Thursday April 1 – Day 7 – Boat Cruise

We had a five hour mini bus journey to our next destination, the Kinabatangan River. The first part of the journey travelled along a good tarmac road, through little villages of wooden houses with metal rooves, some built on stilts, with pretty gardens of brightly coloured flowers. The back drop was a hill range blanketed with lush green vegetation. The next sector was palm plantations. Vast lands of palm trees as far as you could see all around. 57% of all Borneo’s palm oil comes from Sabah. There is controversy over the agriculture in Sabah. The Sabah and or Malay governments have committed that 55% of the Sabah, 76,000 square metres, must be kept as forest. The issue is that plantations and other agriculture clear the land for planting which destroys wildlife habitats in particular of the orangutans and the monkeys. In addition, the orangutans eat the palm fruit which annoys the plantation owners and they shoot them. Thus the orangutans are “critically” endangered and the authorities reckon there are less than 10,000 living wild in the jungle of Borneo. A catch 21: the economy needs the palm oil, the environment needs the forests. No one is hopeful that the governments will enforce the land use restriction.

We arrived at a small village where we loaded into 8-up two small motor boats and headed across the river to the Bilit Forest Adventure Lodge, a small, pretty lodge on the banks of the Kinabatangan River in the middle of the rain forest. The lodge was the usual jungle river lodge built on stilts, with wooden walkways between woodem houses forming the guests rooms and decorated with planters of colourful flowers and the odd cat (about the size of Chloe) showing off their balancing skills on the hand rails, and long tailed monkeys cheekily investigating the different parts of the lodge to see what mischief they could get up to.

We had time to eat lunch and check into our room, before heading out for a boat ride on the river. We piled into the same two motor boats and set off up the river which was probably about 200 metres across. Just being on the river was beauty enough, but no sooner had we started than we saw am oramg utan at the top of a tree. We stopped and stared for some time. He knew we were there, and moved around some but never showed us his face. It was a thrill though just to see his hairy back and long sinewy arms. Our boat journey lasted till dark – about 2 hrs -  and we filled our eyes with sighting of monkeys, especially the proboscis monkey which is special to Borneo and the long tailed macque which likes to eat crabs. We saw them climbing up trees, down trees, cleaning each other, playing on the beach, and showing off their high wire skills like trazeze artists in a circus. They were all mischievous and adorable, cute too! They slyly watched us watching them accomplish one of their swinging feats on the trees then turn coyly to look at us to make sure we had been watching! We also saw a crocodile lazing at the edge of the river in the shallow water. They were pretty big - maybe 8 or 9 feet long. And we saw some birds, but today’s boat ride was all about the monkeys. Tomorrow will be birds.

The sun set on the river and we watched the monkeys bed down for the night. Whole families perch high up in the trees and go to sleep.

We got back to the lodge around 6:30 p.m. and had to prepare for our night walk at 7:30 and eat dinner. This trip is all go!!

A night walk through the rain forest is a spiritual experience. The moon and the stars lit up the sky, and the guide’s torch lit up the wild life. We had to keep silent in order not to scare the animals away, so all we could hear was the soft “crunch” of our feet on the leaves on the forest floor.  We walked in single file along a narrow path bordered by trees and bushes. We were all wrapped up to stop any bugs or leaches getting to our skin – rubber boots and leach socks, or hiking boots and trousers tucked into long socks and long sleeves. Once again we were lucky. We saw some pretty little birds one a vivid blue and another a bright orange sitting low on tree branches as if in a trance. We saw about 3 civets which are interesting striped animals about the size of a raccoon and in fact resemble our raccoons. We had an amazing experience with a moonrat, a small, white, round ball of an animal. It ran directly towards us, then turned on a dime and ran back to where it came from. I think it must have been confused by the light shining in its eyes. We passed by and studied, a python and of course there were birds, and spiders, and bugs galore! I think the most amazing part, apart from the civets, the moonrat, and the python, was the magic sounds of the forest: the cicadas in the background, the cuckoos (or so they sounded), the cooing of doves, the haunting hoot of an owl, and the gentle rustle of the cinder-dry leaves: all created an auora of peace and life.

We were back at the lodge around 9:30 and had time for a quiet beer together with Mike while some of the group joined the not so quiet lone guitarist on the lower deck; and then bed.