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Published: September 5th 2009
Sunday 30th August 2009 We had a leisurely morning as the first day of our 3D / 2N jungle trip didn't start until 2.30pm. We made our way down the road from Labuk B&B to the Uncle Tan Operational Base, the company we are heading into the jungle with. The staff at the B&B had given us an idea of what to pay for a taxi to Uncle Tans (RM3-4), but the taxi drivers weren't cooperating, they were asking RM10. It was interesting trying to haggle with them, to see how far they would go and at what point they would walk away. Well, initially they walked at RM10. Even the guy at the back of the queue wasn't interested in negotiating - and he'd be back in line before anyone even left SORC so no chance of missing a fare. About five minutes later, another taxi driver walked over and started chatting. A pleasant preamble to our discussions on what we are prepared to pay. He at least finally got down to RM5. Thats only NZ$2.50, so not too much for a 2km max ride, but still we weren't quite ready to give in. Then a tour operator pulled
up with his empty tour bus and accepted our offer of RM4. Handy bit of cash on the side for him, he was passing Uncle Tans anyway.
Once at Uncles Tans, we still didn't do too much! We managed to catch up on the news about Alastair (if you are reading this, hope you are feeling ok!), posted a blog (yup, as usual we are behind a ways!) and checked the football.
After lunch, we headed out in a couple of minibuses to the Kinanatangan River. We started out on tar seal for ½ hour or so, then turned off and drove through a palm plantation for about an hour. The 'road' got rough in patches, metal / gravel all the way, and we lost A/C in the van when we bottomed out half way along. At the river, we transferred into 8 seater run-abouts and headed off up the river. We had a 15 minute or so wildlife spotting trip before turning around and going to the camp site. This not only gave us chance to spot something, but also enabled the boats to turn up a few minutes apart to allow better unloading - clever! Not
that we saw a lot...
Critter Count (getting to the camp: long-tailed macaques, short or pig-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys, stork-billed kingfisher, rhinoceros hornbill, egret, some kind of bird of prey.
The camp is pretty basic really. We have a thin foam mattress (double) under a mossie net in a hut with two other couples. By hut I mean floor, half height solid walls, rest mesh, roof and small porch, all on stilts. There is a dining / lounging hut (benches and tables), a “lecture” hut, toilet block and boardwalks joining everything. The sleeping huts are spread out over about 100m of boardwalk, with the dining hut at one end and the toilets at the other. Compared to the camps we stayed in when we did that jungle trip in the Amazon (sorry, not blogged, you'll have to ask us about it!!), this place is pretty luxurious! We were shown a black python under a bush on the edge of camp, apparently it had eaten that morning and was now resting and digesting. Not a huge snake (~1m long and 100mm across) but pretty big for getting that close to it!
After a welcome lecture and dinner (buffet
style, plenty of dishes to choose from) we went out on a night boat “safari”. It wasn't great, we didn't go far and saw very little. It didn't help that the guides light was poor, but then the other boats didn't see anything either.
Critter Count (evening boat trip): kingfisher, fantail, macaques, proboscis monkeys (aggressive, but then so would you be if you were woken up with a bright light shone in your face)
Monday 31st August 2009 Happy Malaysian Independence Day
We were up just after 6am for the morning boat safari. The sky was clear after last nights storm. We went down river (opposite way from last night and from the jetty where we joined the river) from the camp, and came across plenty of deforestation, palm plantations almost right up to the rivers edge in places. Quite depressing really, the extent of the damage, and we were surprised that we saw anything. Most of you will be aware of our feelings on this though, so we'll leave it alone for now.
The river was quite wide and fast moving, full of logs etc., some “windfalls” and others that had been illegally cut.
Just up from the camp there is a small houseboat moored with a heap of logs tied up to it. According to the guides, these are all illegally logged but there isnt anything they can do about it.
We did see a reasonable amount, although it was more numbers of the same animal / bird, rather than lots of different things. The best of course were the orang-utans, sitting in the fig trees having their breakfast. One tree per orang-utan as they are quite solitary creatures. Most were shy, climbing further up into the trees as we puttered underneath. The guides and boat men were great, as soon as we were close to something, they'd cut the engines and we'd drift along by it. Then they'd fire them up again, sweep round, cut them and we'd drift past again. Or if possible, they'd stick the nose of the boat into the bank then cut the engines. One boat at a time getting close and we'd leave at the first signs of distress. They weren't just caring, they were very knowledgeable too.
