For
those of you who avidly follow our travel tales you’ll know that Steve and I
have visited Borneo on many occasions, but we felt that Sabah hadn’t been
explored as much as Sarawak. Not only
was it time to redress the balance but we were determined to find those Borneo
pygmy elephants and the elusive wild orang utan. My nature and wildlife loving Mum was in town
for what will probably be her last trip to Malaysia (since we’ll be moving on
soon) so we decided to pull out all the stops.
Sandakan
We
flew with Firefly from KL to Sandakan and then jumped in a taxi to take us to
Sepilok Jungle Resort. The rooms here
are basic but the lovely gardens and good food made the place feel like it was
okay value for money. We didn’t see the
point of basing ourselves in town as we knew our first port of call was going
to be Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre.
Now I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of this place as I feel they
allow way too many people in at once.
For a much better experience I can’t recommend the centre in Semenggoh,
Sarawak highly enough. Still it’s always
good to support places that are doing great education and conservation work and
you can’t tire of watching big orange apes in their natural environment.
As
always the viewing platform area was crowded and as ever people ignored the
pleas of the keepers to be quiet and to refrain from using flash
photography. Luckily people’s
predictability doesn’t end there and we knew if we were patient they would all leave
as soon as they seen an orang utan. Only
one female came down but she had a young baby with her and it was lovely
watching them interact. The pig tail and
long tailed macaques put in their usual appearance and tried to steal the show
with their antics. As predicted the bulk
of the crowd moved off as soon as the orang utan had had her fill and swung
back into the dense foliage. We decided
to watch the macaques for a while as Steve was determined to finally get a good
photo of the pig tailed variety. You
don’t see them as often as the long tails and we’ve never been close enough to
try to get a decent shot up until now.
As
luck would have it the same female orang utan returned to check she hadn’t left
any tasty morsels behind. Our patience
was rewarded; we were got to watch mum trying to teach her baby to climb. Mind you, considering how high up in the
trees they were it was very much a make or break lesson for the little
one. A lovely experience and we felt it
was an auspicious start to our wildlife adventures of Sabah. We’d booked the bulk of our trip through
Nasalis Larvatus Tours who proved to be very good and fulfilled all their
promises. First and foremost a van turned
up on time and in the right place to take us to Nature Lodge on the banks of
the Kinabatangan River. Let the real
wildlife spotting begin.
Kinabatangan
We
stayed in Nature Lodge’s Agamid wing where the chalets were much better than
the rooms we’d left behind in Sepilok.
We’d booked a 3D/2N package that included accommodation, transfers, food
and most importantly our river cruises.
Our first boat trip was that very evening and we knew we’d just enjoy
travelling along the banks of the river even if we didn’t see much in the way
of wildlife. I say that but you always
hope you’ll see at least a couple of different types of animals.
This
first boat ride turned out to be very much the primate spotting one and Steve
and I felt he didn’t really try to find anything else. It’s probably not fair for us to say that as
everyone else on our boat had a great time.
It’s not their fault that we’ve already been on the river a couple of
times and have seen all the monkeys before.
I can understand that if you’ve never seen a macaque then to have one a
matter of inches from your head, completely in the wild, would be a great
experience. I suppose not everyone has
long tailed macaques running along their balcony as they’re tucking into
breakfast, as happened to Steve in KL!
The best part of this boat ride was of course seeing proboscis monkeys –
they are not common and it was wonderful to see them in big numbers.
That
evening’s activity involved a night time trek around the resort’s grounds in
the hope of seeing some interesting small nocturnal beasties. It had obviously been raining steadily for
days (well we had planned our trip during the monsoon season) and the path was
a quagmire. I decided that it wasn’t
going to be much fun wading through ankle deep mud in the hope of spotting the
odd insect and declared I was heading back after about 50m. Mum was hot on my heels and obviously
relieved that she didn’t have to endure sliding through the mud in the pitch
dark. Steve decided he would go for it
only to return to declare we’d made the right decision as they saw
................... nothing!
