Malaysian Borneo

When we were in Spain we met some Kiwis (who I think as a country are the world's most likable travelers) that told us their favorite travel experience was a wildlife camp in Borneo. It seemed like an unique experience so I put the name in my phone and a few months later when we got to southeast Asia we decided to do it. The flight there was surprisingly cheap and the camp price fair, plus when else were we going to have the opportunity to go into the Borneo jungle?

Our flight took us into Kota Kinabalu (or KK, as it is often referred), the main city on the Malaysian side of the island of Borneo, and then a few hour bus ride brought us to Sepilok where the base camp was located. Near the base camp is an Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, where you get to see injured or orphaned orangutans being trained/rehabilitated to be released back into the wild. It was incredible seeing them up close - far more so than I expected it to be. I've been to zoos before, and watch a lot of David Attenbourgh, but it was something else to see them so up close in real life. How similar they are to us, and how graceful and easy they move through the trees was a really special thing to see. Here's a video of one of them:

Later we headed out to the wildlife camp, which involved an hour and a half car ride to the Kinabatangan River, where we boarded a boat that took us about 45 minutes upstream to where the camp was located. Along the way we stopped numerous times when the guide spotted some orangutans and other wildlife in the trees along the shore. Over the next three days we would be spending a lot of time in that boat cruising the river for wildlife.

Kinabatangan River

bigfoot or an orangutan

The camp is what you expect a camp in the middle of the jungle to be like: basic. It looks like any sort of camp you've been to except there's no running water, doors on the cabins or roads to/from the camp. It was a different kind of humid than what I've ever experienced. Not the most humid necessarily, but maybe the grossest humidity...if that makes any sense. Of course, lack of AC or fans makes it feel pretty gross. But I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining because this is what we expected it to be. We didn't come to the Borneo jungle for the comforts of the Borneo jungle, but instead for the Borneo jungle-ness of the Borneo jungle.

Over the next three days we saw some crazy animals, including: crocodiles, Gibbon monkeys, huge lizards, insanely massive dime sized ants, way too large spiders (bigger than your fist), beautiful kingfishers, hornbills, thousands of little fucker monkeys, and the amazingly repulsive proboscis monkey.

crocodile

Gibbon monkey

not sure its name. basically a dinosaur.

hornbill

owls

Macaque monkeys, aka little fucker monkeys. These bastards are everywhere and are real pains in the ass. I had already had my fill of these guys before we even got to Borneo. The locals also hate them since they steal whatever they can, from electronics to crops. Our guide called them the "jungle mafia."

The most memorable animal for me was easily the Proboscis monkey. They are one of the largest monkeys in Asia and are memorable for a couple of different reasons. One being their huge noses. For males the bigger the better - some even have noses even hang well below their mouth. Another aspect is their pot bellies, which contain about a quarter of their body weight and makes them all (males and females alike) look permanently pregnant. But for me their most memorable feature has to be the male's permanently erect red penis. It's kind of hard to miss. Proboscis monkeys live in groups of usually 12-20, that consists of one male, his "wives", and offspring. It was really something watching them for a while. They look so big and awkward from afar, but then one time we saw the male get mad, honk at the rest of the group for a while and then peace out and jump ever so gracefully to what seemed a very far distance over to another tree. Wish we had a video of that.

We somehow even saw a solar eclipse while were there:
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After three days of sun, humidity, mud, mosquitoes, and river water “showers” we were about ready to head back to the air conditioned and running water world. A long few hours late we make it back to KK for a few day of loitering before our glorious flight back to SF. We didn't do to much in KK in those few days, aside from walk around town, stopping in air-conditioned malls whenever we saw them. Not a lot of pictures to share, but here are a few, including some very memorable South Indian banana leaf rice and curry.

We were so excited to be heading back to California, literally counting down the days. It made these last few days go extra slow. Being at the end of the trip we were pretty worn out and excited to be heading somewhere familiar. I couldn't wait for that burrito that I'd been thinking about for the last 7 months, and of course we were excited to see friends and family again.

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more Borneo photos