Wildlife of the Amazing Kinabatangan River - Sukau, Sabah, Malaysia - BORNEO! May, 2014

The Travelers:  Janet and Deb were college roommates while attending our 1^st year of college in San Diego in 1969.  She was 1 year and 10 days older than I and more of an animal freak than I was – rather remarkable, since I preferred animals to most people.  We lived at Ocean Beach with another girl – Carol, who we both recall as a maldita (sounds better in Pilipino than English’s ‘bitch’)…I hope she got better with age.  At first our only pet was my little tortoise, Herman, who ate the green shag carpet; but then Janet and I decided to move out and got two male littermates – mutts who turned out to look just like the elegant Saluki.  Pasha was mine and Tara hers – we ran them on the beach, until one day someone took Pasha.  Janet had Tara well into his teens and never got another dog.  We were definitely free spirits; she had a water bed and everything.  My thumbnail memory of Janet was her passion for animals:  She was outraged – as in hyperventilating - when the San Diego news showed paramedics pulling a resuscitator from an injured sea lion in order to save a human hurt in an automobile accident – I think she even called the rescue station and complained.  Her thumbnail of me was that I threw myself into love: she recalled the night that Ron and I broke the water bed (funny what you forget), and she thought of me in the category of “women who love too much.” 

We had seen each other once since college – she came to my house just after I’d had my first child, and after dinner in the heavily windowed dining room, relayed the sad news that one of my childhood friends, Ken Miyata, had drowned while fishing in Idaho – he was really something, and I remember crying myself to sleep that night.

Just that one night in 40 years….until we found each other on Facebook last year.  We reconnected, sent each other petitions on our various causes (mine humanoid and hers all life except human – a vantage to which I am leaning lately), and talked about travel adventures.   Unbeknownst to me, Janet’s interest is primates and she had traveled to Indonesia, Costa Rica and South America – her email address even contains the word “traveler.”

The Destination:  We decided to travel in Southeast Asia together to celebrate our birthdays (now in the 60’s).  I had a ticket to Kota Kinabalu and wanted to explore Sabah, Malaysia, where there were pygmy elephants, sun bears and orangutans in the wild (fast disappearing due to the onslaught of the planting of oceans of oil palms).  She was knowledgeable about the different variety of primates and it was a real treat for me.  We bought her tickets on July 14, 2013 – nearly a year in advance…but as all things, time evaporated and our embarkation date arrived.

Getting There:  Palawan isn’t situated well to connect to anything in Manila flight-wise.  Additionally, Air Asia decided to change times on the flights so that I arrived in Manila after our flight to KK had already left.  So….I arrived the night before at 10pm and tried to sleep in a plastic chair while they were remodeling Terminal 4…waiting for our 9am flight.  I awakened to “Deb?”  Laughter as we admitted that we both looked pretty much the same (well, considering the added wrinkles - in the face at least); amazing how that works.  She had her own Manila (aka NAIA) Airport story (ranked the worst airport in the world, where simply getting from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 is a nightmare)…and she had been up 20 hours already…but we made it!  We caught up a bit in NAIA 4’s plastic chairs – she has 3 horses and 3 cats and has retired from the post office – where she worked all those years ago. 

We arrived in Kota Kinabalu easily and then on to Sandakan – where we faced an obstacle – she only had the confirmation number and the airport had no internet connection.  We didn’t know how to get to the lodge.  The Philippines prides itself on ‘hospitality’ and being good English speakers, but I would take Sandakans any day.  I’ve never experienced such helpful people who spoke English so well!  Between tour guides, bellmen and airport personnel, we found that we were not being picked up, and that the dock mentioned on Agoda.com was 2.5 hours away by taxi (200 Malaysian Ringget, or about $70US).  Sigh.  But the taxi driver happily (well, I assume he was happy with the fare…) delivered us to the dock and we took off to the Proboscis Lodge, situated in Sukau, right on the river. 

The Venue:  We were met at the Proboscis Lodge on the Kinabatangan River  by a beautiful Muslim woman, Asthma (yes, really – Janet could hardly say it without laughing),  who offered us a "welcome fruit drink" (powdered Tang). 

 

Our servers - Asthma is the one on the right

#5 Proboscis Lodge

We were shown to our room, #5 (my lucky number) and told that
we had missed the afternoon boat trip, but that dinner was served at 6pm.

The view from #5's balcon

The inside of #5, Proboscis Lodge

The Boat dock at Proboscis

Luckily, much of the food was vegetarian, as Janet is only vegetarian – because of her love of animals (wish I was as principled).  We were excited for the 6am boat trip and talked to others as they returned from their cruise – they had seen pygmy elephants!

