'The things I didn't expect to happen when I took my family into the jungle for a week.'

I never want to sleep in a fancy hotel ever again, I thought. 

Not that I do, often. But it's happened, usually for work, that I get to stay in one of those beautiful places with a signature scent and three choices of pillows, and a stand-alone bathtub. 

This wasn't like that. 

We were sleeping on stilts. Under an impenetrable mosquito net on a soft mattress on a wooden platform in the centre of a pyramid-shaped hut in the middle of the jungle. The signature scent was a heady mix of sweet blooms and fallen leaves with a tangy edge of incense insect repellent. The soundtrack was the buzz of cicadas and the chatter of monkeys and the occasional bird chirrup. I lay next to my daughter under our nets, breathing, listening. I have never felt more relaxed, never slept better. 

We spent two nights out at the jungle eco camp on our family trip to Borneo with Intrepid. Accessible only by boat, in the daytime we travelled up and down the river monkey-spotting, planted trees in the village's reforestation project, got to know the local people and the traditions and priorities of their kampung (village). At night we explored the jungle in groups by torchlight, ate fresh food in the camp kitchen, drank sweet tea and played games and spied the curious and strange-looking civet cats sneaking in and out of the kitchen. 

This was not the holiday I was expecting. It was so much more. 

After two nights in the jungle our group moved on to our next accommodation, in the seaside city of Sandakan. At a fancy hotel. With a pool, a bar, buffet breakfast and room service. 

Oh, that's right, I thought. It's not so bad, staying in different versions of paradise. 

Here are a few more things that surprised me about a truly exceptional holiday. 

Image: Supplied.

BORNEO, for crying out loud. 

What's a Borneo? Well, it's one of the world's biggest islands and it's divided between Malaysia, Indonesia and a small part carved out as the sultanate of Brunei. Of course, this massive, diverse area is home to lots of different groups of people with distinct customs and dialects, but the common language in northern Borneo – we were travelling around the accessible Sabah region – is Bahasa Malaysian. And English. 

The two major cities in Sabah are Kotu Kinabalu (known universally as KK) and Sandakan. We loved KK, exploring its beaches and islands, shops and night markets. It feels alive and thriving and safe, and we ate beautiful food, visited its extraordinary floating mosque (Sabah is majority Muslim) and swam in the bath-like warm water. Sandakan has a brutal World War 2 history for Australians, being, as it was, the site of a major prison camp run by the Japanese and the starting point for the death marches that very, very few of the thousands of inmates survived. It's a tropical port that marks this solemn history beautifully at a memorial on the site of the camp, and was also the base for us visiting an orangutan sanctuary and the impossibly picturesque Turtle Islands. 

In every way, Borneo was more interesting, more beautiful, more welcoming, more delicious than we expected. And I know for an unassailable fact that if I had organised this trip myself, and we hadn't been being shown around it by Intrepid's excellent local guides and leader, we wouldn't have experienced that. 

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Small tours equal peace for parents.

We had two big objectives for our family holiday. One, spend time together as a family. Two, actually have a holiday. 

We met our fellow group members on our second night in KK, politely eyeing each other off in the lobby of the Dreamtel Hotel. Four families of various configurations, travelling together for eight days. Our guide Bibi asked us if we wanted to go out for dinner "together together" and we all looked to each other for cues. Sure. 

A short walk later, at a kids' table and an adults' table in a local restaurant, the group began to take shape, and what was immediately apparent was that the kids – aged between 8-15 in our group – were going to form a gang and entertain themselves. If you're a parent, you know immediately what that means – time and space for you. Our son Billy isn't always comfortable in a group, and he drifted between us and the kid gang, but within two days the children had sorted out where they wanted to sit on the bus, sometimes with us, sometimes with each other, hassling for snacks and cooing over wildlife like they'd known each other for weeks. 

It was the right balance for us, together time, alone time, and group time, and it made me think of how that would work for me in other situations, too. A girls' trip? I'd choose a place I have always wanted to visit (like India) with Brent, or alone, but am a little intimidated about planning solo.

