While it last (Part 1- Kinabatangan River Cruise)

Hello.
We know it's been awhile since our last post. Both of us had been busy. Oliver with his work and studies, while me, with, err...work. And it doesn't help that we're distance-s apart and this blog was meant to update the things that we do together while travelling. So, go figure.

Right, enough of excuses for the long hiatus, now, what have we got here. A plenty. Oliver was back for his supposedly summer holiday and a few of his friends came to visit. So, we did tons of things for the past three weeks or so. By the way, I just bid Oliver farewell, again, yesterday morning and we're missing each other terribly.

Anyway, back to the stuff we did. First, we did the Kinabatangan River Cruise. Kinabatangan, as some of you may or may not know, is the longest river in Sabah and famous for wild tropical animal sightings, we're talking about Proboscis, Macaques, Borneo Pygmy Elephants, crocodiles and of course the many myriads of birds. So, on the day itself, we took the first flight to Sandakan. (Oliver and his friends; Lucas and Stephy took Air Asia) while I flew on Malaysia Airlines. Hehe. Once in Sandakan, we took our breakfast and proceed to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre and waited to be picked up by our tour operator. Whilst waiting, we took a few pictures. Pre-river cruise.

#1 Hi there. It's been awhile.

#2 Lucas and Stephy.

#3 Us. Nay to Oli's long hair.

#6

And we were off to Kinabatangan, first on a 1 hour or so road journey to some 'Ulu' places. After reaching the river bank, we hopped into the boat to go to our lodge, Kinabatangan Nature Lodge.

#7 On the way to lodge

#8 Fooling around

#9 Bits of Kinabatangan River

Upon reaching at about 1pm, we checked in, had our lunch, rest for a bit and came 3pm, we proceed to our afternoon river cruise. During river cruising, we sighted lots of Macaques, Proboscis, and birds, which were less exciting. Hehe. Not a bird person.

#10 Macaques

#11 First bird

#12 Silver Gibbon

#13 Second bird and can you spot the Proboscis?

#14 Spot and count the number of Proboscis

#15

And half way while river cruising, it started to rain. Fortunately for Steph and I, we had our rain coats on (well, Lucas gave me his) and unfortunately for Oliver and Lucas, they were drenched in the rain. But I had the feeling, that they actually enjoyed it. After the afternoon river cruise, we went back to the lodge to freshen up and afterwards, had dinner. Dinner was not so appetizing. But heck it, we were hungry, so we ate whatever was served. After dinner, we opted for the night jungle walk. So we walked through the unfamiliar path, in the dark, oh, and it was muddy as hell. But the upside was the nocturnal faunas that we did come across, like below.

Palm Borneo Frog. Smallest frog in the world. It was so tiny. Like 1/4 of my pinky finger, or even smaller.

We also spotted a few sleeping birds. It was so weird looking at the sleeping birds. It look as if it was awake because the eyes were wide open. The only thing was, they were just sitting on the branches, motionless.

Our night walk was cut short because according to our guide, there were wild elephants nearby and it was not safe to continue the walk. So, we made our way back to the lodge. Frankly, I was more than relieved to end the night walk. Well, it's just not my thing. So, once we were back to semi-civilized area, we made sure that they were no leeches leeching unto us. I spotted one leech that was about to enter my right boot. Thank goodness Lucas flicked it out. Hate those blood sucking creature.

So, that was the first day. The next day, we took the morning river cruise. I almost wanted to skip the river cruise. Mind you, it was at 6 morning. But Oliver wouldn't let me sleep in. So, up I went and on to the river cruise.

#Like a true wilderness girl :)

Again, macaques and proboscis, same ol' same ol. But ooh, we spotted not one, not two, but three Borneon Pygmy Elephants! And according to our boatman, we were lucky because the last time they sighted the elephant was four months ago. I guess that was the highlight for the morning river cruise.

# Like a family of Borneon Pygmy Elephant

After the river cruise,we went back, packed our stuff, and headed for breakfast. Lucas and Steph stayed for another night, while Oliver and I, returned to Sandakan. All in all, we enjoyed the river cruise. And the lodge people were actually really friendly and they were quite surprised to have us (Oli and I) because for them, it's rare to see Malaysian doing the river cruise. They actually assumed we were from China or Korea or whatever Asian country you can name. We highly recommend the river cruise. But bear in mind, bring your own mineral water and possibly, pay attention to what you eat because we had bad experience which is not worth mentioning here, but I can tell you that it involves many trips to the toilet and possibly, hospital too.

Till the next post.

Cheers,

Oli and Mel.