Jungle Camp

After a few cold days in the mountains, I looked forward to the heat of the jungles.
I decided to stay in the Tungog Rainforest Eco-camp on the Kinebatangan River.
While there, I volunteered a little by clearing paths. They actually trusted me with a machete!! I had a blast!

I also got a river tour where I saw lots of wildlife - birds and various monkeys.


Between walking the paths that I was clearing and taking a few night walks, I also saw lots and lots of my favorite animals - invertebrates! I was in arthropod heaven!

Batu Puteh - Cultural day and home stay

I arrived in the village of Batu Puteh for a day of culture and to spend the night with one of the villagers and their family. I didn't take a picture of the home where I stayed, but it looked quite similar to these.



While in the village, I played with a bunch of kids, plus played volleyball with older kids and some younger adults. It was quite fun.
I also got a cooking lesson on how to make my favorite dessert - Puteri Mandi cakes (they were out of the usual green food coloring, so we made them pink instead).




I'm glad I made a bunch of them - because then I could eat a bunch of them!


After the cooking lesson, local residents put on a cultural show and introduced me to various songs and traditional dances.


They even let me play the gongs! Bang that gong! :-)
I also got to visit caves that contain coffins - both the middle cave and the high cave, Agop Sawat.

Naturally, getting there meant climbing more stairs - just when my legs had finally recovered from Mt. Kinabalu!
Spider on coffin
There were lots of bats in the cave.
Coffins were decorated with the heads of different animals.

Wild Man of Borneo

No trip to Borneo would be complete without a visit to the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary. Here the orangutans are "wild" but there are feeding platforms where they are fed 2x/day, so it creates a zoo-like feeling.
But, since this is really the only chance to see the orangutans in the "wild" I guess it will have to do.



There were other monkeys (macaques) at the sanctuary too. They also came out at feeding time, but were much bolder around people, chasing them off the boardwalks.
It was exciting and kind of scary at the same time.
I also took the trip outside of Sepilok to visit the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. This seemed less "professional" although they had designated feeding stations too.

I actually enjoyed watching the proboscis monkeys more than the orangutans - but maybe that's because they didn't just eat then disappear again.





I also took a side trip to the Rainforest Discovery Center, which was within walking distance from the Sepilok B&B where I stayed.
There were catwalks throughout the canopy. I saw a few squirrels, some birds, but mostly plants.