Back into the Borneo virgin rain forest/ jungle. New trails. New off-road loop

KTMphil

KTMphil

Senior member
Joined
Jan 11, 2011
Location
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Bikes
2007 KTM 990 Adventure Suzuki DRZ 400
This had been planned for a while. The idea was to put together a 7 day, wild, off-road loop, involving long boat canoes in the Mulu Rain Forest. This off-road route hadn't been done before, so we were kinda winging it a little. Shooting from the hip a little in rainy season for sure.


This "planned" route, would involve logging trails, muddy trails, rocky trails, single track trails & a bit of tarmac here and there on the way back to civilization.

December, January & February, tend to be the rainiest months on the north coast of Borneo, so we needed to treat this new route with some respect.


Bikes were all prep'd, saddlebags intelligently mounted, they just need dry bags in each, with all your gear and you're ready to go. You want small bikes for this kind of riding, ideally low, light, to deal with the wet, muddy sections.



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Saddle bags always make things easy. You can throw your leg over the bike and the weight down low. These ones have been modified and work really well


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In and out of of border crossings and time to hit the big trails



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The absence of anything but rain forest makes this magical riding



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They'd been some major flooding in Borneo in December 2014, a lot of bridges had been washed away, we were pretty nervous that this might spoil are planned route





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So far so good



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Logging roads deal pretty well with the rain, its a stone base that gets ground by the huge logging trucks into a powder



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The trail to Long Sheriden was looking good, until we got here, this wasnt good, we'd have to turn back and find another way through. This wasn't good news, we didnt have much of a cushion of daylight time, you wouldnt want to be riding around out here in the dark





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Fuel can be found in most logging camps and most of the local villages which normally are on a river



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We'd had a bunch of rain, this guy had capsized his canoe in the fast flowing river and dunked his outboard. Air hose to try and dry it out and it should run again.




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what bikes are they and are they aftermarket big capacity tanks ??
the saddle bags look good
 
A local off hunting. We managed to get some local knowledge from him about which bridges had vanished


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Looking a bit rainy ahead, this was a bit of a worry too




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They dont call this the rain forest for nothing at 4 degrees north of the equator



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Starting top get wet and slippy again, pace becomes slow and tiring


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We finally get to the Sheriden River and its still real boggy from the previous floods, almost unridable


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With the rain, the river level has risen significantly, there's no way we can ride across this with the depth and the speed of the current



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Rain was just starting too, very common here in the late afternoons



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Lots of shouting to the other side did nothing. So the only option was to wade across and try get a canoe for the bikes


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This boatman then came in a very small canoe, looks like it will be one by one



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Pouring with rain now, we manage to get all of our gear and us across in the canoe


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About 6 of the locals then rallied together to figure out how to get the bikes over


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Quite a wide river with the rain


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One by one, with a stick through the wheels to lift, they got them in the canoes


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They'd done this with scooters before many times for sure


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Then walk them across



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Big smiles at the other side



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Stick through the wheels and another one comes across



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I wonder how many times he's seen this?




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Last edited:
I hope you paid them handsomely for all the hard work.
 
Wet and soggy we make the Long Sheriden GH, which is run by some really nice people, a fantastic, unusual, stop for the night

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You can even get topped up with fuel there


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The Long Sheriden airport runway is 20 meters from the houses


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Now is time for the the most technical riding day. The ride into the Mulu Rain Forest & hopefully we can get a boat to the Luxurious, Royal Mulu Resort
It starts off pretty easy on a hard packed road, good to warm up on



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The KLX is running well so far



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More locals are telling us of bridges gone, especially on the trail to Long Bedian. This is the way we are headed and could be a major problem



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This guy says the same thing



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& these guys



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Down towards the river and no bridge in sight, is this the end of the road?



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There's a bridge still there with the railings hanging off, we're in luck so far



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Lots of logging trucks in a queue on the road, this is very unusual


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The bridge is gone, thats why they're there, this is very bad news, we dont have much spare time built in




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Looking very hard but great Phil!! Keep the spirit of adventure up..ride on :RO
 
This was very very bad. We had about 4 hours of daylight left, 3 days for the bridge would be fixed and we had boats waiting for us. We asked the digger driver if he could lift the bikes over one-by-one with the digger. He called his boss on the radio and the answer was no.



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Jesse and Greg walked down to the digger and could see a rope bridge across the river inside the logging HQ. At first the answer was no, then Greg did some serious sweet talking and the boss said we could try bringing the bikes across, all was not lost (we hoped).



The suspension bridge on the far side had steps to exit, this hadnt been used for bikes before, could be interesting


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It wasnt so bad, there was a rhythmic swing but not too bad


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Getting the bikes up the far side was a bitch



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That headache over with, there would still a good chance we could make our destination before dark, we'd have to click our heals



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All looking good, a few bike drama's just to make things more complicated and we make the cliff-like hill down to Long Iman



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Its the nastiest hill i've ever been down, you can see the locals giving us a hand in the back ground


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Im down and im knackered


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Now to scramble around and find a boat that can take us to the Royal Mulu Resort. It's getting dark, with the fast flowing river they might not want to head down the river.



