Christmas with Orang-Utans, elephants and more!
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2006
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104
155
Trip End
May 27, 2008
Kampung Bilet,
Malaysia
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
We were dropped off at some coffee shop and met the guide who was organising our transport out to the river and to the lodge. After a long bumpy bus ride and a quick boat trip we made it to the Nature Lodge where we met a few other tourists, mostly people on short trips traveling together so as a backpacker I was a minority. Two girls there were from Australia and it happened that one of them had been sick in the same hostel I was in Huaraz, Peru, been looked after by the same little old man there and it was her favourite place she visited in South America which is the same for me. Not only that but she'd worked in the monkey sancuary that I went out of the way to visit in Bolivia. Small world and it gave us plenty to talk about. She and her sister had also just climbed Kinabalu and they had some nice photos.
That evening we were taken up the river by boat to search for some of the local wildlife. All of the staff at the lodge are locals and have been brought up on the riverside and were very knowledgeable and friendly.
View from the bus
We saw an Orang-Utan and numerous types of monkeys-Probiscus, Long-Tailed Macaques, Silver Langurs and no idea what else! After dinner we were given a wildlife talk by the guy in charge, (Papa Bear!) and headed off on a night safari with our local guide Jay. We didn't see any mammals but plenty of leeches and lots of other things such as stick insects, a night bird, scorpion, whip-scorpion, frogs and spiders. I held a scorpion which actually felt quite nice and wasn't that scary since I knew it couldn't sting me unless I touched its back.The next morning we woke at 5:45 and headed off on another boat trip in search of more wildlife. This time we saw monitor lizards, birds, a mangrove snake and a few monkeys. After breakfast we went on a hike through the thick mud in the jungle (and more leeches) to Ox-Bow Lake which was nice and after lunch myself and two english guys (Jay and George) decided to take out a kayak each and explore the river. I didn't see much apart from more white Egrets and a monkey but the guys discovered a tiny tributory that we later learnt lead to the Ox-Bow lake and it was possible to kayak all the way there so we planned to do that the following day (xmas day!). Jay wasn't much into wildlife and was only there to keep his friend George happy which I found quite strange as I love watching monkeys. We'd been told that there are herds of pygmy elephants in the jungle and were shown photos from when they came to the lodge and destroyed a few things (they've since put up an electric fence!). Jay said he would be keen to see elephants but wasn't that bothered for monkeys and decided not to come on the evening boat trip. George joked that he would bribe us all to say we saw elephants just to annoy him and low and behold our guide Lewis spotted a herd of elephants no less than 10 minutes into the journey! This I didn't expect to see and Lewis said that it's a rare occurance and they tend to see them only every few months. There were at least 14 including a baby and as there were eating on the riverbank we got so close in the boat. We saw more monkeys and when we returned Jay was obviously quite miffed and learned his lesson that you never know what you may see on each trip offered there! After dinner I did the night hike again and this time held an even bigger scorpion which I managed to get a photo of.
The early boat trip on Christmas morning was good as I spotted an Orang-Utan which the guide hadn't noticed. Great present! After breakfast myself, George, Jay and an older guy took the kayaks out and went up the Tributory to Ox-Bow lake where we met the rest of the group that had hiked there that day. Although we didn't see any wildlife it was a really scenic trip and the weather was a perfect sunny day! After lunch (which wasn't anything special for xmas day unfortunately) we played card games then went out on the evening boat trip where the guide (Lewis) on my boat spotted a crocodile in the undergrowth - he had eyes like a hawk! We went past the boat with the others from the lodge and I did an action of crocodile jaws with my arms to let them know what we'd just seen. On the way back to the lodge we saw a gorgeous Kingfisher and were lucky enough to see elephants again which pleased jay since he'd missed out the day before. Back at the lodge I showed the group that went on the larger boat the picture of the crocodile - they'd thought I was joking when they saw me do my crocodile jaw action earlier on! As it was Christmas day I wore my reindeer headband that Suzie (German girl i travelled the West Coast of Oz with) had bought me and had my obligatory photo taken and then gave it away to the young local girl living at the lodge. She seemed pretty pleased and it seemed a shame to throw them away. I decided not to do the night hike again as i was pretty tired.
Today did the early morning boat trip, saw more big birds and was then taken back to the main highway and put on a bus to Semporna where I'd booked a dive trip the following day at Sipidan Island. I went straight to the dive company and the lady sent me away to her restaurant for a free lunch since i'd not eaten. I had sweet and sour deer with rice which tasted so good (well at least it said it was deer) and decided to stay at the accommodation owned by the dive company (Uncle Chang) on Mabul Island. On the boat I met an interesting Danish girl who'd been traveling around Indonesia and was booked to dive with me the following day. We shared a room and had some interesting chats. During the evening meal I met some rock climbers who told me there were lots of places to go in Thailand which is great to know. Tomorrow we dive off Sipidan Island which is supposed to be one of the best areas in the world and I can't wait! The water here is so clear that we saw a big tuttle about a metre long off the platform outside our room!.
Possibly Mount Kinabalu?