With
animals preferring to be most active at dawn and dusk this wasn’t going to be a
holiday of lie-ins and lounging around.
Sure enough we were up at the crack of dawn! For those who weren’t good at getting up so
early the resort sounded a gong to indicate it was time to get your act
together. That morning’s boat ride was
very similar to the previous evenings with lots of monkey activity but there
were more birds around too. We’d hoped
to see something different and felt that our guide hadn’t really put much
effort into the trip.
To
fill in the time between dusk and dawn boat rides we had the option of going on
a walk through the jungle to an oxbow lake.
With already knowing what the conditions were like underfoot Mum chose
to sit this one out. We knew she’d be
happy pottering around the resort grounds and sitting on the balcony armed with
binoculars and bird book. The path was
as muddy as I’d expected judging from the state Steve’s trousers were in from
the previous evening. Walking in wellies
might not be ideal but it beat getting caked in oozy mud which in places was so
deep it almost went over the top of my boots.
At least in the daylight we could work out the best route through and we
were never going to be at top speed as we had jungle trekking novices in our group.
There
was no way we were going to spot any wildlife as we were making far too much
noise squelching and squerching along.
However, it was worth the splodge as the oxbow lake was lovely. It gave us time to have a chat to our guide
about the boat trips we’d been on so far and the wildlife it was possible to
see in the area. We made sure he knew
this wasn’t our first trip and that this time we really hoped we’d get to see
the elephants and maybe orang utans.
Obviously we knew this was a big ask but he then proceeded to tell us
that both of those animals had been spotted in the area recently. However, it seemed the elephants were too far
down river for us to be able to get to a likely viewing area. We squelched back to our chalet via the boot
washing area to find that Mum had indeed enjoyed her time pottering. Not surprisingly she’d seen umpteen more
birds that us and a water monitor had practically walked over her feet.
With
there basically being nothing to do other than enjoying being in the great
outdoors it was amazing how quickly the afternoon whizzed by. Before we knew it the gong was bonged and it
was time for our second dusk boat trip.
To our surprise and delight our guide had taken on board what we’d been
saying and the boat belted up the river to a likely elephant crossing
point. Not only did we see an elephant
but it goes down as one of our best ever wildlife experiences. We thought if there were elephants around
we’d be lucky to get a brief glimpse of them through the trees. At most, and if we were really lucky, the odd
one might approach the water’s edge for a drink or bath. We certainly didn’t expect to be within
meters of over 35 extremely rare Borneo pygmy elephants. Not only did we see them up close but they
didn’t break with their usual routine so we saw them eating, bathing, sliding
down the bank, playing, helping the little ones cross the creek and just
generally doing elephant stuff. There
were so many of them in the herd that at times we didn’t know where to look –
another of those wonderful experiences that we feel privileged to have
attained.
Incredibly
the evening got better – well if you’re a City fan that is! Poor Steve was trapped in the middle of
nowhere with barely a mobile signal let alone a decent internet connection. We ‘watched’ the derby via an on-line betting
company’s odds – it was hilarious to watch the odds of Man U winning soar over
65-1! It all rounded off a perfect day
and we retired very happy campers as City won 6-1 at the theatre of shattered
dreams!
The
final boat ride saw us heading in the opposite direction and we cheekily said
that we just needed to see crocodiles and orang utan then we’d be happy. Believe me we could have just seen 2 macaques
and a crow and we’d be leaving happy!
There were many more birds around and it was lovely to see the
hornbills. Then the boat suddenly headed
towards the far bank as somehow or other our guide had spied a crocodile. It didn’t like us getting too close and kept
dipping under the water but we got a good look at it none the less. We saw many different species of birds
including some very rare storks, eagles and kingfishers. Our boatman became fixated on one patch of
trees and other than birds fluttering around we couldn’t see what he was
looking at. He then announced that in
the distance there was an orang utan moving through the trees. To be honest at first we didn’t believe him
but once he gave us clearer instructions on where to train our binoculars –
sure enough there was a big orange fella having an early breakfast. He, and his friend, were a very long way off
and they were difficult to see but we’d finally found orang utans in the wild
in Malaysia. Unbelievable and how lucky
were we?
