Tash woke up with a bit of a hangover this morning, nothing serio us, just a heavy head that lasted all morning. We packed ready and then wandered around for a bit because we weren’t being picked up from our hotel midday.
Got some chocolate bread and ate that on the sea front before going to the mall and getting snacks for the next few days and our climb. Back to the hotel and Tash slept and then we waited on the lobby for Mr Choy’s son to come and pick us up.
We met Mr Choy as he handed over to his son and we set off in his 4x4 truck. We both snoozed but not comfortably because the road was appalling and his son drove fast so all the holes and divots were exaggerated. It made me thankful that we decided against hiring a car as I’m sure we’d have ended up with a puncture or a smashed suspension!!
Anyway, after a couple of hours and dropping off the first passenger we made it to Kinabatangan Wildlife Lodge which would be our home for next couple of nights. We’re really out in the middle of nowhere but the welcome was lovely as per usual and the wooden chalet we have seemed good enough. Although whilst waiting for dinner Tash has just said there was a huge lizard/gecko in our room near our suitcases…great.
So we decided what activities and meals we will have over the next couple of days and then we came back to reception to go on the river
We met our guide, Caro, after he’d been woken up by the lady hosting the place. We sleepily came out of his room and showed us where to go, after laughing at Tash with her leech socks on. Told us to go and put flip flops on and we set off whilst he went and got petrol
Met at the jetty and climbed aboard the smallish open boat and we had it to ourselves and set off down the river. The river is quite low so the trees are emitting toxins that are poisoning the fish and the shrimp so they’re really easy to catch almost by hand. When it next rains hard it clears the toxins, the last time it was as bad as it is now was about 3 years ago.
It was great traveling down the chocolate brown river and now Caro was awake he was chatty, funny and engaging and informative. It was great actually.
We saw lots of wildlife including silver leaf monkeys jumping from tree to tree. That was cool watching them in the wild doing that moving around. We saw the Macaques and then also Proboscis monkeys. Lots of birds flying overhead such as storks, heron and egrets, they fly so lazily and it felt at times as if we were in Jurassic Park.
We continued on down the river and the boatman all shared information with each other and we turned off to a side river that was set up for the orangutans as it had ropes on two trees either side of the river. So we were in high alert. Loads of monkeys throughout and we were just about to turns around and give up when we were close to another boatman and he pointed out a male orangutan lying in his nest.
It was exciting, he just laid there scratching now and then and looking out to us. Using Caro’s binoculars made an enormous difference, they made it so light and clear it was so great. Photos were a bit pointless but we saw him in the wild which isn’t as common as you’d expect it to be. We were really pleased about that and we’re happy to make our way back now then.
That was relaxing and we stopped by fisherman and a couple of Probiscus monkey harems which I particularly enjoyed and we even had some hornbills gliding across the river right in front of us, they were so elegant the way they flew.
So all in all it was a very successful trip out there and we were delighted.
We walked back the road to the lodge and stopped by a public wifi tower in the middle of nowhere but for the benefit of the few houses nearby. So we logged in and sent some comms to the family etc
Continuing on our way back it was getting like dusk and there were bats everywhere and they kept crossing the road in front and behind us. Nothing scary about it, could have watched them for ages.
So made it to the lodge, didn’t bother going to our room, called mum and spoke for about 4 mins before wifi died which was a shame. We waited for our dinner and had to contend with the insects and a bat that just kept swooping by catching them, slowly they reduced and it was comfortable sitting there.
Dinner was fish, rice and vegetables, the sauce was nice and it was catfish we ate. It was fine. I made use of the coffee on offer as I really like it. Then a family of 3 young kids came in who’d arrived today and the husband, Mike, was chatty. The kids were friendly and talkative too, especially the youngest, Tarquin who Tash and I both agreed didn’t suit him. But there you go.
There isn’t much to do here and I was happy to call it a night about 8.30pm so we came back to our room, chased off the lizards and cockroaches and then went to bed after triple checking everything!!
Tash did Suduko and I watched 2 episodes of a Netflix series I’d just downloaded called the Last Kingdom. Lucky it was only two as I could have binge-watched more. So I’ll try and download others when we get decent internet!!
Another busy day but very enjoyable and interesting.
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