Jungle Living & English Tea

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We arrived in Sandakan around 10ish in the morning and we took a taxi to uncle tans base. We had our buffet lunch then were driven to the jetty where we took our long tail boat downstream on the river to the jungle camp. On the way we saw loads of birds, a crocodile and lots of long tail macaques on the river bank. Fingers crossed for an Orang utan!

We hopped off and were greeted by Lan the camp manager. We were assigned a hut which would fit all of us. We got only the basics - three double (but Asian sizes) mattresses with mosquito nets and a plastic bin to put our food in so that the rats didn’t chew holes in our bags. After dinner we set off for a night time river safari where we spotted a reticulated python, crocodile which dove as soon as it saw us and lots and lots of owls. We were all tired from our flight and so got to bed early.

The following morning we got up early for our morning boat ride at 6:30am. We started well spotting two otters running along the riverbank as well as loads of hornbill birds and eagles. After this we saw pretty much nothing for an hour other than a few of the common macaque monkeys. Our guide decided to turn the boat around and we were all a little fed up, but on the way back he stopped the boat and drove to the river bank pointing up into the trees frantically. He had spotted an Orang utan! Although it took a while for us all to make it out way up there in the trees we eventually made out its shape, long arms picking leaves from the tree and an unmistakable orange glow. Then we spotted another on another branch! What a turnaround, we were convinced we wouldn’t see any in the wild! On the way back we were lucky enough to see one more, along with some gibbons sitting up in the trees.

After breakfast the camp guys play football and our boys joined in playing for the tourist team. Dad was being acrobatic in goal while Angelo and Jordan were on the pitch. They won the first game huffing and puffing!!

Following breakfast we headed out for our jungle trek which was only 800metres from camp where we saw critters and different types of plants. We were in the ‘crocodile’ group which consisted of the five of us plus a young English guy and a Bulgarian guy called Victor who was very trigger happy with the old camera. He provided lots of entertainment over the 2 days (not that he knew it) especially for our guide Tong Tong who found him hilarious.

After lunch we lazed about and had a little siesta, before waking up for our evening river cruise. We apparently saw some proboscis monkeys although they were too far in the trees to see the famous big nose. Someone spotted and Orang utan and everyone got out onto the river bank to get a look. We saw it swing from the trees and picking leaves but it was doing a very good job of hiding from us all. We went further down the river to see the flying foxes which was amazing to watch! There were thousands of them covering the night sky as they headed off for dinner!! On the way back we spotted one last crocodile which we scared off and it dived away.

That evening we joined the camp guys for a sing song and a few drinks before the night trek. Dad and Deb gave it a miss so we went with Jordan and the other two crocodile members into the jungle following Tong Tong. We saw loads of sleeping birds close up, some tiny frogs and Debbie and Jordan saw a civet cat before Victor came and scared it away by trying to ‘make a picture’.

After breakfast the boys played football whilst the girls packed up and we said our goodbyes to the camp guys. We recommend uncle tans as it’s not just about the animals it’s also about the camp guys who do everything to make you stay great.

At uncle tans base we had lunch and hopped onto a taxi and went to Sabah hotel – you couldn’t get anything more different from our jungle hut! We checked in and had a shower and hung out on the pool. That evening we had a BBQ dinner in the hotel and were early to bed, all worn out from our jungle experience.

The next day was spent around the hotel pool and in the evening we went into Sandakan town to have a look around. We found somewhere to eat local food and after Dad and Angelo sat and watched the F1 on TV while the other three went shopping and found an amazing multi-storey shop that sold everything.

After some more pool time we spent the next afternoon at an English teahouse. This was amazing. There was croquet available with all other things English including Pimms and cream tea. Lunch was fantastic and one can recommend the chicken and leek pie!! Dad was rather sad he had the last one and there was no more left for takeaway!!

The following day we hired a car and went to see crocodile farm first which was amazing to see these massive crocs lying feet away. We had one croc tried to jump out of the moat at us – they also have other animals there you can feed including otters, monkeys and deer. Following this we headed off to the Orang utan sanctuary at Sepilok to watch feeding time. Although these are only semi-wild it was great to see them so close up – the big one even came up to the viewing platform to say hi and we followed him all the way back out!

We dropped our little car off at the airport and caught our flight back to KL where we spent only around 12 hours at the Citrus hotel collecting our bags, repacking and catching some sleep before our flight to Singapore.


Deb & Ang

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