Following
breakfast it was time to check out and get ready for the next part of our
Borneo adventure. The tour we’d booked
included a free van shuttle service to the local bus pick up spot and once
there we’d be able to jump on a Lahad Datu bound bus. In actual fact we never reached the pick-up
spot as the bus we needed passed our van so the driver flagged him down.
Lahad Datu
We
were dropped at the bus station but never having been to town and without a map
we decided the wise thing to do was to jump in a taxi. It was just as well as it would have been
quite a walk to Silam Dynasty Hotel.
This is one of many business style hotels and the rooms were more than
adequate. Lahad Datu is very much a
functional, working, oil business town and the only thing it has to offer
tourists is it’s the gateway to the heart of the Borneo rainforest. Steve and I like these little off the beaten
track towns and luckily Mum was happy to take a break in her wildlife
spotting. To be honest I think we all
needed to catch our breath and reflect on what we’d seen so far and how lucky
we’d been before embarking on the next leg.
Walking
the length and breadth of town didn’t take us long so we decided to camp out in
a Chinese food court tucking into tasty chicken rice washed down with a tall
cool one. That’s one of the great things
about these frontier towns you can always find cheap beer! Still we didn’t get too carried away as we
had to be up early the next morning for the treat part of the trip.
Up
to now we have seen: Long tailed macaques, pig tailed macaques, silver leaf
monkeys, proboscis monkeys, squirrels, giant squirrel, skinks, water monitor,
ELEPHANTS, crocodile, orang utan, bats, fruit bats, crested agamid lizard and green
lizard.
Birds:
cormorant / darter, purple heron, great egret, intermediate egret, Storm’s
stork, Jordan’s baza, long tailed parakeet, stork billed kingfisher, white
throated kingfisher, blue throated bee-eater, ashy tailorbird, little
spiderhunter, common kingfisher, grey heron, pied hornbill, serpent eagle,
dollarbird, crested hornbill and green imperial pigeon.
Borneo Rainforest Lodge
We’ve
looked at visiting this place periodically over the years but have always
baulked at the cost. However, we’d
promised ourselves that should Mum come to visit again we’d use that as an
excuse to splash out. The man had been
paid so it was time to sit back and enjoy – we hoped! The usual deal is to book at 3D / 2N package
that includes your transfers to and from Lahad Datu, all accommodation and
meals and a range of wildlife spotting activities. We’d read that the highlight was the night
spotting drive so Steve and I were particularly looking forward to that
bit. Just getting to the lodge is part
of the fun as it’s a 2 ½ hour drive with the bulk of it being on a dirt track. The forest scenery was fabulous and we were
even lucky enough to see 4 crested hornbills low down in the branches by the
edge of the road.
The
excitement levels were rising as we neared the lodge and even on first glimpse
it was clear the place was going to live up to expectations. We were warmly and efficiently greeted and
taken upstairs to their comfy seating area for a briefing on the lodge. It was all very interesting information but
we just wanted to see what our room was like!
Then we had to be introduced to our guide. It seems that when you pay top whack you get 5
star treatment! Luckily he didn’t give
us the full itinerary just what we would be doing later and where and when to
meet. So, after what seemed like hours
we were finally shown to our rooms.
The
chalets are spread out over a large area and are all connected by a raised
wooden walkway. Our rooms were virtually
as far away from the restaurant as you could get but we already knew we
wouldn’t have one of the premium river view rooms. To be honest it wouldn’t matter which room
you chose as you’re right in the heart of one of the world’s oldest
rainforests. The rooms were superb with
every modern facility you could imagine and a lovely big balcony. Little touches like a jar of mini home-made
cookies to have with your brew made the place feel extra special. Plus they had a free water refill service –
which as most of you will know is one thing I will always commend a place on.
