plane I could feel a temperature change. Gone was the suffocating humidity of the Borneo coast, where I could barely find respite lounging at a luxury resort. In came cooler, clean air as the plane climbed to a lush land 5,500 feet above sea level.

I was flying to what Australian anthropologist and World War II hero Tom Harrison called “the last frontier of the tropical world.” The Kelabit Highlands are home to descendants of headhunters, and they’re among the most isolated places on Earth, reachable only by plane.

As I gazed down from seemingly just above the towering treetops, I spotted one mole on the Mona Lisa that Toynbee tried to paint. Crude dirt roads cut through the forest, but I noticed the roads didn’t connect. They were built merely to roll into the jungle and roll lumber out.

After five days in the Kelabit (pronounced Kel-AW-bit) Highlands, I can confirm that Toynbee’s observations ring true 40 years later. I trekked through mysterious jungles, slept in the Kelabits’ 200-foot long houses in a village surrounded by majestic peaks and ate some of the best food in Southeast Asia. And, yes, the girls are beautiful.

But there is trouble in Shangri-La. The massive logging industry is encroaching, waiting to pounce like some of the ghost leopards that used to roam these jungles. The modern Kelabits, a people so gentle they rarely talk above a whisper, feel like shouting.

“The Bario Loop is one of the most famous treks in Borneo,” said Ridi Lio, my jungle guide. “Since logging came in, half the Bario Loop has been destroyed.”

The other half is alive and well. So are the Kelabit Highlands. For now.

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If the planet could have a prototype village for escaping the real world, Bario would be it. About 120 Kelabits live along a few roads that lead into the surrounding jungle and highlands. On daily walks I’d pass rice paddies, climb grassy knolls and smell fields of the sweetest pineapple I’ve ever tasted.

Don’t even think about e-mailing. Bario’s lone Internet shop is solar powered and not nearly as dependable as the mercifully mild temperature, which, during my May visit, rarely rose above 80 degrees.

The Kelabit people, however, are what make the highlands glow. About 70 years ago, the Kelabits were headhunters, collecting in caves the heads of any people brave or foolish enough to enter their land. During World War II, this area was a stronghold against Japanese resistance. Harrison parachuted in here and led a successful British commando unit against the Japanese. In the 1960s, the Kelabit fought against the Indonesians who live just across the nearby border in Kalimantan.

Today, you can still see elderly Kelabits sporting the elongated earlobes that stretch to their shoulders, stylish back in the day when they were collecting heads and decorating their own. The Kelabit are now considered among the friendliest people in the world. As I left my comfortable guesthouse and walked along the dirt road, workers plying the rice paddies turned and waved. Giovanni, the young son of my guesthouse’s owner, tagged along and smiled for every picture.

The Kelabit number only about 5,000, the second smallest ethnic group in Malaysia, but they are no longer isolated. Converted by Christian missionaries in the ‘40s, many Kelabits leave to get educated in the cities and work overseas. Some of those beautiful women marry Westerners stationed in Malaysia and live abroad. Most speak some English.

Pung Iu, 54, worked for Saipem oil for 13 years in Europe and retired to his village long house two years ago.

Sporting what looked like a $100 haircut and stylish shorts and polo shirt, Iu, who had lived in Scotland, the Netherlands, Italy and Canada, told me over tea one day: “It is the best place to live for me in the world today. You have freedom. You are not aware of war here.”

A five-minute walk into the surrounding jungle and you aren’t aware of civilization, either. I quickly discovered that the three-day jungle trek I organized would be no stroll along Pebble Beach. I sat down for lunch my first day, and a sign on the guesthouse wall read, “The Bario Loop: Mud. Blood. Wet. Sweat.”

The message took longer to ingest than the wonderful Bario pineapple mixed with rice. Few advertisements were more accurate than that sign. I’ve hiked in jungles in Sumatra, Thailand and twice in the Amazon, and nothing quite matches the hardship and isolation of the Kelabit Highlands.

Lio saved me. The short, muscular 45-year-old with a scruffy Fu Manchu is a Bario native with a deep love for the jungle. He told me the two most important pieces of equipment in a Kelabit jungle trek are a good pair of shoes and leech-proof socks. I brought neither.

Instead, I wore a 10-year-old pair of sneakers and gaiters designed for cross-country skiing. The Kelabit Highlands may be a land of many pleasures, but snow is not one of them. At a stop at his long house at the jungle’s edge, he brought out a pair of thin, brushed-cotton leggings that tied just above my knee.

