The park headquarters clearing is itself the best wildlife spot. Bearded pigs root around the buildings, long-tailed macaques patrol the roofs — keep food and bags secured, they are practised thieves — and silvered langurs feed in the trees at the edge.

The Telok Paku and Telok Delima trails are the proboscis monkey walks. These extraordinary animals, with pendulous noses and pot bellies, are endemic to Borneo and gather in the trees near the shore in the late afternoon. Walk out around four o'clock and wait.

The mangroves at low tide behind the headquarters hold mudskippers, fiddler crabs and the proboscis monkeys' feeding grounds, and the boardwalk through them is short and productive.

The kerangas heath forest on the plateau above is a completely different habitat — stunted trees on white sand with pitcher plants of several species, including the enormous Nepenthes rafflesiana.

The night walk around the headquarters produces flying lemurs gliding between trunks, tarantulas, frogs and stick insects, and is included at most stays.

The drier months from March to October give better boat conditions; the sea can be rough enough to cancel crossings in the northeast monsoon.

Practicalities

Bako is around 45 minutes by road from Kuching to the jetty at Bako Bazaar, then a 20-minute boat ride — and the boat is tide-dependent, sometimes requiring a wade ashore.

Stay overnight if you can. The park's basic chalets and hostel put you there for dusk, dawn and the night walk, which is when everything happens. Book accommodation in advance through the Sarawak parks system, as capacity is small.