We
didn’t have the opportunity to lounge around as it was lunch time – the spread
was fantastic. We were all like children
in a sweet shop and ended up stuffing our faces. Throughout our stay all the food was superb
and of course we ate way too much at each sitting. The restaurant is situated over-looking the
river and there was a constant stream of birds and butterflies. Obviously if people have made the effort and
shelled out so much to get to the lodge they are interested in flora and
fauna. As I looked around I realised
that, like us, everyone had at least a pair of binoculars sat on their
table. Many people were very serious
about what they hoped to see and the money’s worth of cameras, binoculars and
telescopes we saw was mind boggling.
We
waddled back to our balconies and let our food settle while watching out to see
if anything would flutter, hop, crawl, slither, glide, swing or scamper by. In fact it was raining so we didn’t see
anything other than the odd bird.
Luckily by 3pm the rain had eased so we went to meet with our guide,
Mesiah or Messi as he said to call him.
Obviously we instantly renamed him Lionel but not to his face! It soon became apparent that the activities
are very carefully organised and co-ordinated according to people’s needs and
the number of guests. We thought we’d be
on a set programme but they shuffle things about to make sure your experience
is as private as possible. Plus some
people had obviously paid for specific tailor-made packages with bird spotting
being very popular.
Anyway,
our first foray into the rainforest was a short, easy nature walk where we
didn’t actually move all that far away from the lodge. It was a perfect, gentle introduction for Mum
and even though we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife initially, Lionel
turned out to be very knowledgeable about the plants. Mum loves her botany and we all learnt
something new but the best bit was Lionel sharing his childhood memories of the
plants being used in his kampung. We saw
lots of agamid lizards that were very good at posing for photos and they didn’t
bat an eyelid when we used flash. There
are very few animals you are permitted to take photos of using flash and it was
good to know that in this instance it was acceptable. Then our guide chatted away on his
walkie-talkie and declared we were going to head off in a different
direction. To our delight we got to see
red leaf monkeys low down in the trees.
Up until now we’d only seen them high up in the canopy and it was great
to get a good view of these beautiful monkeys.
The excitement didn’t stop there as we were asked to plunge off the
beaten track as one of the rangers had spotted an orang utan. We couldn’t believe our luck at seeing an
orang building his nest. We’d left
Kinabatangan satisfied that we’d finally seen orang utans in the wild so this
just blew us away.
The
day was still young and there was the night drive to come yet. Unfortunately it rained again on our return
to the room but at least we’d got our walk in when it was dry. It was very muddy underfoot of course and
this meant there were plenty of leeches about.
This part of the world boasts and abundance of black and tiger leeches
and they were feeling peckish! In the
end Steve and I were the only ones that braved the rainforest without wearing
leech socks and amazingly neither of us got bitten. We’d bought Mum a pair and she assured us
that they did work; she washed many leeches from the socks but not one
penetrated the material. Anyway by night-drive
time the rain had thankfully eased again – how lucky were we? Unfortunately I have to say that this was the
only part of our stay where we felt let down.
I know there’s nothing they can do about the weather but the drive only
lasted an hour. We did see a Malay
civet, flying squirrel, colugo and sambar deer but most of them were high up in
the trees. We can only take their word
for it that those eye reflections belonged to that particular animal. Obviously the deer weren’t perched up on the
branches but we’d already seen a couple near our chalet when we were walking to
the lodge. Disappointing but at least
we’d enjoyed the rest of the day.