“This should help with the leeches,” he said, pointing at my legs. “But you should never wear shorts.”

When we entered the jungle, it looked like the front door of a forested haunted house. The brilliant sunshine abruptly stopped as we entered the 50-foot-high canopy. For the next 6 1/2 hours, we walked in the shade. Within five minutes I was hopelessly lost. Time and place were suspended amid a maze of eucalyptus and gum trees, inundated terrain and shallow streams.

We did, however, see life. We watched the majestic hornbill with the cartoon-like head take flight. A monkey we’d been hearing swung through trees. Lio pointed to a tree slashed to near sawdust. The fresh foot-long slash marks left by a honey bear were frighteningly visible.

“This was not done by Winnie the Pooh,” Lio said.

At one point we came across a slight woman and a teenage boy. They were pounding a sago tree into pulp for a dish called ambulat. These were two members of the Penan people, a nomadic jungle tribe so isolated they don’t speak the national language of Malay. Lio gave the son a cigarette and we were on our way.

In the Kelabit Highlands, it rains at dusk. With mud filling every indention of my battered Asics, my sneakers had all the traction of well-waxed skis. I mud-skied down half a dozen small hills.

“If you want to walk in the flats,” Lio told me with a smile, “you go to Holland.”

I had my first leech at 10:03 a.m. They’re harmless, really. They’re small, elongated, reddish worms that latch onto any exposed skin and hold on until they fill with your blood. They managed to crawl up my leech-proof socks until they reached my non-leech-proof upper thighs. A spray from my can of Jungle Juice, which I wielded like a ticked-off assassin, made them ball up and fall like ladybugs.

But leeches leave a small trail of blood. By the time we reached our crude shelter, I looked like I had been attacked by knife-wielding elves.

After washing off the mess in a rainstorm that looked like a reservoir was dumped onto a small garden, I sat down with Lio over a terrific meal of chicken with potatoes and onions and a side of canned mackerel. He grew somber.

Only three years ago, you could make a five-day loop around Bario. Since then, logging companies have destroyed the eastern part of the loop. Tourism is starting to drop.

“Most people love the jungle because of the trees,” he said. “You live in a long house made from trees in the jungle. All the food, the vegetables and meat are from the jungle. The jungle is a giant supermarket.”

He told me stories from his childhood when he killed wild boar and deer with a blow gun. Today it’s different. In Malaysia, logging is a $4.5-billion business, and an estimated 60% of Borneo has been logged. Malaysia’s National Forestry Policy has reduced deforestation by one-third to about 350 square miles a year, yet it still angers naturalists.

“The government gives licenses to timber companies, and the natives don’t like the power of the land under the government,” said Joseph Balan Saling, who served in the Sarawak state parliament for 30 years. “They think it all belongs to them, even the timber.”

The Kelabit Highlands, however, are not dead. In a world crumbling in the wake of war and warming, this remarkable corner of the world still holds enchantment. Two nights later, I was sitting with a Kelabit family in their narrow long house, 200 feet long and occupied by seven related families in their own individual quarters.

We saw the surrounding peaks peer out above the low-lying clouds. We ate water buffalo by candlelight. We heard locals singing Christian hymns at a church next door.

Yes, that Canadian school teacher would still approve.

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travel@latimes.com

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BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX

If you go

THE BEST WAY

From LAX, Singapore, Cathay Pacific, Thai, China Airlines and Malaysia Air all offer connecting service (change of planes) to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysia Air offers connecting service from there to Bario. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,216.

WHERE TO STAY

Bariew Backpacker Lodge & Homestay, 011-60-85-79-103, www.kelabit.net. Perfect location, charming lobby and excellent food. Doubles from $17.30.

WHEN TO GO

October to April is the rainy season, concentrated from November to February, when many services close. May to September is the “dry” season, when it rains primarily once a day. Temperatures range from low 80s to 50s at night.

WHAT TO PACK

Ideal shoes for Kelabit jungle hiking are cheap soccer shoes, anything with cleats. Sizes under 10 can be bought in Borneo markets for only a couple of dollars. Also, pack enough cash; there are no ATMs.

TO LEARN MORE

For more information on visiting Borneo, go to www.sarawaktourism.com.

latimes.com/borneo

Off the beaten track

Go online to see more photos of Borneo’s Kelabit Highlands.