Bako National Park is a wonderful location less than an hour outside of Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo. The park includes rustic cabins (for overnight stays) and a visitors center that serves food. To reach the park you must take a 20 minute boat ride.

When the boat dropped us off here in the morning they said they would pick us up on the beach. I couldn’t really understand why, but this photo shows the tide has made the path to the stairs impassable, which explains why (I should have figured that out but my brain doesn’t always work as well as it should).

I only spent a day in the park. There are several intersecting trails. The “small” loop trail includes the Lintang trail and intersects with Pandan Kecil path, Pandan Basar path and more. I hiked through several trails and completely exhausted myself, actually. It was a wonderful hike.

There are probably enough trails to keep you busy for 2 days of hiking though I think you can get a good feel for the different settings in 1 day.

Looking back at Bako National Park from the boat as I leave (the visitor’s center is just off to the left).

And the end of an enjoyable and exhausting day I approached the visitor’s center with only one disappointment: I had seen no proboscis monkeys. Just before I reached the visitors center that changed. I saw two and first and then a whole group of them.

Proboscis Monkey

And they were leaping over the trail I was on. It was quite impressive – I caught one in the video:

This post include photos from the near the visitor’s center. I’ll post later with photos from Lintang trail and the paths to the beaches.

This the beach in front of the visitor’s center that the boats use at low tide.

Wild boar on the beach

For information see the park web site. The Treking Sarawak page on Bako is also useful.

Related: Pine Hill Trail, Fraser’s Hill – Bako National Park, Sarawak: The Trails – Bishop Trail, Fraser’s Hill – Helitrope Ridge Trail, North Cascades National Park, USA

Cabin at Bako National Park