Bako National Park (3D2N) 🇲🇾

In early January, my friends and I planned to stay over at Bako National Park (Kuching, Malaysia) and naturally research was done to see how lodging and food were like.

After booking a two nights’ stay, I started to regret a little and wonder if we could have better spent that extra day somewhere else in Kuching. Reviews weren’t all that great – accommodation was run down, food wasn’t readily available, etc – oh, the horrors (but all turned out well eventually despite a couple of hiccups). We had a whole day to conquer a longer trail in Bako and didn’t have to stress about rushing to complete shorter trails and catching a boat back to mainland.

Accommodation at Bako National Park can be booked here. We paid RM150/night for a 3-bed air-conditioned room with an attached bathroom.

Food:
Recommended to buy your own supply of snacks and water before heading to Bako. They do sell food and water (prices are reasonable) but it’s cheaper stocking up in town.

Accommodation:
Bring your own toiletries. They do provide towels so that was a nice surprise. Beware the mosquitoes!!

Grabbed a Grab to the Open Air Market where public transport is departs every hour from 7am – 6pm.

Saw the bus at 12.05pm, boarded it, and it left near 1.00pm. Bus journey takes about an hour.

So apparently if you search online, there are sites that say you can pay RM5 for a minivan and it heads to Bako Village straight, instead of RM3.50 for public transport. Well, we walked past these vans and even though a man asked where we were heading to, he directed us to take the bus. So… no van options for us though it would’ve been nice to save some time.

Arrived at Bako Village where you sort out your entrance fees + boat rides and hang around till there are enough people to make a trip.

Wading our way through shallow waters. That’s Mount Santubong in the background.

Welcome to Bako National Park!

SO. We went during the start of the monsoon season and it had been pouring so imagine our horror when we saw this!!! No biggie, just ready to rough it out in the dark.

Checked into our lodge and decided on a short trail since there wasn’t anything much to do anyway. Plus the electricity was out.

The attached bathroom.

The trail we intended to take was flooded so we detoured and headed up another path. We were ambushed by the rain after that though!

Dinner at the canteen. Food was good and decently priced!

A wild boar in the distance.

Someone didn’t get the memo.

Kaboo session after the night walk with a new Singapore friend.

They have daily night walks for RM10/pax for about an hour which is good educational entertainment if you have time to while away. Us four girls had an ‘extended’ tour after that and were so lucky to spot a slow loris!

Day 2 – Ready for more trekking!

The pals prepping sandwiches for our day-long hike.

The room’s pretty spacious.

Our food stash for three days.

Apples for breakfast.

Prepared for passing showers… which lasted less than five minutes.

& so it begins.

First of many marks.

Map.

The first of many (uneven) terrains.

Gorgeous.

A good mix of sand, mud, soil to trek on.

We were following one of the routes and somehow ended up trekking towards Tanjung Tajor Waterfall.

This was the only waterfall we saw which meant this was Tanjung Tajor Waterfall?!

At this point in time we had no idea where we were, how long more before we reached the end of the trail and more importantly, was this the waterfall?! Apparently, it seemed like it was because we advanced further till the end of the trail and reached a beach.

We were disappointed by the waterfall though – it wasn’t massive or impressive. We expected to see more after trekking for more than two hours!!

We had to cross the waterfall and threw our shoes across so we wouldn’t wet them. And my friend accidentally threw hers down the gushing waters…

A little abseiling required to reach the end.

We finally arrived after three hours of trekking!!! We were exhausted and starving.

Lunch time!!!

Of salmon tuna and nutella sandwiches.

Yay.

We spared her our socks to give her sole some support – the terrain we were trekking through had some tough areas filled with tree roots and rocks. No sign of her shoe anywhere though. We were hoping the waters would lead to the beach and we could find it.

Tired sweaty faces.

Reached our cabin six hours later and we were all so exhausted. We checked out the next day and took the ferry back to mainland at 11.00am.

On the boat back to mainland!

Tried to book a Grab but the jetty was so out of the way that no cars were detected around the area. Had to rely on private taxis and managed to bargain down the price a little bit to head to our next destination (Damai Beach) which was quite a distance away.

Staying at Bako National Park was a great experience. Basic necessities are provided for (even WiFi in the canteen but don’t expect much from it) and it’s a good time to be surrounded by nature and disconnect. If you’re heading to Bako, I’d recommend you to spend the night. As long as you don’t have high expectations, you’ll enjoy yourself. What made it especially memorable for us was spotting wildlife – wild boars, three different species of monkeys, flying lemur and a slow loris!

More details up on the next post of the rest of our adventures in Kuching. In the meanwhile, check out my hand-tapping tattoo experience here (it hurt like a bitch).

Till then!