The
next morning quite a long hike was pencilled in and even though Mum was going
great guns we knew this was going to be too much for her. Yet again we were given 5 star treatment and
the package was tailored to meet our individual needs. Lionel sensed that Steve and I really fancied
the trek to Coffin Cliff and had rightly guessed that Mum would like to do a
shorter walk. So he arranged for another
guide to come with us as far as the Jacuzzi pool where Mum could sit and watch
the world go by for a while and then return to the lodge when she was
ready. In the meantime Steve and I would
do the full walk. As it happened the
Minister for Tourism had arrived that morning so the lodge was in a frenzy of
cleaning and apparently anyone who thought they were having a day off
weren’t. It turns out Lionel and his
friend didn’t want to be involved in any of the shenanigans and were delighted
to be away from the lodge. Mum’s new
guide was more than happy to sit and chat with her – it turns out he was just
as knowledgeable about the rainforest as Lionel. Plus he wasn’t going to be rushing Mum –
perfect.
Anyway
off we all set and a lovely morning it was too with the gibbons serenading us
in the distance. We’d just reached the
spot where Mum would leave us when there was movement in the trees above
us. It seems the gibbons weren’t as far
away as we thought as right above our heads was a family of 3 enjoying a tasty
morsel. It was great to watch them and
for us it was a new species – the Borneo gibbon not surprisingly. Mum was thrilled upon watching gibbons in the
wild for the first time. It was going to
be a good day.
As
Steve and I were walking along we began quizzing Lionel on where else he had
worked as we were convinced we’d met him before. It turned out that the most likely scenario
was that he was our guide when we did The Pinnacles and Head-hunter trail in
Mulu National Park. On trying to jog his
memory we explained that towards the end of the trail we left him behind and
had to wait for him to catch up. Not
surprisingly he denied all knowledge of this ever happening! On getting back to the flat Steve found the
photographic evidence – Lionel had indeed been our guide all those years
ago. The world really is getting
smaller. The trail we were on basically
followed a ridge and we climbed steadily.
Once again movement in the trees had us stopped in our tracks and we
found ourselves looking straight at a red leaf monkey – the best view yet. Further on we were struck speechless on
coming across another orang utan. This
one was low down in the trees and we got a fantastic view of him before he
decided it was time to move on. They are
so strong that he’d shimmied up the tree trunk in no time and seemingly with no
effort at all. Wow!
Coffin
Cliff is so named as that is where the ancient people used to store their dead
– in coffins on the side of the cliff or in little caves in the cliff
surface. It proves that people have
lived in the area for a long time and there were a few other bits of artefacts
lying around to show that they’d traded with other tribes. At the top of the cliff is a cracking
viewpoint – you can see acres upon acres of rainforest and can see right down
to the lodge sat on a meander of the river.
I was delighted to find a host of wild orchids up there too. In fact I’d spent most of the morning taking
pictures of fungi and other interesting flora.
We’d apparently got to the viewpoint in good time – I think we were
probably one of the most experienced jungle trekkers the lodge had seen! So Lionel (who remember was in no hurry to
get back) asked if we wanted to do a round trip via a couple of
waterfalls. Now as you know the prospect
of watching water tumbling down a rock tends not to get us excited but we will
always chose a circular route. So we
carried on to Fairy Falls and then to Serpent Falls before returning to the
Jacuzzi pool. It was a lovely walk and
to be fair the waterfalls were pretty.
At
the Jacuzzi pool Steve couldn’t resist a cooling dip – not my idea of fun
though. However, it was a very peaceful
spot and I enjoyed watching the fish in the crystal clear water. They are the type that likes to nibble toes
so you can get a free foot spa but Steve reckoned their bite was a bit too
sharp. Lionel put his hand in the water
and soon attracted a shoal of curious fish.
There were 3 or 4 species in there and we spotted an eel too. Now it really was time to return as the lunch
time buffet was calling and we wanted to see how Mum had faired. We swapped notes over another big feed and
declared that we’d all had a fantastic morning.
