Uncle Tan, the Orangutan man!
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2008
1
19
31
Trip End
Jun 05, 2008
Kinabatang River, Sabah,
Malaysia
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Uncle Tans is a small collection of wooden, em, cages tucked away off the Kinabatang River. It's practically impossible to find. It's on the edge of an oxbow lake but is so hidden by forest and tiny little water ways that you'd never spot unless you had a local boatman. Which we had. Uncle Tan stresses on every brochure or pamphlet that his camp is a no-frills jungle stop (which is fine for him, considering he lives in KL), so we knew what we were getting into.
And it really is no frills. We all shared a collection of, as I said, cages. The cage is for our protection as monkeys and God knows what else would be only too happy to get into our bags and have a look around. They probably wouldn't mind taking a bite out of us as we slept if they got the chance. The toilets are simple holes in a hut and the showers are a bucket and some river water
Argh! Scary spider!
. Basic. Everything has suffered from time in a rainforest. So it's damp, decaying but charming. So why come here? Well, because we're so remote we stand a very good chance of seeing lots of large wildlife.Even on the trip down river we saw long-tailed Macaques (we're getting used to them now) and so many Proboscis monkeys and hornbilled birds - both of whom live in Borneo and nowhere else. Remarkable! Even as we floated into camp a large monitor lizard swam along side. He turned out to be totally wild, but still the camp mascot. He's was a good 2 metres long!
After a ill advised game of football with the camp guides on the rivers edge (so hot, so unfit - although we won) it got dark, quickly and we were off on our nighttime boat ride. It wasn't long and we'd bumped into a little kingfisher, sitting less than a foot away from us, oblivious. There was a brief and controversial sighting of a croc (I reckon it was just a log) and some lovely frogs, but the heavens opened and we scampered back to camp.
It was our second day that the fun really began. We took an early morning boat cruise and saw Gibbon's swinging away in the distance - then - a totally wild Orangutan was spotted sitting in a fruiting tree. It was wonderful just seeing her happily munching on fruit in the distance. Our guide told us just how lucky we were to see Orangs, they're very rare these days and aren't sighted all that often. Next thing, we saw another. Much closer this time, a big male in another fruiting tree
Hornbill in a tree
. Everyone on board was giddy just sitting watching the big male hanging about.But it was about to get even better. So much better. We came back to camp for breakfast and someone said they'd seen two Orangutans high up in a tree behind our toilet. Yeah right, was the general reaction. Probably just a squirrel. But he was right, sitting high in the tree, right beside our camp, were two 'tans. A big dominant male (you can tell by the huge inflated flaps of skin on the side of their heads) and his missus. We were all watching in awe when remarkably, the swung down into a tree about 10 feet from us.
Well, it just about took our breath away. A totally wild primate, the second biggest in the world, was eating a termite nest just a few feet away. He sat their smacking his lips as he munch termites for a good hour. Nobody budged, we just watched. The guides where trying to form up for our 10am jungle hike. "Have a good time!" was the general response. Nobody wanted to go anywhere - including the Orangutan. What could we possibly see on a jungle hike that would be better than this?
After a bit, a few of us (guilty as charged) got a bit over confident and got a bit too close to him. Some very loud and alarming noises and a hurled branch later and we all scampered back to a respectful and safe distance. In the end, we left them be as they moved back off into the forest. It was a truly truly wonderful experience to be that close to something so wild, and big
Kingfisher - up close
. We ended up seeing them again on our delayed jungle hike, not more than 20 feet away. This time we got a better view of the female. Not sure what he sees in her frankly.We took a sunset boat trip up stream again and saw loads more Proboscis and Macaques. As another storm approached we watched them nimble fling themselves down through the trees to get out of the rain. Tens of them streaming around us. It was wonderful.
After that we went for a night hike through the jungle that was ridiculously muddy, hot and dark. It was great fun but practically impossible. We did see scorpions, another kingfisher and some weird and disturbing spiders before we sludged back to camp and our little cage.
It was the following morning that I realised how lucky we were. I was standing on the wooden path brushing my teeth, watching a giant monitor lizard swim past and listening to an Orangutan crashing through trees behind me (yes, that big male was back again. Might have to get a restraining order he's following us around so much), it was brilliant. Not long after that there was a Macaque attack on our camp. The little beggars came pouring out of the jungle and went after everything shiny and tasty. It was hillarious. One little one got hold of a can of condensed milk and we could see their collective frustration as a few of them sat around scratching their heads trying to work out how to get more milk out.
One of the guides mentioned how in his 5 years at the camp he'd only seen one big Orangutan at the camp. That shows you how lucky we were. Not to mention that this forest, with all the huge amount of wildlife we'd seen, really shouldn't exist. 50 years ago it was palm plantation but the government, in a rare incidence of environmentalism, turned it back over to the jungle and the life flooded back. It's a shame that so much of the rest of this part of Borneo is still plantation, but we've already had a whinge about that. So, thanks Unlce Tan, that was brilliant, but if that big Orangutan is sitting next to me on the bus tomorrow, I'm going to call the cops.
