Expedition to Kinabatangan, Sabah Part II
Current Music: American Life (Madonna)
7 July 2007, Saturday @ 5.00ish pm
Onboard AK5163 bound for KUL
Coolios Stuffs I Did Today!:
1) Woke up before 6am this morning for a boat ride to spot wildlife
2) Went pee in the jungle…hee!
3) Saw a dominant male orang utan (our post-Orang experience)
4) Spotted a crocodile
5) Colony of proboscis monkeys doing great leaps from trees to trees…just too bad we didn’t get to capture the leaps on camera (when Mag’s not tres happy)
6) Bought my first sarong! 
On overall, the trip has been rather fantastic. Beats going to a zoo if one wants to have a great wildlife experience. Sure, you don’t get to spot over 200 species of animals from around the world. But waking up real early in the morning for a chance to spot a dominant male orang utan, hoping that he’ll make some movement is quite an experience on its own. Spending an hour in the midst of Bornean jungle, braving through the army of ferocious blood-thirsty mosquitoes and neck aches just for the opportunity to spot a mother and child orang utans…there’s no word for the adrenaline rush with each slight movement.
Second day @ camp was a full-day wildlife experience. We started off with a morning safari on the boat. Nothing much…long-tailed macaques and proboscis monkeys foraging. That went for about an hour or two. Breakkie time after that, and we went for our morning trekking led by Leo. That was when we saw the mother and child orangs. Child was estimated to be about three or four years old…very mischievous. He kept throwing things down at us…twigs and stuff, and he kept making kissing sounds. Tres adorable…
We also saw pretty wood nymphs along the way…tractor millipedes, which smell like almonds.
Lunch was at noon…slothing time after that, and we went for afternoon boat ride. More hornbills-spotting, proboscis and macaques…
Dinner time, and we got ready for the last programme of the day: night trekking. So there we were, donned in our rubber boots and braved through the muddy swamps in search of nocturnal wildlife. Beautiful frogs, centipedes and other invertebrates. My fave moment: butterflies perched on me while I took pics of them!
Third day @ camp was an uber slothy day for us. Mag was the only one who had the energy to get up real early to join the morning safari. Rest of us? Slept in till it’s time for breakfast. We had a hell lot of rest…siesta-ing. Only wildlife activity we did was the late afternoon safari, and that was when we spotted the dominant male orang just about to take a rest in his nest.
Before that, Natt had a sharing session with some local students on the importance of eco-tourism.
Night time came, Mag and I decided to go for the night safari…and we teased each other on the real reason as to why WE wanted to go on the programme…hee
Night safari was pretty good since we spotted crocodiles THREE times, though they’re rather small. Not much excitement going on last night.
Incredible adventure was this morning on the fourth day @ camp! Went through the muddy grounds just to track down the orang! Well worth it ‘cos he’s absolutely gorgeous! Can’t wait to see Mag’s close-up shots of him. She actually went up really close to him, risking the fact that he’s fully capable of charging at them if he wanted to!
On the way back to camp, and we ended up with a boat just for the four of us (we were in separate boats on the way to the site). So we spent a tad more time watching the proboscis monkeys at their most active moment. We were there waiting patiently for that golden shot of a great leap, and either they made really small ones, or the view was blocked by trees. Only when we were leaving, Natt turned and said to look out for a solo male, and there he made THREE major leaps! Ah…the frustration!
Ok, landing @ KUL in a bit. I shall update more soon…
9 July 2007, Monday @ 5.11pm
Lavendar Bus Station, waiting for Anissa
Shopping in KL was madness! Spent over my projected budget for this trip…scary to even think of my ailing bank balance!
Let’s see…plane touched down at LCCT-KLIA at around 8.00ish. We checked in at Green Hut and got our long-awaited Ramly burgers, and our bus tickets for this morning. The whole afternoon had been about fantasizing the burgers for dinner, and followed by 1st and 2nd suppers. Needless to say, the suppers didn’t even happen since both of us zonked out at about 12.00ish. Deuxieme jour at KL, we planned to catch a movie. However, there wasn’t anything worth watching since we’ve caught the latest hits: Fantastic Four and Transformers. So yea, the movies didn’t happen…
And Anissa came…so the journal came to an end.
