Episode 38

Episode 38

We stayed in a jungle camp on the Kinabatangan River south of Sandakan. Here we had some trips up and down the river in the early mornings and late afternoons. Back at Sepilok we had met and English chap David, who is a keen bird watcher (twitcher), we had got off the bus from KK together and stayed at the same place in Sepilok and he had come here too at the same time. This was very handy as he had some books with the local birds illustrated so that we could put names to what we saw. Our guide too, just one guide for the 3 of us, was quite knowledgeable about the birds as well as other creatures we saw.

In our forays up and down the river we saw some brilliantly coloured kingfishers, lovely stately white egrets, grey herons, several different hornbills, and quite a variety of other birds. I got to see most of them fortunately. One morning we saw a group of river otters playing on a mud bank. There were several boat loads of tourists just like ourselves on the river and as we all neared the mud bank the otters ducked over the ridge and down behind it, but they were quite funny and very like Meercats in that they kept popping up for a look about. We watched them for quite some time. They are dark grey in colour and have lovely faces.

In the trees along the river we saw a colony of orang-utans, or I really should say everyone else saw them but I was damned if I could. Plenty of long tailed macaques about and one group of silver langurs and another of red langurs, these are both smaller types of monkey the latter having quite a red coloured fur. Proboscis monkeys live here too and we saw a couple of colonies of them. These are the same type as we saw in Brunei back last July at the start of our trip. Each colony of these monkeys has one male and his harem of females and their young. One big male we saw in a tree right at the rivers edge, it was the best view we have had of one and they are quite a large animal. The big males have an enormous hooked nose that is supposed to attract the females and this one was sitting there facing us with his bright red penis sticking straight up. It is thin and about 300mm (1ft long) and stood out very clearly against the yellow of his fur.

The river is very muddy and silting up because logging further upstream is leaving the land bare and erosion is becoming a big problem there whilst the silt is causing problems further downstream. Plenty of crocodiles on this river too, same species as the Australian estuarine crocks, and just as big.

Each evening we went for a torch light walk into the jungle to see whatever we could. Again the guide was quite good and we saw several frogs, some stick insects, spiders and scorpions and some sleeping birds. The thing that really surprised me is just how vulnerable the birds are at night. One, a red trogon, had his head tucked in and didn’t move a feather when the camera flashlight went off, and it did so several times each night. Another one was a tiny Taylor bird, he was awake and looking at us, but he didn’t move either, he just blinked, but another night he was flying about. Also saw a family of Bulbuls high up on a tree branch huddled together, mum, dad, and the kid in the middle. As we walked along the path with just torch light the guide would sometimes tell us to move along very fast whenever we came to an area where there are fire ants. The tracks were quite muddy and we wore wellington boots and long trousers to protect us from leeches and mosquitoes, not that there was a great many of the latter, very few really, some people did get leeches but I managed to avoid them. Poison ivy grows beside the track too and our legs needed protection from it too.

In the daytime we took a long walk through the jungle wading through mud over our ankles to an oxbow lake where we saw more birds but nothing different to what we’d seen on the river. Again we saw a great many leeches hanging on the leaves just waiting for someone to come by and brush them. David got one on him but I managed to avoid them completely. On our walk back from the lake we were joined by another group and with the track being very boggy our guide decided to take us over to the river bank and called back to the lodge for a boat to be sent for us. This idea worked well up to the point when we all got near the river bank and the boat came along. Then one of the other group, a chap from Singapore strode off towards the boat and sank up to his knees in the mud. He provided a great deal of entertainment for the rest of us as we watched while first he tried to move one foot then the other. Eventually with the help of the guides and others and some cut branches he was extradited and we all made our way very carefully over more cut branches across the mud and into the waiting boats. That mud was deadly:

In this area there is also the pygmy elephant, but at this time of year they are deeper into the forest and not easily found. They are called pygmy elephants because they are the smallest of all elephants but they are not small, just smaller than others. Our lodge has an electric fence around it to prevent them from wandering through and destroying the buildings.

From here we took a bus to Semporna on the east coast and from there we went out to the island of Mabul and stayed at a backpacker resort there. We did have intentions of doing some snorkelling on the reef but when we got there we found the sun so burning hot that we did little but take a few short swims in the early morning and late afternoon.

This island is a very popular base for divers wanting to dive on the reed off Sipidan Island. It is supposed to be one of the ten top dive spots in the world. I had thought to do snorkelling there but as I said it was just too burning hot and we had got very white from our time travelling in Europe. Still we spent quite a pleasant few days there keeping out of the sun. The island is very small and a village takes up most of it, then there are several resorts: Ours was built on stilts over the water right behind the main part of the village but there were several others spread around the island. Two of them were built on stilts over the water but much more upmarket than ours, and a couple were on the shore set among waving palm trees and with a swimming pool.