What happens when there's no phone. 

Parents of teenagers, look away. In the jungle, there was no reception, no WiFi. And after dinner, our usually wired kids did unheard of things. 

They played cards. And a game with marbles and bowls that I made a point of not learning. They showed off their gymnastics and taught each other secret handshakes. They talked to us, and each other, and the guides and the few other guests – young eco volunteers – about their travels. 

It was smugly wholesome, and I hold that memory close to my chest as we've already regrouped on the phone battles back in our day-to-day reality. 

The kids learned hard things.

Image: Supplied.

People steal baby sun bears from the forest and sell them, or keep them as pets in tiny cages. Deforestation is robbing one of only two areas in the world that still have wild orangutans of the environment they need to survive. Palm oil plantations provide jobs but destroy native jungle. 

Our kids learned all about this as we travelled around Borneo, but they also saw, at every turn, people trying to right these wrongs. The sun bear sanctuary where rescued bears are given a new life. The reforestation project at Kopel, the orangutan bridges over the river, and the centre where displaced apes are rehabilitated into the wild.

Intrepid is dedicated to not just skimming the surface of the countries it operates in, and to ensuring its visitors are investing, rather than only consuming. That's why, as we travelled around Sabah we would change buses and drivers (they were all really good, comfy, punctual buses) to make sure local companies were used. It's why in the jungle at Kopel we had two local guides teach us about the culture and the forest. It's why our guide Bibi would arrange different restaurants for our group than the one that had come before, to spread the money and the support around. It's why the hard things were easier to swallow. 

We fell in love with turtles.

Monkeys with giant noses and tiny, perfect babies. Incredibly human-like orangutans, impossible not to smile at. 

We were not short on wildlife sightings in Borneo, but for our family, the last two days of the trip, on Selingan Island off Borneo's east coast, was the site of some magical encounters. 

Image: Supplied.

It's not a resort on Turtle Island, but a sanctuary that does incredible work protecting and growing the population of sea turtles of the Sulu Sea. The tiny island is fringed by reef, and on the glorious day we arrived, we spent our afternoon snorkelling, seeing schools of colourful fish, vibrant coral, rays and giant clams. If a child was to draw an island paradise, this would be it, with white sand and shady palms and warm, welcoming water. 

But it's after dark that the island really delivers. Every night, at any time between about 8pm and 2am, the turtles begin to come ashore to nest. The staff at the research centre do a brilliant job of balancing the visitors' desire to see this rare spectacle with the need to protect these incredible creatures in their exhausting, private moment. Of the 50 or so sea turtles that came ashore on the night we were there, groups are allowed to go in turn to witness only three digging their huge oval nests, laying their eggs, and eventually scooting slowly back to sea. Silently, under torchlight, we saw this happen. Then we helped release some of the newly hatched babies off into the water, and went to bed in our thatched cottages under the palms in paradise. 

Image: Supplied.

We were leaving early the next morning. In contrast to the beautiful weather of our first day, it was raining when we woke up before 6am. I crept into Billy's room and asked him if he wanted to come and say goodbye to the beach before breakfast and a boat back to the mainland. Bill, not a fan of early mornings, didn't hesitate, and he and Brent and I walked along the beach in the warm, gentle rain. 

Two turtles, as big and round as bus wheels, were finishing their sandy nests in the pale light. A sanctuary worker crouched quietly beside them, under a red umbrella, waiting to collect and protect the eggs they would leave behind. 

Billy sat and got wet next to 'his' turtle until the last possible moment. Saying nothing, watching something extraordinary happening in the most extraordinary of places. The mother turtle was flipping her way around to face the ocean, to head back out to sea for several years before she'd come back to this very beach one day and lay again. 

We had to head off onto the sea, too. With our photos and our memories and our forever feeling of sharing a magical natural moment.

None of us were expecting that. 

Explore Intrepid Travel for your next travel experience through incredible destinations with other like-minded travellers. Find tours for under 29s, Women's Expeditions, Family holidays and more. 

Feature Image: Supplied/Instagram/@wainwrightholly