Uncle Tans

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Arriving at Uncle Tans ops base i was plesently surprised by how nice it was. Great food, free internet, nice comfy rooms and the staff were great! There isnt anything to do there so after catching up on the internet and eating it left plenty of time to read before i caught the bus and boat to Uncle Tans in the Kinabatangan Park at 2.30 the next day.
Taking the bus we arrived in a small village where we had to walk down a steep mud slope to the long boat for out 45min trip down the river. During the 3d 2n trip we did a night safari by boat, a morning safari by boat, a trek into the forest to learn about the plants, trees and insects, an afternoon boat safari and an evening trek to spot nocturnal animals.
In the three days i spent there i saw 35 different species including long tailed maccaque, silver leaf monkey, Bornean gibbon, pig-tailed maccaque, buffy fish owl, black hornbill, white-bellied fish eagle, flying foxes, monitor lizard, rhinoceros hornbill, prevost sqirrel and Bornean blue flycatcher. However getting photos of them all was a bit more difficult! We learnt about what plants were deadly and which benefited us. The guides are brilliant at spotting the different animals even at a distance. Anything you dont see isnt down to them!
The accomadation is basic but not that bad, they only transfered into it three years ago so even the toilets look modern especially with the pictures on the wall about how you have to collect your bucket of water, take it with you to the toilet then use it to flush the toilet with! Showers consist of a bucket and scoop but you feel cleaner. The rooms only have three walls so i nearly died when the rat visited us in the middle of the night! i didnt sleep much the first night, a bit more the second.he beds were a mattress on the floor with a mosquito net. The huts are over a sqamp so you heard the animals all night. During the time when there was no activities it was nice to lie in the hammoks and read with the squirrels and lizards around.
Heading back to civilization the walk back up the mud bank was, interesting, after all of the rain we had during our last night and all morning the slope was that muddy you just slipped back down. One of the locals had to pull us up one by one with our packs and a rope to help. Neadless to say when we got to the top our hands, feet and bags were rather muddy as we set out for the 5hr trip to Semporna.

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