Critter Count (morning boat trip): orang-utans, long & short tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys, gibbons, egrets, rhinoceros and
looking for gumboots
preferably dry and the right sizepied hornbills, white bellied sea eagles.
Mid morning we hopped back in the boats and went up river about 15 minutes. We then got out of the boats and did an hours “jungle trek”. We didn't go far from the river, just wandered round a small area not seeing much. It was really hot and sweaty, but not as many mossies as we expected. Plenty of mud, vines and trees, not really boring as it was nice to get out, but there wasn't a lot to see.
Critter Count (morning jungle walk): woodman (?) butterfly, harvestman (like a small bodied daddy long legs), red legged millipede, Frill Tree frog (small, brown). Plus a few other random insects and butterflies that flew past.
Nothing much going on at the camp until the afternoon boat safari. It was too hot with little breeze under the trees. We tried having a siesta but we needed our hammocks and nets outside, not being stuck under the net in the hut.
The evening boat safari went up river (according to the guides, the orang-utans are down river only, other monkeys are up river) for a hour or two of slightly underwhelming
wildlife spotting. It started raining almost as soon as we left, and kept drizzling on and off the whole time. The best part of this trip was seeing all the flying foxes at dusk, hundreds upon hundreds of them flying overhead. We also saw a new (for us) type of monkey and witnessed an ongoing impressive lightning display.
[Critter Count (evening boat trip): long & short tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys, silver leaf monkey, albino silver leaf monkey (orange/red colour as opposed to silver), stork billed kingfisher, flying foxes.
The night walk after dinner was perhaps the best activity so far. Obviously there were no orang-utans, but we did see some other cool stuff. The walk started out the back of the toilet block, and like the walk earlier, just wandered round a small area. The rain held off for the first ¾ hour, but we ended up walking round in a good tropical downpour.
Critter Count (night walk): Comb crested agamid (chameleon / lizard), Scarlet Rumped Trogons (birds), flying lizard, civet (not close), Ashy Tailorbird, Black backed kingfisher, Hooded Pita (apparently rare, too wet to get the camera out though).
Tuesday 1st September 2009 As
the number of new tourists that arrived last night was quite low, some of us got to go on another morning boat ride. Usually the last morning doesn't have any activities for the outgoing group. By some of us, I really mean those of us that made the effort to get up at 6am again. Four of us. Rather than put us in our own boat (had there been more people) and send us up river, we got to join the new groups boats and go down river. Yay - more orang-utans!!!
This time we only (!!) saw three, but only because we spent so long with one of them that we ran out of time.
The first orang-utan was the same one we saw first yesterday, a shy female who climbed high tog et away from us. The third was a large male, even more shy and hid rather than just turn his back like the female.
The second orang-utan was the best experience by far (even better than agamids and trogons). An 8 year old male, obviously used to boat loads of people stopping by, sitting down near the waters edge eating some figs. He
climbed a little higher when we first turned up, and rattled some vines at us in a (token?!) show of aggression, then sat there and watched as we got out of the boat for a closer look. As soon as we got back in the boat, even though the boat didn't move away from the bank, he came back down the tree to the figs and sat about 4-5m away from us tucking in. Every so often, he'd look at us, almost with a grin, pretty relaxed and used to people. Good thing? Bad thing? What was a bad thing was that throughout the whole time we spent with this orang-utan, we could hear voices and machinery from the plantation just behind the trees. The poor little guy doesn't stand a chance. None of them do.
We left the “jungle” and made our way to the town of Ranau. More on that next time.
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Brian Lawson
non-member comment
its your last week
Hi its your old work mate, You know the one who some times gives you a ride home after work. Just read your blogs, The leech's look like fun but the under water photos don't look to bad. Don't think much of your room mates could do with a shave they all look a bit hare to me. Must be the heat don't worry you've only got a week left I'm shore it wont affect you. Unless of course you get bit by any leech's plenty to gossip about when you get home just have a grate last week sorry did I say last week ? Your frend and mine Brian utan Lawson.