Blogs from Kinabatangan, Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 6

Saturday, May 30th We got up early for our morning river cruise. At 06:00 we started up the river, Rusty at the helm, his keen eyes scanning the river bank and jungle for animals and birds. First we saw an Orangutan nest, then a troop of Long-Tailed Macaque, also Proboscis Monkeys, Kingfishers, a Purple heron, a Brahminy Kite, two Monitor Lizards, two Crocodiles, a Pied Hornbill, a few Black-and-Red Broadbills and a couple of Great Egret. Back at camp we had breakfast, then relaxed for a bit. Talita spotted a huge monitor lizard and we attempted to follow it. Later, while Talita took a nap, Ferdi followed the lizard, found it and managed to get a photo before it disappeared into the river. We had neglected to bring our chargers for the cameras and both were ... read more

We met our new friend Laura at a guesthouse in KK (Kota Kinabalu) the capital of Sabah state in Malaysian Borneo. Laura motivated us to see as much of Borneo as time would allow. After spending a couple days lurking in KK we set off to the Kinabatangan River for a three day two night stay in the jungle to look for wildlife. We sped off on a bus up the twisty mountain road past impressive Mt. Kinabalu with jungle valleys spotted with villages and mountain farm plots on steep terraces. Very impressive country. A bit of a mixup at our pick up point as our guest house didn't bother to book us in for the package despite the fact we had already paid a steep deposit. Anyways the helpful staff of the Kinabatangan Nature Lodge ... read more

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After spending a few days in Sandakan (at the homey Winho Lodge) trying to wait out the floods at Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp, we finally decided that it was time to get a move on and instead booked our Kinabatagan River safari through the Bilit Safari camp. Turns out this place was flooded too (I guess the week before we arrived in Borneo they had experienced some torrential downpours, and while we were lucky enough to arrive afterwards, we still came across some of the flooding aftermath), however, they had an alternate plan in place. We were picked up by some random dude in his Toyota Corolla about 45 minutes before we had arranged-which sent us into a frantic packing frenzy-and transported two and a half hours south to the Kinabatagan River. The river is "the" ... read more

Tuesday 17th February 09: Today we headed over to the hostel to wait for the transfer to Sukau for the jungle river cruise and trek. The camp we were supposed to be staying in (in Bilit) had flooded so we were transferred to Sukau instead. We had a quick spot of lunch at a cafe round the corner and tried the Nasi Goreng Kinabalu seeing as it was named after the mountain we'd been to see - fried rice with chicken - nice. It took us 2 hours from Sandakan to Sukau and the bus driver explained the process of making palm oil to us as we passed through all the palm oil plantations. Our first river cruise was at 4pm and we got into a little wooden boat and motored quietly down the river. We ... read more