Then
it started to rain and it rained and it rained – we had another walk lined up
that afternoon. You’re going to stop
believing me but it actually stopped raining again just when we needed it to –
honest. We spent about 1 ½ hours
following the Hornbill trail but there was very little moving. We did hear lots of birds but goodness only
knows what was flittering about in the branches. One sure sighting was that of a couple of
rhinoceros hornbills – the hornbill list alone was starting to look
impressive. It then started raining
again as we were relaxing on our balcony between activities. We were just about to set off for our night
walk when a sambar deer and her fawn walked right past our chalet – aah! That night we went on a short night walk to
look for some of the jungle’s more unusual residents; namely weird insects on a
large scale. The frog pond actually
lived up to its name and we saw a couple of different species. The highlight was seeing 2 different types of
owl.
The
next and last morning we were up bright and early (6am) to bounce along the
canopy walkway and listen to the dawn chorus.
With the sun just rising the light being cast through the trees was
beautifully misty and moody. It was
great being so high up and although Steve and Mum had been anxious about this
activity they both enjoyed it. The
canopy walkway is very solidly built and we were the only ones up there - other
than the birds of course with the highlight being a pair of wrinkled hornbills
flying overhead. As we were walking back
to the lodge Abu (one of the resident orang utans) had finally woken up for the
day and was in search of his breakfast.
He’d nested very close to the track and low down in the tree so we got a
fantastic view of him – more amazing wildlife encounters. We’d just mentally told ourselves that we had
to accept that the trip was coming to a close when we came across some
twitchers pointing animatedly towards a huge fig tree. We assumed that they’d spotted some sort of bird
they’d not crossed off their list yet and we were invited to take a peek in
their telescope. It turns out these are
twitchers that love all wildlife and were excited as they’d found a binturong. It hadn’t entered into my head to hope and
wish to see such a wonderful animal. So
there you go, right at the 11th hour we had a new animal to add to
our list.
Following
breakfast it was time to pack our bags.
We’d had such a fantastic time that we said our goodbyes with hearts
that were sad to be leaving but elated at all the amazing animals we’d
seen. Not to mention simply enjoying
being in such a wonderful environment.
Still it wasn’t the end of the holiday as we still had the ride back to
Lahad Datu to enjoy and a couple of nights in Kota Kinabalu.
By
the time we reached KK it was late so we just grabbed something to eat and had
an early bath. The next day we didn’t
really feel like doing much but we fancied a bit of a potter so we went to the
cultural museum. It’s not the world’s
best museum but it was interesting enough and the mini cultural centre outside
was very pleasant to look around. That
evening we went down to the front in the hope of catching one of KK’s amazing
sunsets but the weather meant it wasn’t that great. To end the week Mum treated us to a meal in
Little Italy where the food is fantastic - Steve and I reckon they make the
best pizzas in Malaysia. Cheers Mum!
The
wildlife list for Borneo Rainforest Lodge reads: orang utan, long tailed macaque, red leaf
monkey, crested agamid lizard, green lizard, skinks, squirrels, sambar deer,
red giant flying squirrel, colugo, Malay civet, Borneo gibbon, flying lizard,
giant squirrel, pygmy squirrel, black squirrel, 3 types of carp, eel, 4 types
of frog, common civet, binturong,
dragonflies, fireflies, butterflies, geckos, praying mantis, leaf bug, black
leech, tiger leech, land crab, long-legged centipede, stick insect, spider, tarantula
and millipedes.
And
the birds: crested fireback, white
crowned hornbill, bulbul, little spiderhunter, forktail, rhinoceros hornbill,
buffy fish owl, brown wood owl, black hornbill, wrinkled hornbill, black
magpie, white crested Sharma, swiftlet, purple heron, stork billed kingfisher,
little heron, serpent eagle, ? eagle and scarlet minivet.
Would we do it all
again – YES PLEASE!!!!!!
Info:
Sepilok - http://www.sepilokjungleresort.com/
Nature Lodge - http://www.naturelodgekinabatangan.com/naturelodge.php
Borneo Rainforest Lodge - http://www.borneorainforestlodge.com/index.htm
Eden 54 - Great small hotel in KK - http://www.eden54.com/index.php
Little Italy KK - best pizzas in Malaysia - http://www.littleitaly-kk.com/