The village has rubbish spread everywhere, plastic bags, bottles, cans, God knows what, it was strewn about all over. One section of the village kept their area clean, each day it was swept clean and the sand raked but by late afternoon it was covered with litter again. There was piped water all around the village and we saw the water treatment plant, not sure about the sewerage though, just what happened with it, but there was some sort of system in place. In front of our resort was a reasonably clean area for swimming and a short walk past the end of the village was another area for swimming but even these places had a lot of rubbish in the water so it wasn’t all that nice. The temperature of the water was good though. An oil rig stood just offshore:

Just what all the people do for a living in this village I have no idea, but they certainly breed plenty of kids, never seen so many kids in one small village as I saw here:

The tide rose and fell several metres so this meant that there was quite a fast flowing current and a couple of girls who went snorkelling found themselves a long way from their starting point and called out for some one to come and collect them. A boat quickly went and picked them up. Some of the divers did comment that there was a great amount of rubbish on the reef though they all agreed that it was really good diving. Most came back quite sunburnt:

Next we spent a couple of days at Mount Kinabalu staying in one of the hostels in the park there. It was a Saturday afternoon when we arrived and I had been a bit concerned that we might have trouble getting accommodation there at the weekend but as it turned out there was no shortage of availability. Staying at the same hostel we met a lovely lady from Germany named Gisela with whom we made friends.

I would have liked to climb the mountain but I really wasn’t sure that I was up to it, David even less so, but as it turned out we didn’t find any group that had any spare places. With this walk you have to take a guide and stay overnight at a hostel about 500m below the summit. The agencies who organize walks to the summit book all the accommodation in advance so that it is very hard for independent travellers to get any. You must ask around the different groups of hikers and see if any have got some of their party that doesn’t want to do the climb, or not turned up, that way you can take their place.

The view of the mountain in the early morning from the veranda of the cafe is beautiful. The cafe is at an altitude of 1500m approx, and the jagged tops of the mountain are around the 4100m, and with the sun glistening off the sheets of steep, bare granite rock that has to be crossed by the hikers, it looks quite daunting. Each morning we would sit and eat breakfast on this veranda and think about those souls on the mountains who had left the hostel near the top that we could see, at 3am, to climb the last 500m to see the sunrise from the top. By 9am generally, the cloud is forming around the top and obscuring it from view.

Even without climbing the mountain there are a number of trails around through the forest that make quite good walks though the map the office hands out seems to bear little relationship to the actual trails and we seemed to go in circles somewhat. We joined a short nature walk and the young guide pointed out a number of plants and gave us a run down on their uses. One in particular is called the kerosene fruit. This yellow fruit produces an oil that the native people use to light their fires. It has quite a pleasant smell: The guide thinks the tree belongs to the leprospermum family: One of the tall forest trees is related to the Australian eucalypts:

Another guided walk was through the botanical garden section of the park. Here we saw the smallest orchid in the world; the flower is only about 2cm across, and the rarest orchid in the world. The flower on this one had died and another bud not yet out, but at least we saw the plant. Apart from this plant there are some seeds in the Kew Gardens seed bank in England. That’s how rare it is:

Many of the plants have been used by local tribes people for medicinal purposes and in this garden scientists are experimenting with them to see if they do indeed provide effective medicines. Others are being tested to see if they have any commercial uses that may in the future, provide income for the local village people.

We saw a few different birds and David saw a couple of squirrels but that was it as far as wild life went so we went off to Poring Hot Springs some 40k’s away to have a soak in the thermal bathes. That was pleasant enough and while here we also did another ‘canopy walk’. This one was much more natural. With a tower at each end the actual walkway was made of aluminium ladders bolted together and a plant laid over the top, so that it was quite narrow. From each side a mesh net stretched upward to the rope at the top that formed a hand rail so that should you fall over you would just bounce off the net and still be on the walkway. It is very bouncy to walk on especially when you have several other people on it at the same time.

It was in 4 sections of about 50 to 60m each section. From the tower to a large tree with a platform around it, then on to another tree and so on: At one point we were 40m above the ground but still way below the canopy of the tall forest trees. We saw a few flowers below us and looked down on many lower trees but we saw nothing in particular. The big trees used as anchors are called ‘concrete trees”. They got this name because they are extremely hard but when felled they shatter so that they have no commercial use. Because of this they have been left alone.

The thermal baths at Poring were developed by the Japanese during WW2, the only positive thing their occupation did, so the locals say. There is one very hot pool that is really too hot to jump into so everyone just dips there feet into it from time to time. Then there are a large number of small tubs in groups of 4 and these can be filled to a temperature to suit the individual. Each has a hot and cold tap over it but they only run slowly and so take ages to fill. Each tub comfortably takes two people sitting in it or a family of 6 sitting around the edge. Then there is a fairly large cold water pool to cool off in. It was nice there and as the hot tubs are under cover we didn’t have to worry about being sun burnt.

We were a little lucky in the fact that in the forest near the spring there was one Rafflesia flower out: This is the largest flower in the world and can have a diameter of around 1m, though the one we saw was a little smaller, about 600cm dia. They only last about 5 days and this is not the season for them, they usually flower August to October: This plant had a dead flower beside the open one and nearby there was another bud, but it may be months before the bud opens out. The flower is red with white spots and has a large ‘bowl’ in the middle with the stamen in it. It is said to give off the smell of rotting meat to attract the flies that pollinate it but we couldn’t smell anything. These flowers grow in the same area as the huge bamboos that grow up to 40m high and have stems as thick as 14cm diameter.

Back in KK we booked a flight to Kuching in Sarawak for the next day.

© Lynette Regan April 15^th 2008