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Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp
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In the morning we took the bus back out to Sepilok Junction, and got over to where we thought Uncle Tan's was. They dropped us off and we walked over to the sign, where there was an office that was all in boxes. Luckily it included a person as well. "You looking for Uncle Tan's Jungle camp?" awkward pause, "You in wrong place." Our hearts dropped, "Just kidding!" A few minutes later a pickup came and took us all over to the new Uncle Tan's site, just around the corner. This was the cause of all the confusion. When we got there we were greeted with lunch, a buffet of lots of delicious veggies, malay style. After paying we were all packed up in the minibus, ready for our adventure to begin.
As I sat down in my seat I looked at the girl who was sitting next to me, and realized I had met her somewhere. "Did I meet you in Adelaide?" She stared at me a second, and then we both remembered meeting on the balcony, and she said, "You were cooking on the bb-q!" Weird coincidence. I mean, you expect to run into people a few hundred miles away froim each other on land, but not thousands of miles from each place, on different continents. But, so travelling goes. The van ride was filled with how each of us had gotten on the past two months or so, and soon we were at the jetty loading supplies on the longboats. The afternoon ride in was gorgeous. The warm sun on our backs, and the cool wind in our faces, we scanned the riverside for animals. Each time we found one, our boat driver would veer off so we could have a look. In about an hours time we had reached the camp jetty, disembarked, and through on the rubber boots provided for the sloppy stomping to camp through the shin high mud.
At camp, we took a short break, getting to know some staff, and checking out the place. All of the buildings were on stilits, and all were connected by boardwalk. They have a very muddy soccer field, where they play Shanghai soccer, as they call it. After dinner, another gigantic buffet with more food than we could possibly eat together, we went for our night boat cruise. It was a bit eerie getting into the boats in the dark, but we hoped our driver new what he was doing. It turned out to be quite uneventful really. We saw a kingfisher, and a few other sleeping birds right up close, which was neat, and some crocodile eyes, but that was really the extent of it. The real party started when we returned to camp, where Lan, the camp manager, was celebrating with his second birthday party. He had been drinking since ten AM and decided I was going to be his friend. I got out my IPOD and started playing him some Bob Marley, and he just belted it out for everyone. He then asked me if I wanted a drink, to which I responded, of course. I thought maybe he was going to pull out some rice wine, or some moonshine, but instead he cut a plastic bottle in half, and proceeded to force me to funnel a beer. Unexpected, but good, as I was hoorayed at the end. We then smoked some, "Borneo weed", which ended up being just a ciggarette. Lan just kept forcing beers into our hands, and filled our heads with talk of chasing the elephants that had been sighted earlier that day. The night dragged a little later than we would have hoped, even though it was a lot of fun.
The 6 AM wake up call seemed a bit premature, but we got up anyways, a little bleary eyed from the night before. After some tea and toast we trudged our way back through the mud to the boats for our morning boat safari. We were not the only ones that werent at our sharpest, the guides had been drinking for two days. There was not too much animal spotting, as we got off a bit late, though we did see some monkeys, and some egrets. Late in the ride we saw a flock of hornbills flying quite low and got a great view of them. Magnificent birds. At the end of our one girl in the other boat though she saw something big in the bush, though when we got close no-one could be sure. We headed back, mostly to appease the aching head of our guide.
Breakfast, as were all the meals, was great. Our morning activity was to go trekking out into the jungle. It started off quite slow, finding small bugs, and such. Half an hour in or so, we found a lot of fruit under one tree, and our guide explained that it had been dropped by an orang-utan probably just a day ago. He told us that this was the best way to find the great apes. Ten minutes later we found similiar droppings, a bit fresher, and sure enough there was an adolescent male up there. We followed him after he was disturbed from the tree by us for a while. Swinging from branch to branch, vine to vine, or simply crawling his way through the canopy of a tree. For such a large creature he truly was majestic. After a while, he found himself a suitable hiding place, and we left him be to continue our walk. All along the way we found interesting creatures, and our guide explained the signs to follow to find them. There was a little bat that sleeps in an curled leaf, which was probably the most interesting. Then, as the midday sun began to wear us thin, we returned to camp for lunch.
I was tired, but couldn't quite sleep with all the action at camp. Long tailed Macaques attacked the supplies of white bread. A giant wild boar roamed the camp, so we watched him. A card game later, and it was time for the afternoon boat safari. Lan had promised us an elephant, and we all wanted to see him come through on his promise. We motored straight away a few kilometeres up stream to where they had been spotted the other day. More thumbnails ...
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