After an 8 hour bus from KK to Sandakan and a night there to refresh, I was picked up in Sandakan by a minivan and whisked away to the Kinbatangan river within 3 hours, stopping to pick up other people along the way and bumping our way along the last few "roads" to the crossing point. We got into a boat and hopped over to the other side of the river, climbed a plank and plunged straight into the jungle at the Nature Resort Kinbatangan!
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| Loving life in the second row |
The resort is absolutely glorious. A row of wood cabins lined the path to the reception centre, secluded from each other by free growing jungle and the occasional monitor lizard. The first thing that struck me was the pure quiet of it all - no phones tapping, no Whatsapp buzzes, nothing. The second thing was how noisy it all was, but gloriously so! Dragonflies buzzing, birds calling, cicadas making smoke with their back legs - so much noise which I never normally hear, and it was lush. After checking in and an ice cold glass of rose cordial I skipped off to my dorm with 3 of my bus pals, delighted to find comfy beds and a bug screen across the window - I like nature, but not enough to cuddle up to a bazillion mozzies every night.
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| I love these trees! |
First things first, a cup of tea and banana fritters. Banana fritters appear to be the equivalent of custard creams in the UK which is just divine and definitely counts on the 5 a day scale. Definitely. After this I got my first river cruise, scheduled just before sunset we'd see all the animals padding down for the evening and just chilling out in the cooler air. The guides are awesome and have eagle eyes - one even spotted a monitor lizard on the jungle floor from 20 meters away and at full speed on the boat! I saw harems of proboscis monkeys, long tailed macaques and their babies playing in the trees (I could honestly watch those guys forever!) and grumpy silver langurs having at it like a Friday night outside Yates. Kingfishers, eagles, storks, hornbills, swallows, and so many more birds swooped overhead as the sunset kicked in and, just as we turned to head back, a cheeky croc poked his little eyes and snout above water to get a good look. At this point I'll apologise for the image quality here: taking photos on a phone at full zoom on a rocking boat is not easy! Hopefully when I get to a PC and can upload my photos from my proper camera all will be a lot nicer!
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| Proboscis Daddy checking out his harem |
Buffet dinner and lashings of mosquito repellant later, it was time for the night walk in the dense jungle behind the resort. Armed with a torch and pair of wellies, I made my way through as the guides pointed out the sweetest sleeping birds. Just as we were setting off again, I spotted a tiny scorpion just in front of my welly and showed the guide behind me: "Very good! Those small ones are the most poisonous - you would be in bed for a week with that one!". Needless to say, my next few steps were very cautious. We kept walking with the sounds of frogs and cicadas becoming deafening when suddenly the lead guide held out his hand to signal for everyone to stop. Thankfully the group only had about 9 guests and 3 guides, so we all gathered around quickly to see what had been spotted. I looked around wildly, not seeing a goddamn thing, and then my eyes focused and I subconsciously did the "Cheese, Gromit!" face and hands - a tarsier!! I've studied these creatures for 3 years and now I was seeing one in the wild and a foot away from my face! The guides introduced them as the "God Bundle" and the "'5-in-1': eyes of an owl, ears of a bat, body of a monkey, tail of a rat, hands of a frog". Slightly creepy but so cool and super rare to see in the wild! So cool. The leeches didn't quite do it for me, but they were tiger leeches and so at least they were prettier than the thick brown slugs I was expecting!
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| Jungle Squad on point |
The next morning started with a sunrise river safari to see the animals running about before the heat of the day kicks them back into the denser parts of the jungle. That morning we had all sorts of monkeys, birds, and lizards in view and I was absolutely loving life! How awesome, to be able to see all of these gorgeous animals in their natural habitat and doing their thang completely wild and free. One of the best things about this trip for me was how few resorts there are along the river, meaning your sunrise isn't spoiled by other boats and the animals are not overrun with boats pulling up to their hangout spots.
We arrived back and I was absolutely delighted to see that the breakfast gods had heard and answered my prayers: cereal and cold milk! Cold milk, people, cold milk! Followed by hash browns (HASH BROWNS, ladies and gentlemen, the gods are good), eggs, baked beans, toast and marmalade, yellow watermelon and pineapple. SBJ what a start to a day. After fuelling up we headed out, this time just the 4 of us from my dorm were left, with the 3 guides to the Ox Bow Lake. After about an hour of walking and bushwhacking through the dense rainforest we reached a jetty which led on to the lake where we chilled out with the guides and had our feet nibbled by fish in the lovely cool water. Lush.
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| Phone camera zoom in a rocking boat is not ideal |
After lunch I napped off my food coma in a shady hammock until it was time for banana fritters, and then geared up for the sunset boat trip. Once again we were so lucky to see so many monkeys and birds - watching the monkeys interact is mesmerising, and the birds are so gorgeous through a pair of binoculars! As we were heading back to base the boat stopped suddenly and everyone was looking around wildly for what had been spotted. I thought it would be a croc, so had my eyes scanning the deep brown water for beady eyes with no avail when I got a decent tap on the shoulder to look up, and there she was. The most beautiful and fabulous, my favourite ape including humans: a wild orangutan. It was a wild orangutan! And then not just one, but a mama cuddling her infant! This is an absolute dream come true for me, and something which I've been longing to see for so long! I had given myself s very stern pep talk before the trip, rightly telling myself that not seeing an orangutan was a good thing because it meant they were comfortable in their environment and didn't need to leave the denser forest. But this one was in the forest too, so I took that as comfortable, and I was seeing a mama and her baby in real life! Admittedly very far away so we're talking blobs of fur rather than faces but still, orange blobs of fur with awesome social structures and really interesting examples of learning and skill use! Orangutans make me happy, just sayin.