We manage to persuade a boat driver to take us, looks like we'll have a nice, soft bead for the night



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Last bunch of photo's are by Jesse






Never understood why we have to always do 80km/h down the river, it feels a "little" uneasy


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Covered in mud, smelly, sweaty, we make a mess of the beautiful, polished, wooden floors in the Royal Mulu Resort. That first beer at dusk was worth a million dollars



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... more to come
 
After a couple of days of pretty intense off-road riding, this place is like heaven. You can ONLY get there by airplane or boat, they have done everything they can to keep the Mulu rain forest eco. system in tact



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Rooms are sublime, the softest beds you can find, i could sleep for 48 hours solid there after a couple of days in the jungle



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Some great caving options ar Mulu, we were all too knackered and wanted a day of rest to heal instead.



A big boat for a big trip down the Tutoh River was needed, some previous contacts responded and said they could get a boat ready - looks like this new route is going to work after all



A 50ft / 15 meter, steel canoe showed up and we got the bikes loaded



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Being long and thin, it doesnt maneuver to well, these guys have to know what they're doing




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Time to load up


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Two outboard engines and 400 liters of petrol and we head off down the Tutoh River, petrol driven bilge pump keeping us afloat below



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A few hours on this beautiful river is pretty cool. You've got a bit of everything - rapids, rocks, wildlife, jungle, its all there


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Even the driver's are loving it, note the 55 gallon drum full of petrol



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Now time to try the new trail to Marudi, a first for us



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Just need to not drop them in the water



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With the boat bouncing at speed, you want to get the bikes as far aft in the boat as possible



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We'd had a lot of locals saying that the trail to Marudi wasnt in good shape, which had us a little concerned. It had dried out considerably and was better than expected



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There were lots of new trails that wernt on any maps


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With the dirt road better than expected, we made Marudi by 3pm


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A great little, old trading town, Marudi, right on the Baram River. This town had been the administrative HQ all the way back to when the "White Rajahs" (The Brooke's Family) .



From 1841 to 1946. The first ruler was Englishman James Brooke. As a reward for helping the Sultanate of Brunei fight piracy and insurgency among the indigenous peoples, he was granted the landmass of Sarawak in 1841 and received independent kingdom status.


White Rajahs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Want some of the best noodles you'll find anywhere? Go to this place on the town square in Marudi, we all agreed


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Still a bustling trading town today, with its network of deep rivers making for easy distribution of cargo


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Ferry network makes it simple to get back to the villages, sloppy wet trails arnt any issue for the locals



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Ferries have a shallow draft and are steel, long and thin


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Long Lama seemed to be a popular destination


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Plenty of daylight left, with Miri being on the South China Sea, go check out the waterfront area

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Non-tourist beaches in Asia are always deserted. They don't like the sun, the class structure of keeping your skin white is of high importance and most can swim, so no-ones there

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Boat Club does an excellent lunch, highly recommended


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Below is a packing list if you plan to head int the Borneo rain forest on a bike with saddlebags:

1. 2 x 40 liter roll top dry bags, one for each saddle bag. they can be pulled out and taken to the hotel every night
2. Small shampoo container for the long house homestays
3. Small towel
4. Rain jacket
5. Hiking shoes if you plan to do caves
6. Bivi sack for sleeping in case of a bike problem or blocked road
7. Neck scalf to stop the sun
8. Wrist covers to stop sunburn
9. Waterproof everything important in ziplock bags. When it rains it rains
10. British style plug adapter
11. Headlight - Many places only generators
12. Flip flops
13. Toilet roll/ wet wipes
14. Immodium/ pain killers
15. Quick dry clothes, jeans not advisable
16. Hydration powder
17. Body armor
 
Just a few quick questions on the saddle bags, were they a local manufacture, did they stay on alright, did they do the job, don't look water or dust proof but with dry bags look OK, how about the tank bag style, cost and availability ??
 
Harrythefinn said:
Just a few quick questions on the saddle bags, were they a local manufacture, did they stay on alright, did they do the job, don't look water or dust proof but with dry bags look OK, how about the tank bag style, cost and availability ??
Click to expand...


Harry...they were a good design are were surprisingly waterproof!



The canvas luggage systems- these are standard items bought in- I do all the modifications here- I design/manufacture the rear rack, reposition the rear lighting and cut and shape the Teflon saddlebag supports, then I measure up and mark out where all the extra support straps, loops and reinforced access holes go.

So unless I can find an exact bike to plan/copy here I wont be able to do the tailored fit. These bikes you mention are not ordinarily available here, I have not seen any.

Anyway im sure you can find a shop to do this all in Thailand?



The cost of the system is-

Saddle bags (pair) US$ 180

Tank Bag $100

Rear top bag $120
 
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