Today we went on our full day tour to Temburong, a section on Brunei separated from the rest of Brunei by a small part of Malaysia. To get there we took a speed boat from Bandar Seri Begawan to Bangar in Temburong and then a car to the river and then a longboat up the river to the Ulu Terembong National Park. After the car trip we had a morning tea at the tour company's lodge which was curry puffs, curry spring rolls and banana fritters. We then got in the long boat which was a bit unstable so we were told not to move from side to side. Luckily the boat was so narrow we couldn't move too much anyway so we didn't have any problems.
We arrived at the national park and began our hike from the river to the canopy walk. The hike involved climbing 1057 steps which took about an hour or so in hot and humid conditions. Sweat was pouring off us after about a minute so we were happy we had brought plenty of water with us. There were three huts along the way to rest at, the first one had a sleeping bat hanging from the roof but other than that all we saw were giant ants, some butterflies and a small snake on the soon to be opened suspension bridge. After trudging up the stairs we finally made it to the canopy walk which required us to climb 21 flights of stairs to get to the first walkway...brilliant! The canopy walk structure as not all that strong so only one person at a time could be on any one flight of stairs and no more than 2 people on the platforms between flights of stairs. We decided one person on anything was enough. When one person was walking on the walkway the entire structure shook from side to side which made it extra fun for the person climbing the stairs at that time.
At the end of the first walkway there were another 7 flights of stairs to the next walkway which was even wobblier than the first and then after that walkway there was another 4 flights of stairs to the final platform which were even wobblier than the other two. Not ideal when 35 metres above the ground. We made it safely to the end and then had to climb down 24 flights of stairs to get to the bottom. After safely making it back down to the ground we walked back to where our guide was waiting where we had a rest before walking back the way we came. By the time we reached the boat we were exhausted and looking forward to the cool breeze from the river as we rode back in the boat. We stopped at a small creek a few minutes down river and this was the short walk to the waterfall we had not been told about and apparently it was a good idea to have thongs or sandals as the walk was down the middle of the creek and we were going to get our feet wet. Unfortunately the concierge had recommended we wear good shoes for walking so both of us had our runners and ankle socks on which worked great in the jungle but not so well in the creek. Despite trying as hard as we could to keep our feet dry we inevitably came to a place where we had no choice but to wade into the creek and our shoes and socks were saturated. The creek got to knee deep in parks so any hope we had of saving our shoes were dashed pretty quickly. The waterfall was ok but probably not worth ruining our shoes for. The pool at the bottom of the waterfall had fish in it that ate the dead skin off your feet which our guide demonstrated.
We then walked back to the longboat and returned back to the lodge we had morning tea at, this time we had lunch. We had requested no seafood so we got....sweet and sour fish so we probably needed to be more specific. There was some chicken and eggs and beef curry and coleslaw and watermelon and steamed vegetables....we had to ask them to stop bring food out. We were hot and exhausted and weren't overly keen on eating much at all much less 10 courses. After lunch we got back into the car and went back to the marina to catch the speedboat back to Bandar Seri Begawan. We got back to the hotel at about 4.30pm and got changed and went straight to the pool to cool off. We then rested in our room then had dinner at the hotel again as we couldn't be bothered going out anywhere as we'd done enough walking for one day.