Bilit - Kinabatangan river

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We were heading out today to Kampung Bilit for our two night stay in The Last Frontier Lodge, based near the Kinabatangan river and in the rainforest. Kampung Bilit is a small village with 150-180 people whose livelihood depends very much on fishing and craftworks. The village consists of mainly of Orang Sungai, which literally means River People. After getting a little worried, as all our planning for this trip had been done over the internet, Gert (owner of the TLFL) finally arrived 20 minutes late. The journey to TLFL lodge took approx 2hrs in Gerts' 4x4, the road surface was very good apart from the occasional pot hole, until we got to the dirt track leading to TLFL. After 20 minutes on the dirt track we arrived at TLFL and the infamous 539 steps! Atfer putting our rucksacks on our backs (actually Ange paid a young lad 40p to carry hers!), we started the climb, 10 minutes later we were at the top....thank goodness for orange juice and water! The views from the top overlooking the rainforest and Kinabatangan river were breathtaking. The lodge has very small, with only 4 rooms, we were the only 2 people staying there this evening. At 4pm we had to go back down the steps ready for our 2 hour boat cruise down the Kinabatangan river. It is the second longest river in Malaysia, with a length of 560 kilometers from its headwaters in the mountains of southwest Sabah, to its outlet at the Sulu Sea, east of Sandakan. The river was a lot wider than we thought it would be and very dirty. Along the river we saw macaques, proboscis monkeys, a silver bearded monkey, crocodile, hornbills, kingfishers, egrets and many other birds. We had a lovely evening meal of corn soup and garlic bread followed by English fish and chips! After eating we decided to have an early night, those steps had taken it all out of us!!

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