Borneo

Pygmy elephants on the river bank

Borneo was somewhere Phil had always wanted to visit. It seemed like such a remote place with exotics animals, dense rainforests and meandering rivers. We hoped to enjoy some walking in the rainforest and to see some of the wildlife like the Oranutang that is only found on Borneo and Sumatra.

We arrived in Borneo on a flight from Perth with a short stop in Kula Lumpa. We landed in Kota Kinabalu in the north east of Borneo in the Sabah area. We had booked a tour whilst we were in Australia that consisted of a short internal flight and then a 3 hour boat trip from KK down the Kinabatangan River to the Sakau River Lodge for 2 nights and then transfering from there by road to Borneo Rainforest Lodge in the Danum Valley for 2 nights. The Kinabatangen river was how you would imagine a river to be in a rainforest, muddy brown water with luscious green vegetation on either side consisting of mangroves and various types of palm trees. We entered the river from the sea and followed it upstream into the rainforest. After about 2 hours along the we were lucky enough to see a herd of Pygmy Elephants on the river bank. The video below shows a short clip of this.

The Borneo pygmy elphants are unique to Borneo and are a subspecies of the Asian pygmy elephant. It was amazing to see them in the wild and be so close to them. They were obviously used to boats going up and down the river as they seemed very relaxed whilst we stopped to look at them. 

A village on the Kinabatangen River

Afternoon river safari

We arrived at the Suka River Lodge and after a quick check in we were ready to go on the first of many river safaries. We were ready with our binoculars and camera to see the wildlife that presented itself. Luckily the guides are very good at spotting the various species. Without them I don't think we would have seen much. They have really sharp eyes! After a while we turned off into a narrower tributary river and the guide soon began to be excited and told us that there was an orangutan in one of the trees. After a while we spotted it too and manged to take a photo. We have many photos of the various animals that we have seen but few good photos. Without having specialist equipment and waiting all day for the perfect picture it is difficult to take good pictures from a moving boat of small animals in trees.

Our first picture of an Orangutan

Either a short or long tailed Macaque

The orangutans have a specific smell and after a while we were able to tell that there was one close by! There were several other more common monkey specicies to spot in the trees like the short and long tailed Macagues. These were very acrobatic and often did spectacular jumps.

A Proboscis Monkey

A Red Leaf Monkey

One of the more difficult monkeys to spot is the Proboscis Monkey with its characteristic big noise. Again we were lucky and saw one of these although it was difficult to get a good portait picture! The Red Leaf Monkies were more obliging.

At night we went on night safaries in the small boats. The guides had powerful torches that the would shine along the river banks and up into the trees. They could spot the wildlife seeing the reflection from their eyes. Again, they were very good at spotting things from a distance and would suddenly change direction and cruise over to what they had seen. Some of the animals that we saw but were hard to photograph at night were monkies (trying to sleep) in the branches of the trees, snakes, lizards, a Civet (a bit bigger than a domestic cat), various birds and two baby crocodiles.

A Kingfisher at night

A White Stork

The Kingfishers were easier to photograph as we learnt that they see badly in the dark and so once they have landed on a branch for the night they do not want to take off again because it is so difficult for them to land on another branch in the dark.

The video below is a short clip from an electric motor boat. Being electric it is very quiet giving more of a chance to see some of the wildlife without scaring it off.

Another short video showing a Long Tailed Macaque taken from one of the boats:

  

A Fig tree with a large buttress

The second lodge was based around walking as opposed to boat trips in the first lodge. Walking in the rainforest was wonderful but it was hot and humid. We also wore leech socks to try and stop the leeches from getting in and sucking our blood. They worked very well as neither of us got bitten by them although we did get some on our clothing and noticed them before they could set to work.

As the name suggests, it rains a lot in a rainforest. However, whilst we were there it only rained on one of the evening walks. This was great because if it had rained I think we would have got just as wet from our own sweat from under our rain coats as from the rain itself. We had carried our walking boots with us so at least we got to use them every day in Borneo. They got very muddy and so the special boot cleaning area at the lodge came in very handy.

Traditional dress at meal times

The Borneo Rainforest Lodge

The Borneo Rainforest Lodge was a fantastic place to stay - luxury in the jungle. The restaurant food was excellent and many of the tables were on a covered balcony looking out towards the river and the towering trees on the other side. It had a very relaxing feel to it and it would have been nice to stay there for another night. Because of a slight mix up and the previous lodge we had been upgraded to a deluxe room with a large outdoor bath on the balcony. We used this after the two afternoon treks and sat in the warm water looking out over the river listening to the birds and various other strange jungle noises as the sun went down - very enjoyable! 

Early morning mist

The authorities have made national parks out of the remaining virgin or primary rainforest areas. Most of the rainforest is now secondary rainforest meaning that the ancient forest has been cut down and new trees planted or they have grown again naturally. Borneo was a poor country and the high quality wood from the forest gave them capital to improve the country. Many of the areas have been replanted with huge (ugly) areas of Palm Oil Plantations. Although this gives sustainable income from three crops a year it has also forced the wildlife to move to other locations and threatens extinction for some of them. The Bornian Rhinoceros is one of the animals under threat since there are now very few of them left. It was no surprise that we didn't see one. Our guide had never seen one in the wild. Another hard to see animal that we also didn't see was the Snow Leopard.

Swimming in the Jacuzzi Pool

One of the walks passed the "Jacuzzi Pool" on the way back to the lodge. This was an idyllic natural pool at the bottom of a waterfall. We were all very hot at this point so it was very refreshing to take a swim. The pool also contained small fish that are used in Asia as means of cleansing your feet. If you stood still or sat at the edge with your feet in the water then about 20 – 30 fish would come and eat the dead skin from your feet. It felt like the fish had teeth and you could only bear it for about 20 seconds before pulling your feet out. We saw these fish in tanks in towns where you had to pay for putting your feet in. This natural experience was enough for us.

Mount Kinabalu

At the end of our rainforest lodge trip we had a three hour 4WD trip on a fairly good gravel road back to the small local airport. On the way the driver suddenly stopped and pointed out a lone male pygmy elephant just coming out of the trees and onto the road. It had just torn a branch off a tree and was carrying it with its trunk. We were sat in the SUV watching and taking photos out the window. We were a safe distance away but the elephant wasn't too happy with us watching. It made a trumpeting noise and walked aggressively towards us. The driver moved the SUV a bit further away and the elephant stopped. It soon started to move towards us again and so the driver said that it was safest for us to drive off since the lone males can be aggressive. We readily agreed. We landed back in KK in the evening. The next day we took a day trip into the Kinabalu Park where south east Asia's tallest mountain is at a height of just under 4000 metres. We saw it from a distance. It takes two days to trek up it with a guide but we decided to spend our time in the rainforest rather than climb it.

World's biggest flower - The Rafflesia

Protecting the Rafflesia from Phil

The Kinabalu Park has the very rare Rafflesia Flower that is infact the biggest flower in the world and can measure up to one metre in diameter. It takes 15 months to bud and then the bloom only lasts for 7 days. Known buds are protected by fences since it is very fragile. If the flowering bud is touched by a human hand it will die. Lucky locals with one growing on their land charge tourists like us to see it. It didn't cost very much but we were very glad we paid to see it. We spent the rest of the day looking around a botanical garden and walking the high canopy pathway.

The next day it was time to leave and to fly north to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Southern Vietnam. This will be the last leg of this part of our trip and will include Cambodia's Angkor Wat - somewhere else we've always wanted to visit.