Camping on the Kinabatangan

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The Kilabantan

The longest widest crocodile infestedest wildlifest junglest river. I guess I had to go.

11 July

I woke in Sangatan to find power restored to the city and had a leisurely morning before catching the bus to Mile Sixteen, where Uncle Tan’s guesthouse and office is. I met the other dozen or so backpackers who would be joining me on the trip, paid my money, and jumped onto the bus for the three hour drive to the Kinabatangan River. Amongst my fellow travelers were Mark from Singapore who also amused himself by taking photos with his digital SLR, three French girls, Crystal, Christine, and Natalie, with whom I would be sleeping (or, more accurately, with whom I would be sharing a hut and keeping awake with my snoring), and three Dutch guys who had sensibly brought two bottles of scotch with them into the jungle to ward off the mosquitoes, tigers, crocodiles, and monkeys. I immediately ingratiated myself with them upon seeing their red-label hand luggage.

The river the colour of most low-land rivers in Asia - muck brown - which didn’t make for a good swimming river, not that I was tempted given the four metre estuarine crocodiles that inhabit the place.

Forty minutes by speed boat, during which we gawked at a few long tailed marques, probiscius monkeys, egrets, and hornbills, saw us to Uncle Tan’s jetty. Departing guests arrived at the same time, wearing gum boots which were covered in mud. We took the hint and rummaged through scores of mud-caked boots to find a boot that fit, and then again to find its mate. Appropriately clad, we set off for the five minute mud bash to Uncle Tan’s.

My travel agent in Kota Kinabalu had warned me that it would be very basic, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the camp was well set up and had all the luxuries I needed - mattresses, mosquito nets, French girls, and beer. I haven’t had such a good setup since the King of Nepal left me stranded in Katmandu with the same amenities on hand.

After settling in we were introduced to the staff, who went through the rigmarole of shaking the hand of every single guest. We were all well and truly sick of shaking hands after meeting fifteen staff.

We were then treated to a presentation of the animals that lived around the camp and along the river by one of the guides. His education included memorizing the Latin names of every animal and plant for which they had photos. It would have been great for a biologist or Italian tourists, had there been any, and had they been able to understand Latin with a strong Malaysian accent, but didn’t add much to my own body of knowledge, given that Latin names break up in my brain and dribble out my nose almost as soon as they enter my ear.

Dinner was great, although the chef was a bit annoyed that nobody went for his fish soup. The vegetables were delicious, as were the chicken and tofu dishes, so there wasn’t much space left in the stomach for soup, especially after a couple of beers. Not eating the soup was a bit of a compliment to the chef really, even though he didn’t quite see it that way.

We went for a night cruise down the river after dinner to spot monkeys, birds, and other wildlife. There were heaps of long tailed masques and a few proboscis monkeys, but no crocodiles. Our guide cleverly caught an unusual, probably endangered frog to show us and passed it to me to show around. While I was holding it for Mark to photograph it kept trying to jump out of my grip, so I had to hold it pretty firmly. It finally gave up trying to jump out of my hand. By the time I passed it on it seemed to have fallen asleep, so we left it sleeping upside down in the water. Poor blighter.

We were also treated to a very colourful kingfisher which sleeps at night and cooperated by sleeping on a branch over the water and not waking up with several spotlights on him and camera flashes going off in his eyes. Amazing. The French girls would have been jealous had they known at the time what they would be in for over the next two nights!

Back at the lodge I helped the Dutchmen make inroads into Johnnie Walker and amused myself by watching the monkeys come out to play. Despite giving the French girls a headstart at getting to sleep, they didn’t quite nod off before my own snorting drowned out the animal orchestra playing in the background. Crystal managed to wake me up once and was rewarded with five minutes of no snoring, but further attempts at lowering the volume failed.

12 July 2006

I woke up fresh and rested, although Crystal, Christine, and Natalie seemed a little tired. We went for an early morning boat cruise and saw more of the same.

After morning tea we went for a jungle trek. Mark and I amused ourselves by taking photos of an odd assortment of spiders, insects and bats, which was about all there was to see for the first hour. We were about to turn back when our guide noticed a rustle directly above us: an orangutan with a week old kid. Now this was more like it. We spent about forty minutes chasing the poor mother and kid from tree to tree with our cameras before she finally had enough and climbed up a tall tree to get out of camera range. It’s not only movie stars that get hassled! The kid seemed almost human in its facial expressions - very similar to a human baby, although I took more than a week to start climbing ten metres up trees.

The afternoon boat cruise was more of the same, but we got a very pleasant surprise when we returned to camp - the staff had brought ice in from town, so we had wonderful cold beer. Any thoughts about joining the night jungle trek vanished instantly.

While everyone else was out trekking through knee deep mud in the jungle looking for god knows what (and not find it anyway, from the reports after the trek) the Dutch guys and I looked after the camp. Specifically, we looked after the beer, nursed the Johnnie Walker, and watched the monkeys create a mess in the kitchen. We never considered disturbing them but the size of their fangs would have given us second thoughts if we had. A few rounds of cards and about a hundred photos later (monkeys and wild boar - the civet cat was too fast for me) the others returned full of stories about seeing a big spider. Yippee!

The generator was supposed to be turned off at 11:30pm, but bribery works wonders in this part of the world. It only cost one beer to keep it on until close to 1am. I finally headed to bed at about 2am, already aware that I wouldn’t be doing the early morning river cruise and hoping the poor French girls would be in a deep sleep. Alas, they were only sleeping lightly and were soon awake, annoyed, and trying everything to stop me snoring. I didn’t even wake up when they pitched me out of bed, so I had a nice restful sleep.

13 July 2006

Bloody monkeys. I awoke at dawn, as I usually do, after a restful sleep, and, after morning ablutions, headed to the kitchen to fix myself a cup of coffee. I was the first human there, but the kitchen was already occupied with a troop of monkeys. Most of them ran the opposite way when I approached so that I was between the dominant males and the females when I walked up the steps. They weren’t very welcoming. In fact, they were downright rude, displaying their fangs and growling at me. There was no way I was going to be cowered by three little monkeys, but I suddenly remembered an urgent appointment twenty metres away streaked off with the little devils in close pursuit. Well, only for ten metres, but it was enough to get my adrenaline pumping. The whole troop made for the trees and exited the camp via the tin roof of my hut, waking up the French girls who had finally managed to fall asleep, By the time they were nearly asleep again, I was back in my bed sawing through logs. They were in pretty bad shape when they returned from the morning river cruise, the highlight of which was a single crocodile which slid into the water before half of them had seen it.

We went for another ride up the river after breakfast to watch monkeys at play. Damn they shag a lot. No wonder the monkey population is so huge.

We had morning tea, got a debrief form the staff, and headed for the boats for our trip back. All went back to Sepilok except for Mark and me; we caught a bus directly to Semporna to dive at Sipadon island.

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Photos

An alpha male proboscis monkey displaying his proboscises
Proboscis: "Any of various elongated or extensible tubular organs"

A local wild boar
This fella is very lucky he's in a Muslim area!