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Published: July 22nd 2009
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After our Sipadan adventure we were ready to see what there was to discover in the Borneo rainforest. We had heard great things about the river cruises and treks through the rainforest and we managed to get a last minute booking into the Nature Lodge which is situated on the lower Kinabatangan River in East Borneo.
We arrived at the lodge mid afternoon after a bumpy bus ride down dirt roads, and a short jetty to cross the river to the camp. For being a Nature Lodge, we still had such amenities as 24 hour electricity! The first thing on the agenda for the afternoon was a 2 hour cruise down the Kinabatangan river to see some of the local wildlife. With images of pygmey elephants, crocodiles, and orangutans dancing in our heads, it was quite the disappointment when our guide slowed the boat down to point out our first wildlife spotting...a small black SQUIRREL! Yes, that is right, the small animals that scare the birds away from the feeder and often spotted 'sleeping' on the side of the road after a rough night out. But this one was 'in the wild' right?! We continued on down the river and
spotted some long tail macaques (small monkeys), and the facially endowed probicsus monkeys. The male probiscus monkey has a nose that can grow up to 10cm in length and is used for smelling out food in the forest. Apparently it is also used to attract the female monkeys as the longer the nose, the more suitable he is for mating! (Matt adds: We're not so different after all....women always have to be so concerned with size!) The females, though not nearly as nasaly comical, reminded us of a “who from whoville” from The Grinch. It was much fun watching them play in the trees taking wild leaps from one branch to another.
Back at the lodge we enjoyed some dinner and then put on long pants, high socks, and rubber boots to ready ourselves for the next activity on our agenda; a night hike. To prevent leeches from attacking your body, we were told to tuck our pants into our socks, and our shirts into our pants - we were quite the fashion site let me tell you! Once again it was kind of a let down when we were pointed out a frog smaller than a fingernail, a
small stick bug and a tiny spider. The highlight was a sleeping yellow and red kingfisher. Luckily we arrived back at the camp and were nursing a beer within 25 minutes and Matt couldn't have been happier. The jungle flora is quite insulating even at night and wearing long sleeves and pants is not the most comfortable clothing (although we were among the only ones that remained leech free) for 30+ degree weather.
The next morning we were up before the crack of dawn in hopes of spotting the pygmy elephant heard that had not been seen the afternoon before. Once again we came up pachadermless but we did stumble upon (moor up beside) a few trees full of our nose-y cousins, the probiscus's. We arrived back at the camp for a breakfast that reminded us of a post pub creation from our university days, complete with chicken nuggets and breaded onion rings; gotta love that authentic local food!
After breakfast a few people from our bunk checked out a day early as they were quite dejected by the lack of sightings however we decided to stick it out and went on yet another uneventful jungle trek, this time
for 3 hours. The highlight of this trek other then finally getting back to camp had to be witnessing a young kid who refused to tuck in his shirt for the trek, remove a leach from his nether-region in a perfect “Stand By Me” movie re-enactment. “Sucker!”
After an afternoon nap, we woke up fresh for our afternoon boat cruise once again in high hopes of spotting one of nature's great oxymorons, the pygmy elephant (that's got to be right up there with “jumbo shrimp!). This time we came so close we could smell them, literally! How is it that a heard of 20 elephants stayed quiet enough to evade the 15 some-odd boats tracking it up and down river? We returned back to camp defeated once again. Matt decided against putting himself through another night trek, but I went forth only to view just slightly more than the night before (although I did spot a small snake).
The next day we completed our final river scowl for those damned elephants only to conclude that they must be invisible. Well I guess you can't win them all. Stupid, unpredictable nature.
We finished off this day by taking a
bus to the Orangutan sanctuary where we were guaranteed to spot our closest related cousin for feeding time. Some of the more notable facts we learned about these ginger coloured “men of the forest” is that in addition to sharing nearly 97% of our genetic make-up, we also have virtually the same coverage of body hair, with theirs obviously thicker and longer....ha, tell that to the Asians! Matt however is a great comparison of the latter fact and he's nearly as good at swinging through the trees. Now if we could only figure out some way to improve our foot dexterity in order to double fist beers while simultaneously chocking down all that Nasi Goreng (fried rice, Malay style)!
MandL out!
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Giant Durian
The photo titled Giant Durian is actually a jack fruit. That one just medium sized fruit, The biggest can be 2X the one in the photo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit