From sunrise hikes to salt springs, Bario, Sarawak, is a restorative highland destination

The morning flight from Miri to Bario feels like crossing into another era.

Our quaint Twin Otter lifts off above Sarawak’s coastal plains, its propellers humming a steady rhythm as rainforest canopies stretch endlessly below. For 45 minutes, there’s nothing but rolling green ridges and rivers that carve silver lines through the landscape. 

Then, as the mist parts, a narrow airstrip appears — framed by mountains and an almost unbelievable calm.

Bario sits roughly 1,000m above sea level in the Kelabit Highlands, one of the most remote and culturally rich regions in Malaysia. Home to the Kelabit people, it’s a place where rice fields ripple across slopes, salt springs sustain entire communities, and stories are passed from generation to generation.

The town itself is modest, consisting of clusters of wooden houses, a small school, and a single dirt road that connects the surrounding villages. Yet, Bario’s remoteness is precisely what has allowed it to preserve its sense of continuity and identity. For visitors, the journey here is about encounter.

The taste of tradition

My first afternoon coincides with Pesta Nukenen, a community-run festival that has celebrated Kelabit food, craft, and culture since 2006. The name translates roughly to “festival of food”, but it’s more than that — it’s a declaration of self-sufficiency and pride.

At long tables lined with woven mats, women stir steaming pots of wild vegetables, mountain rice, and bamboo-cooked meat. Elders sit nearby, sharing stories over mugs of locally brewed rice wine.

Unlike the commercial festivals found in city parks, Pesta Nukenen exists for the people who live here. It honours the land as much as it entertains its guests. Artisans demonstrate weaving, musicians play traditional sape (a lute) tunes, and the scent of woodsmoke hangs in the air long after dusk.

Walking with the land

The next morning, a trek to Pa Ramapuh waterfall begins with a narrow trail once used by hunters to track wild boars. The two-hour hike (or only slightly longer than an hour if trekking comes easily for you) threads through forest so thick it swallows your footsteps.

Every few minutes, the path narrows, forcing us to step over roots and rocks slick from rain.

Our local guide pauses to point out that the route we’re taking was once used by wild boar hunters — which explains the narrow path, crowded with wild ferns and dense foliage. When we finally reach the waterfall, it announces itself before it’s seen — a steady rush that grows into a roar and the sight of a cold, crystalline pool.

That evening, we visit the Ulung Palang Longhouse, where a dozen families share the same roof, divided into separate “rooms”. The community gathers for an evening of dance and song, laughter filling the open hall.

Visitors are invited to join in, learning the gentle footwork of Kelabit dances — slow, circular movements that seem to mirror the rhythm of the land.

The next day brings another kind of revelation at Bario Asal Longhouse, the oldest in the valley, with a staggering 22 doors and made wholly of wood. I meet a woman who calls herself Auntie Bulan, a natural storyteller with a disarming grin.

As she walks us through her home, she recounts how chief Tama Bulan (who’s also her father) encouraged the adoption of Christianity in the mid-20th century, a turning point that reshaped education and community life here.

The Kelabit’s embrace of Christianity, introduced by missionaries in the 1930s, now sits comfortably alongside their traditional practices. Hymns mix with stories of ancestral hunters; wooden crosses stand beside handwoven mats.

Auntie Bulan also shares how Kelabit people change their names at major life milestones — marriage, parenthood, and becoming a grandparent. “Your name grows with you,” she says, her eyes glinting. “It keeps track of who you’ve become.”

As the day comes to a close, we stop by the old plane wreckage near the airstrip — a remnant of a September 1964 crash involving a Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer. It’s apparent that time has softened it; vines coil through the frame, and the metal glints dully under moss.

What was once tragedy now rests quietly against the landscape, a testament to endurance more than loss.

Salt, rice, and the science of self-sufficiency

In Bario, the simplest ingredients carry generations of knowledge. At a salt spring, villagers demonstrate how traditional mountain salt is made — brine drawn from underground and boiled for hours over wood fires (notoriously forcing the villagers to sacrifice sleep as they keep a watchful eye over the fire overnight).

The damp salt is then packed into hollow bamboo segments and placed back into the fire to dry, leaving behind prized Bario salt. In fact, this salt once served as a form of currency in trade with lowland communities, valued for its purity and trace minerals.

Nearby is a pineapple farm, growing the sweetest pineapples I’ve ever tasted. Bario pineapples are smaller than their supermarket cousins but startlingly sweet, low in acid, and fragrant almost to the point of perfume.

It’s only been three days here so far, but I’ve had this famous Bario pineapple served multiple ways: straight-up as cut fruit, stir-fried to pair with savoury dishes, and even deep-fried in batter. No matter how I enjoyed it here, I thoroughly enjoyed my fill.

And now, I even had a chance to enjoy the pineapple as a dried fruit — also probably the easiest way to buy some home, which is what I did.

Lastly, there’s the rice — Bario rice, cultivated by hand in the valley’s terraced fields. The grains are short, pearly, and aromatic, grown without the use of pesticides. Each planting and harvest season becomes a communal act, carried out by families who have done so for generations.

In a world where farming often feels industrial and distant, Bario’s fields are reminders that cultivation can still be intimate.

Where the highlands awake

Just before hopping on a flight back to Miri, we awoke at 3.30am and set out to climb Prayer Mountain, a steep 45-degree ascent guided by ropes and morning chill. The trail is silent except for our breathing and the occasional crow of a rooster from the valley below.

Halfway up, mist rolls across the slope, erasing everything beyond arm’s reach.

When the first light breaks, a massive cross comes into view at the summit — a symbol of the faith revival that swept through Bario in the 1970s. From here, the entire valley stretches below, a patchwork of fields and forest, glowing under the soft light of dawn.

It’s a visual that sits somewhere between spiritual and geological awe, encouraging me to take my time and soak in the morning rays and the sheer beauty of the land.

Reflections from the valley

Bario isn’t a destination that dazzles. It teaches patience, generosity, and an appreciation for connection over convenience. With the only entryway to Bario being a 45-minute flight, as we did, or a gruelling, bumpy 12-hour drive via a single dirt road, it’s a locale that encourages humility and gratitude.

While many may think the Kelabit Highlands is a place frozen in time, it’s quite the opposite. Alive with the deliberate pace of people who understand their place within it, it’s a community that has evolved without surrendering its soul.

As the plane takes me back to Miri, the valley recedes beneath a veil of cloud. I think of Auntie Bulan’s words: “Your name grows with you.” In that sense, so does Bario — with its preserved Kelabit culture that still lives and breathes to this day, yet quietly evolving to last generations.