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Published: August 11th 2007
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We got collected by Uncle Tan's at 12.45pm & taken to the base in Gum Gum , about a ten minutes drive from Sepilok. We had lunch there, filled in our registration forms, read up about our stay in the jungle & got the chance to go to the supermarket to get some snacks & much needed insect repellant.
We recognised a guy there who also came & said he recognised us, it turns out we were room mates with in Cheng-Du in China, (Joel), its a small world. We left in two minibuses, (about 20 of us), at about 2.30pm & drove for about an hour to get to the jetty on the river at about 3.45pm.
We got several long boats down the river, our capital was Yan & pointed out lots of wildlife as we passed it along the river, including Long Tail Macaques, Proboscis Monkeys, (the males have a very funny nose), & several birds, we arrived at camp at about 5.15pm & had to walk fro about five minutes through a very muddy area, I ended up putting my left foot ankle deep in mud, it was quite funny & Claire laughed so much
she slipped & almost landed in the mud.
Claire & I had a room to ourselves for the first night, the huts we were staying in had a wooden roof & were wooden all the way around to about waist height then wire mess from where the wood finished to the roof, the back & sides were covered in plastic & the door was a hinged wire mess door. We had a mattress each & a mosquito net, there were no showers, just buckets & rain water to wash with, (bet some of you are turning your nose up now this was proper hard core jungle life!)
We all sat & got acquainted in the communal area & at 7.30pm we had a briefing about our stay at Uncle Tan's, all of the team went round & shook everyone's hand & we got told what we would be doing during our stay.
Afterwards at 8pm we had dinner & then at 9pm headed out for our night boat safari. We saw a couple of Kingfishers sleeping in the trees, a couple of owls, a small crocodile on the banks of the river, the eyes of another crocodile sticking
out of the water, long tail macaque monkeys & Proboscis monkeys; it was exciting going out in the dark. When we got back Claire & I had a few beers with a few of the guys who worked at Uncle Tan's, (Tony & Ampong) & played cards, we spotted a civet cat wandering around camp & managed to get a photo. At 1am the generator went off & we had to rely on our torches so Claire & I went to bed.
Something was outside our hut in the middle of the night, making a lot of noise, I could see its silhouette but couldn't make out exactly what it was, although I think it was a civet cat. We got up at 6am, (I was shattered), & had a black coffee before heading off on our morning safari, (I never drink black coffee & now I have started drinking black tea & coffee as the milk in Asia is disgusting syrup like condensed milk).
The morning boat trip was really good, we saw a big crocodile on the banks of the river, another croc, a family of otters who were racing along the river bank, a pair
of blue kingfishers, a fish eagle, a rhinoceros hornbill & black hornbill, (birds), & other animals. We went back & had breakfast & Lan, (the boss of Uncle Tan's) took Claire & I out to try & find the big crocodile that everyone had seen upstream, unfortunately we couldn't find him but saw his tracks.
At 10.30am we went for our morning trek through the jungle with Ampong as our guide, we saw some leeches, frogs, a massive spider, loads of armoured centipedes & a monitor lizard. I'm so glad I borrowed some wellies as at one point the mud was over my ankle & it was pulling my welly off.
As we were having lunch a big bearded pig & two smaller pigs came into camp & I got a couple of good photos of them, then the monkeys started to invade camp & distract everyone on one side while other monkeys on the other side pinched the food.
After lunch we had some free time so we had a wash with the rain water, which was actually ok, we then had a little sleep read some of our books. At 5pm we went out on
our afternoon boat trip at dusk & saw three crocodiles, Proboscis Monkeys, long tail macaques, hornbills & another bird which one bird spotter, George from America, got so excited about. There was a massive monitor lizard asleep on a branch over the river, trapping a macaque monkey, he looked so confused, he didn't know what to do.
We headed back & had dinner at 8pm & at 9pm Lan took us out for our night jungle trek, it was so funny because there was me in my wellies & my long sleeved shirt so I didn't get attached by mosquitos & Lan didn't even put any shoes or a t-shirt on, I think he was mental!
Lan was the best at spotting the wildlife & he had taken us out on our morning & afternoon boat trips. We saw a poisonous centipede, 3 scorpions, (2 of which Claire spotted), another different type of scorpion that sprays smelly liquid, like a skunk, that isn't poisonous but if the spray goes in your eyes it can blind you temporarily. A long legged spider, a long legged centipede, a couple of wolf spiders, a cricket frog, loads of tree frogs, A
the smallest species of frog in Borneo, a couple of crabs, (yes I know mad to see crabs in a jungle in the mud!) a sleeping Kingfisher & on the way home a tarantula.
Lan was disappointed as he wasn't able to catch one of the scorpions, he usually does & warned us that anyone in his group would be holding the scorpion when he caught it, Claire looked really excited, I told him where to go!
When we got back Claire & I had a few beers with our friend Rob from Bristol, (I don't think there is anyone left in Bristol, everyone we meet seems to be from there & he used to work at Lloyds TSB as well - small world!)
We went to bed at 1am after they turned the generator off, (I think they wanted to get rid of us!) After another early morning on Friday, (6am), we had a coffee & went on our boat trip at 6.30am, our best yet.
We saw lots of birds, a mother & baby Orangutan, (at a distance in the trees) & a large male Orangutan quite close up in the trees. We also
saw a massive crocodile really close up, (plus two others), Proboscis Monkeys, long tail macaques, hornbills & other birds as well as a Mangrove snake.
We had breakfast when we got back, packed & left camp after a group photo at 10am. We got a boat back to the jetty & a minibus to Lahad Datu, (where they have modern day pirates with speed boats & machine guns), then very quickly swopped onto a minibus to Semporna, arriving there at about 3pm.
I totally loved the two days in the jungle, I had heard good reports about Uncle Tan's but they totally exceeded my expectations & the guys who ran the place were great hosts & knew their animals! They even taught Claire & I a new card game which is really funny & one of them, Tony, thought my parents were Indian, hilarious!
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