It is Thursday, our fourth day in the rainforest, and slowly our eyes are getting used to the leaves and rustles and twitches of vines and grasses. Could it be a monkey, a lizard, a bird? We were getting blasé with our views of the proboscis and silver leaf monkey families that swung about in the trees, but it was with much trepidation that we signed up for the night walk in the jungle. Talk about a baptism of fear.

We met our guides, ‘Chief instructor’ and ‘Instructor’ were written on the back of their yellow T shirts. They had strong torches, making our head torches seem very feeble indeed. Still, we were ready, trousers tucked into socks, and ‘Good morning’ towels wrapped round our necks. It was pitch black and at the entrance to the trail, ‘Instructor’ stopped us and pointed to the large flat leaves growing about him and which lined the path. ‘Don’t touch those, don’t go near, keep in the middle of the track, pit vipers sit there. Very lazy snake, they can stay there sometimes for a week waiting for prey. They lie in an S shape like a spring with their tail wrapped around the stem, ready to leap and bite a bird or lizard. If you are bitten you can be saved with a serum within thirty minutes, but the hospital needs to know what type of snake it is so they can use the correct serum. OK, let’s go.’

And we did. We were immediately engulfed with a swarm of buzzing insects attracted to our head torches. We opted to carry them instead. John wafted his own new jasmine perfumed insect repellent around – it smelt very strong and sickly. I hoped that it wouldn’t attract any hornets.

We climbed over fallen trees, insect-eaten branches, crossed a river on wobbly, slippery rocks, hanging on to a guiding rope. Around us huge trees grew up harbouring further creatures. On the ground we encountered a ghost crab, scorpions and worst of all a hammerhead worm with its long black slimy body. A huntsman spider poised on a branch and a large tarantula crouched in the cosy base of a tree, totally camouflaged amongst the leaf litter. I particularly liked the blue-eyed angle-headed lizard. We saw a few of these and they didn’t seem to mind their tails being twitched.

The stick insects were diverse. One in particular looked extremely spooky, as though he was from a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

John got snagged on a spike from the rotan. Horrible things, but the rotan’s diversity is amazing for survival in the forest. ‘Chief Instructor’ demonstrated how two successive slashes on a branch, about half a meter apart, can trap the water between the severed cuts. You must do this quickly because if you don’t, the tree will suck up the sap like a straw and there will be no water to stave off your thirst.

‘Chief Inspector’ then gallantly picked up a giant ant and told us the mandibles can be used as sutures for an open wound in the jungle. ‘First, let the ant bite the wound, then twist off the body leaving the head, and you then have a perfect stitch to pull the open wound together.’

It all sounded so simple. I couldn’t help wondering how I might position these giant ants and get them to bite the correct place without biting me first. A lot to think about. The night was black; the humidity was fierce and the noises of the forest sounded quite loud and menacing. John and I were scanning the branches as well as the track. It was hot and humid; sweat was dripping down our faces and necks. A horrid wasp came near and settled on the towel around my neck. I hurried away, and fortunately it flew off. ‘Instructor’ informed me he had been bitten on the neck during his last trip. It was very painful. Obviously, the jasmine repellent was working well for John.

So many snakes lurk in the forest, but they don’t hang about – python, cobra and all the long tree snakes. They do come near the tree houses apparently but so far, we haven’t seen anything, just one sloughed skin.

The night walk was a revelation and gave us a suitable frisson of fear and we were delighted to have seen the insects and small creatures that we did. The next morning, we walked down toward the beach and saw our two instructors. ‘Chief instructor’ called us over and took us to a plant with big wide leaves, just at the side of the road. There, poised and ready for action was a pit viper! Oh my, it was so bright and beautiful.

I am glad we saw it, and in the morning, and not in the blackness of night!

Day six in the Permai Rainforest

I sit here gazing at the panorama view from the treehouse, it is like staring at wallpaper in a hundred shades of green. We are both tired.

We trekked through the forest to the waterfall yesterday, and it was quite challenging although we have done it twice before in previous years, but each time we struggle with the heat and humidity as we scramble ever upwards through the trees, looking down to the level of the ants. We didn’t see any of the insects we saw the other night by torch light. In fact, we saw very little wildlife, but we had to stay alert for twisted vines and fallen-down insect-infested tree trunks that we had to climb over or duck under.

John had a close encounter with the hereafter as he did trip and fall on a stake. Fortunately, he wasn’t impaled but managed to roll off the spike.  He did lie for a few seconds inert amongst the leaves.  It was quite scary and I was relieved to see him move. On examination, he was lucky to only had a graze and a bruise.

There was no need to bang on the flying buttress roots of the massive trees that ‘Chief Instructor’ had told us to do in an emergency – like jungle drums. Imagine, morse code amongst the chorus of cicadas that never cease their racket. No one would hear my cry for help with that din going on.

Trudging on, I thought of the Biblical King Saul, opting to fall on his sword after being mortally wounded by the Philistine archers. His armour bearer saw his King die, so he fell on his sword too. And apparently the only way to kill a vampire is with a stake through his heart, later popularised by Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. John’s stake was duly photographed.

The things I think about as I dodge vines and creepers and balance on rope bridges and avoid nasty rotan thorns (which are always at arm level) when I need to clutch a sapling for support.

We arrived at the waterfall after an hour, soaked in sweat. It was blissful sitting on a rock by the gushing water nibbling longans, rambutans and bananas. It was deserted and we were content to sit and watch the sunlight on the rocks and to be part of it all for a while.

The path out of the waterfall was vertical, but with a rope left by rangers, we were able to scramble up the hillside to the top. We felt quite exultant. The path back down was quite steep in places, and I could feel my knee begin to twinge. The last time we were in Permai, John and I did ‘The blue pool walk’, a much harder challenge involving huge mountainous rock faces that need to be assailed with ropes and often the sides of the path disappeared into deep drops where you could disappear. The blue pool itself was beautiful, but when I got back my knee had blown up with fluid and I needed an hour with a chiropractor in Kuching with her clever hands and expensive machines to get me well again. So – with that memory quite fresh in my mind I took it slowly on the descent.

When we did get back to the beach and civilization, having seen no insects or hammerhead worms we were suddenly treated to the family of silver leaf monkeys cavorting on the sand having a day out. It was magical.

We drank fresh coconuts before returning to our treehouse. Imagine our surprise when we were treated to a visitor on the steps, a paradise tree snake idly basking in the sunshine. As we approached it wriggled into a multiple group of S’s and went over the side. They can glide from tree to tree it seems.

It has been so wonderful being here. Neither of us want to leave. It is enough to just be immersed in this magical place and eat simple food, walk in the jungle or along the beach and look out at Turtle Island.

How long it can retain this tranquillity, who knows? The money men are building hotels and already to the left of Permai is a new resort spoiling the night sky with their artificial lights.

I hope this piece of paradise gets to survive a little longer, and the proboscis monkeys can continue to roam in the tree canopies, their youngsters learning to live alongside the snakes and lizards and birds and butterflies.

But our time is up. We are returning to Kuching for a different adventure. We will be living in an apartment on the bank of the wide brown Sarawak River and will melt into the delights of urban living.  As we walk under the shade of the flame trees by the river and smell the spices of India Street, we won’t forget the sights of Permai – the huge fiscus trees or Asian banyans, the sago ferns and bushes with purple flowers and yellow and black butterflies and the noise of the ceiling fan in the tree house, and the wash of the waves down on the beach and the sight of the mighty mountain, Santubong, soaring above us all in the morning sunlight.