Entry to Proboscis Lodge

The Proboscis Bar (we never saw it lighted)

Main lodge and dining area

Circa 1939 - wealthy explorers in the area

Founder of the Proboscis Lodge and his Chinese wife

The Kinabatangan:  Quite an enormous, tidal river – the water as opaque as Palawan’s is clear – the Kinabatangang is home to an enormous amount of wildlife – from reptiles to mammals to amphibians to birds – and all rather unique.  

Reminded me a bit of the southern US

So opaque - Anything could be in there!

Tides go in and out

The river is large enough for a car ferry

Glorious clouds of the Kinabatangang

Kinabatangan sunset

Sadly, one of the reasons that this is a great place to spot animals is because the planting of oil palms has reduced their habitat to a miniscule strip of land bordering the river. 

Waves upon waves of palm oil plantations

Palm oil nuts being transported

Palm oil on the move

Green sludge from palm oil spills

The dock is all that remains of this facility - and a sludge river

I hadn’t understood that a palm oil plantation supports no wildlife – monkeys nor birds will live in those trees - mostly rats and cobras inhabit oil palms.  When we passed into a palm area, wildlife ceased abruptly – very noticeable, even without the guide’s commentary.  Another sad thing about the production was that it polluted the river – we passed an old piping station, where barges had been filled, and the river 
was thick with algae sludge…there had been spills of the oil when loading years earlier and the sludge killed life in the river.


The Daily Cruises:

But, where there was life – wow!  The morning dawned early with only four of us in the boat with both our guide and our boatman locals and remarkable wildlife 

spotters.

  We were lucky on our first trip out and saw such bird life: three gorgeous Rhinoceros Hornbills

Enormous and colorful - my first ever in the wild

The rare storm stork

 a dollar bird, bubul, rare storm stork, three brilliant kingfishers and a noisy tailor bird - in addition to two monitor lizards - one stately ensconced in a mangrove and the other swimming to the shore where he undulated along into the bushes. 

The kingfishers were iridescent - one male and one female (the one with the orange underbeak) - perched on a branch until performing a head crunching dive - remarkable!





We visited an ox-bow lake (where a winding river doubles back on itself and makes a lake) with beautiful (but problematic) water hyacinths. 


Pretty damsel flies and brilliant, maniacal dragon flies were abundant  










But, the most marvelous thing I saw was the red and black broadbill in its nest - wow!

major zoom - see her cute little eye?

Later, we saw the bird outside of the nest - gorgeous! 

The AMAZING red and black broadbill

On the way back, the boatman spotted a swimming baby saltwater crocodile - and a female orang utan! 

I hadn’t thought they would be so large!

Humans built a way for the orang utans to cross the river

Every afternoon an orang utan (“man of the forest”) makes a nest to sleep in – every day a new nest. Just beautiful to watch, although difficult to see with the shadows of the forest. 

We returned to breakfast, a relaxing walk and lounging about before lunch and waiting for our 4pm tour while watching a huge fish eagle dip and soar, fishing over the river just outside our cabin.  

Novice wildlife spotters...but you can see the resemblance?

Janet and I spotted our first croc ... unfortunately just a huge log...but, it does look like one, don't you think?)

A 10-12 foot saltwater crocodile!

And, then we saw the real thing - which silently sunk into the opaque river - shiver, shiver.

The afternoon saw limestone cliffs, another orang utan, silver leaf monkeys with babies and Hornbill City - mostly the Oriental Pied hornbill, although high above were more Rhinocerus.

  
Macaques abounded (pigtailed and longtailed, aka crab-eating), although they were quiet; and my first view of proboscis monkeys was magical, although  
rather obscured by the rain - drops at first, becoming pelting, until everything was obliterated from view.

We very much appreciated the skill of the boatman getting us back to the lodge, dodging logs and boats along the way as twilight lengthened into dark.  A warm shower was definitely in order.

More birds:

Serpent Eagle

Serpent eagle in flight

Even the pigeons here are magnificent!

Beautiful purple heron

The strange anhinga (like a cormorant).  Check out his feet!

Impressive Brahminy Kite

The Greater Coucal

Great heron in flight

  


And a short but unannounced trek in the jungle - me in sandals and Janet in flip flops - yuck - the leeches did suck a bit of blood, I must admit.

Our short hike through the jungle spied a Liana

and Tiger leeches - some of which stuck

Mangrove python

REALLY long Yellow Racer

YELLOW!!!

Pygmy squirrel just outside our balcony

Hornbill from our balcony wearing heavy make up

Fun on the Kinabatangan

A fabulous 4 days on the Kinabatangan - we saw 3 orang utans and just missed a herd of pygmy elephants as they crossed the river - I'll be returning there for another wildlife adventure...maybe after Sumatra...