Transport yourself back to the forest you stepped out of when you saw the longhouse. You are greeted by Valentine’s wife who is preparing the lunch and dinner for the day and are shown your room, a spacious and basic set up with a bed, a fan and enough room for your luggage. Right away Valentine takes you to the river that runs behind the house and you board a bamboo raft. One of his colleagues is standing on the back and pushes off, straight into the stream that is covered by a canopy of trees and bamboo. As you drift down you listen to the sounds of the jungle and watch the interplay of shadow and light in the canopy. The cool water splashes on your feet while you see butterflies, birds and squirrels play around. You see the guides jump into the jungle regularly and coming back with fresh herbs and vegetables that they have just cut with their long machetes.

After almost 2 hours in which you can also try steering and pushing the boat forward with a long bamboo stick you stop on a small pebble beach. While you stretch your legs the staff heats and simmers stews, steamed vegetables and rice inside bamboo and pork and chicken over a bamboo fire. Lunch is delicious as you explore the unknown interplay between delicate jungle spices and fresh meat and vegetables that is typical of Bidayuh food. Then it’s off again for an hour or so before you drive back to the longhouse where you sit on the veranda with a cool beer and spicy river snails that you yourself collected during lunch. As evening falls dinner is brought out, another mix of Malay and Bidayuh food that excites your palate. Stories are shared and the stars come out in full while you spend the evening on the veranda.

The next day you gear up with long but light trousers, a long shirt and a few litres of water. It is hot, sunny and humid when you set off through the village and the fields behind it. Your goal is to go partly up a mountain and then loop back, all through the jungle.

After half an hour your clothing is soaked with sweat and you are glad you’ve brought that much water with you. The fields outside the village slowly change from fruit crops to rubber trees and the nature surrounding them grows more wild. You get off the path and go through the fields, having a small break at a stream where you are glad for the long sleeves and trousers as there’s plenty of mosquitos. Then you go up, on a small path, surrounded by trees and undergrowth that’s so heavy that the two guides have to use their machetes to cut a path. You sweat even more and start to wonder how the local population managed to get through these parts in olden times, let alone the old “explorers” from the west that went into the tropical jungles with long baggage trains.

Your guides point out small critters, wild ginger, wild fruits and different kinds of other plants and their uses. And they state that your machete is your MasterCard in the jungle as it really is all you need, helping you to slice a way through the brush or to cut off anything you’d need to eat or to make a shelter. After an hour of going uphill you reach a small hut with a gorgeous view and you gladly sit down for lunch. The humidity doesn’t let down as you continue into the forest, now looping down towards a small stream and back towards the village.

After more than half a day of jungle walking you’re tired but happy and ready to go for a swim in the stream to cool off. But more importantly, you do feel that these two days have lifted a veil and have given you a peek into a different world, filled with different sounds, flora, fauna and delicious food.