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| Did someone say "fritter"? |
The next morning was our last river trip and I was determined to absorb as much as humanly possible. The camera was down and my eyes were scanning, constantly looking for a shuffle in a bush here, an eye in the water there, and so on. True to form, the cruise and the sunrise were equally lush. My highlights of this one were seeing 2 kingfishers and a beautiful eagle, and watching infant long tailed macaques play with each other and try to master the art of jumping from branch to branch with varying levels of success! As we sped back to base again for breakfast the guide once again cut the engine and we came to a stop 10 meters from the bank, this time not needing to scan the shore at all. Lying on the bank was a huge crocodile, must have been 9 feet long, just lying there in the glow of the sunrise. My guide edged our boat closer and closer, croc didn't move, until he beached the nose of our boat on the bank. We all leaned over in awe, grabbing anything and everything with a lens to capture this incredible creature. Suddenly, with the ease of a body builder lifting a feather, the mighty croc launched itself forwards and the entire boat inhaled sharply. We couldn't have been more than 1.5 meters away, and the croc would definitely get to us faster than we could reverse off the bank any day. Luckily the croc didn't seem fussed and strode into the water, disappearing one incredibly impressive, spiky scale at a time, all 9 foot of it. (I got an awesome video of this on my proper camera by the way, but you might be waiting til June for that one to upload!)
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| This is terrible quality from my phone but just look at that fella |
I got back onto the bus riding a huge wave of elation - SO MANY ANIMALS AND SO MUCH JUNGLE. I was bouncing all the way through breakfast and all the way to the boat when sadly it was time to leave the fritters and critters behind. Bouncing maybe wasn't such a good idea on the ladder down to the jetty, as one moment I was striding away and the next I was looking up straight at the sky, having fallen flat on my butt on the way down! Not such a problem, except the weight of my backpack meant I couldn't get back up again and I ended up regaining my balance with legs splayed and booty in the air, looking ready to recreate a hiking edition of Anaconda.
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| One of my favourites - hot off the real camera! Now being used as a promotional image for Halo Travel tours - how exciting! |
I just couldn't get enough and decided to stop off in Sepilok at the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre on the way back to Sandakan, and I absolutely loved it. I've never seen a centre so open! There is no Perspex, no netting, no boundaries, no walls! The orangutans are free to wander and explore their jungle as they please whilst they learn the essential skills they'll need once they are released into the wild. Only the humans are restricted, and rightly so! For this purpose they also have very little human physical contact - a point some infuriating guests just couldn't quite grasp: "I want to hold it. Give it to me so I can hold it, I want a photo! Why not? We have them in my country, we give them cigarettes and it's fine, it doesn't matter! I just want to hold it for goodness sake! Fine, I want to feed it then." BRB, just smacking my head against a brick wall and being grateful I don't carry lethal weapons.
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| Rosa delivering her Las Vegas masterclass |
After a nice bushwhacking walk through the jungle on a 'bird trail' (on which I saw no birds, but did see a cute snake), I visited the nursery and saw a little infant eating with her mama and practicing swinging on ropes by itself which was lovely to see. I stayed for most of a talk about how they do what they do at the centre but had to run off - I didn't want to miss feeding time! One by one they came in - 6 huge orangutans and a lot of cheeky macaques ready to steal a banana when the big guys weren't looking. Karma came around quickly for one fella though as he tried to pilfer an entire bunch of bananas in one go, the weight of which sent him tumbling backwards off the feeding platform and a loud squeal on the way down!
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| Yep, I have days where I put my foot on the food basket and bundle everything into my hands too. |
I had an awesome time in the jungle and loved every second of it. Maybe not the mosquito bite itching seconds and the weighing up the odds of getting dengue seconds, but they're worth it for even half the amazing scenes I saw! Highlights remain the wild orangutans, the 9ft crocodile, and seeing 3 very young infant macaques righting themselves after falling sunny side down on a branch! So much jungle love.
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| Nailing it. |
Full price breakdown
Oh my goodness. So much jungle, so many animals, so much nature! And all for an absolute bargain! Normally a day tour in the Sepilok jungle or on the Kinbatangan river will cost you around 450RM per day. The jungle tour was 409RM for 3 days! I booked through Halo Hostel in KK - find this insanely back pocket friendly and incredibly awesome experience on their Facebook page here.
Dorm, food, transport to and from Sandakan, cruises, day trek = 409RM
Night trek = 16RM
Welly rental = 11RM
Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre = 40RM (30 entrance, 10 camera)
Public bus from Sepilok to Sandakan = 6RM
Total cost for 3D2N Kinbantang tour and Sepilok orangutans = 482RM
Yay, Borneo!
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| My last sunset on the Kinbatangan River |
Brilliant! so jelly xxx
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