Lok Kawi Wildlife Park (+)

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I woke up this morning feeling terrible. I had a headache and something that I had eaten yesterday very much disagreed with my digestive system. This is the first time I've had any problems like that though, and I've been eating all sorts of stuff, so I guess that's not bad.

After some plain bread I was starting to feel a bit better and before going to the zoo, as my plan for today was, I went to find some proper breakfast that wouldn't upset my stomach and I found myself in quite possibly the most hipsterish place in all of Kota Kinabalu: a juice bar selling 12 ringgit smoothie things with nuts and vegetables and the sort of things that gullible people thing you should eat regularly like chia seeds and wheatgrass and all that nonsense. Exactly the sort of overpriced concoction that I felt like I needed.

A bit before 11 I felt like I was able to head out for the day to visit Lok Kawi Wildlife Park. The wildlife park is actually quite a long way outside the city and there's no public transport going there. A taxi directly there would be 60 ringgit each way or I could get a bus to the town of Kinarut and get a taxi from there for 20 ringgit. But looking at Grab, the fare quoted was 21 ringgit. A no brainer. (Obviously the real cheapest option would be a bus to Kinarut and a grab from there). I almost felt guilty with how little I was paying for a 30 minute drive, a third of the standard taxi fare, but as we pulled up the driver got a notification of someone wanting to be picked up at the wildlife park and driven back to KK which I think illustrates how fares can be so cheap as there's much less waiting around for customers and driving long distances with no one to pick up a customer. The driver was rather confused about why I wanted to visit a zoo. I tried to explain what a zoo nerd was and the concept of taking pictures of the zoo generally and not just the animals. He didn't get it. And it was not a language barrier issue.

The zoo is miles out of town and in a large forested area. The enclosures aren't that bad, especially given that I doubt the zoo has huge amounts of money or resources, though I don't think they've used the natural forest as much as they could. There are quite a few wild animals as a consequence, including Long-tailed Macaques, various squirrels and tree shrews and lots of flowerpeckers. The entry fee was very cheap too, only 20 ringgit for a foreigner. A quarter of the Zoo Negara price.

Although none of the enclosures are anything to write home about, they do have quite a number of interesting species including Greater Bird of Paradise and a decent small mammal collection including two species of palm civet, lots of binturongs which presumably are the Bornean subspecies, two species of porcupine (Long-tailed and Thick-spined) as well as a small mammal house with Giant Squirrel, Slow Loris. Oh, and Pangolins. Yeah, pangolins! Two Sunda Pangolins to be specific. So quite a few nice species and a decent zoo. Well worth a visit!

Lok Kawi is not a particularly big zoo, so despite only getting there at 11 I was completely done to my satisfaction by 3:00 so I called a Grab for the return. I was still feeling a bit unwell, let’s just say it’s a good thing that the zoo had adequate toilet provisioning, so I went back to rest in my room which I thought I would do for the rest of the day.

But at about 4 after resting for half an hour, I was feeling quite a bit better, I think whatever my digestive system had disagreed with had passed through by this point, and I decided that I wanted to go out a bit in the afternoon so headed to the Kota Kinabalu Wetlands Centre. It's only about 3km walk away, but a five ringgit Grab beckoned. I didn't expect anything new bird wise, but thought I might as well have a look. It's a small patch of mangroves in the city centre with a boardwalk going through. And it's a Ramsar site, though I’m not really sure that Ramsar status is particularly justified if I’m honest.

It’s a lovely little patch of mangroves though with a nice boardwalk, and Pied Trillers were more common here than anywhere else on the trip, the forest rang out with their trilling. Lots of kingfishers and egrets and things. There was also a flock of chickens there in a cage with a sign explaining that this was a sentinel flock for avian influenza

Nankeen night herons are supposed to be present, which would be a year list (though one easily tickable in Australia) but I didn't see any. I spent nearly two hours here until a 6PM closing time. Lovely place for a late afternoon stroll looking at the common but wonderful species like Common Ioras and Pied Imperial Pigeons. Their little guide book thing also includes three owl species, two of which would be new, but you can't go in at night because of the closing time and actual gates which get closed. Totally walking distance though, the Grab was just laziness but only 5 ringgit each way and my excuse is that I was feeling ill. By the time I got back though, I was feeling hungry which clearly means I must be better especially given how little I've eaten this last day.

For my last dinner in Borneo, I decided that I was fed up with eggs and rice and noodles and vegetables so I immersed myself in local culture by going to Pizza Hut. It takes a lot for me to get fed up with egg fried rice, but I’ve rather managed. I've just become so in tune with Malaysian culture over these last six weeks. It's been an amazing six weeks though as my first solo adventure. My flight departs early tomorrow afternoon. And tomorrow I'll just be sorting my stuff out in the morning and I've got to be at the airport before midday anyway.

I’ll probably post a round up post type thing tomorrow since I’ll be bored at the airport and will also want an excuse to moan about my particularly annoying transit at Singapore between Kota Kinabalu and Darwin (which involves going through and back through immigration, picking up and dropping off my bag and getting a shuttle bus between T4 and T2 and then a sky train from T2 to T1. Ugh. See? I can’t help myself, I’m moaning about it already.)

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