OK, I admit, travelling Asia, being a full-time dad and keeping a regular blog is proving hard. Since climbing Mt Kinabalu, we have had a new adventures, visited new places, met many nice people and spotted some amazing species of animal, but I just haven't found/made time to do any writing. To those at home wondering where we're at, sorry, I'll try to be more organised in future.
If you still want to know what we were doing over the last month, read on, here's a catch-up...
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From Kota Kinabalu we took a cheap cab to Sepilok orang-utan sanctuary, where you get to see ex-captive or orphaned orangs being re-habituated into the wild. It's a bit of a zoo-like experience, as you are kept behind barriers while the apes come in from the forest reserve and feed on fruit twice a day. I'd hoped to be mingling more closely with our red-haired cousins, but it was still good to see once maltreated apes looking so happy.
The most exciting part of this stop was the 2-km jungle walk on which we discovered a great number of leeches lurking in the foliage, eager to feast on our blood. Aron totally freaked out and would not stand on the ground, so I had to carry him most of the way out and back again. Ariel was just happy the leeches had come to say hello. On the way back we were attacked by some pig-tailed macaques that I foolishly got too close to, but after sending us running they left us alone. An exciting, if scary, day.
Our next stop was a homestay with Maria (actually Mariati) in Kinabatangan wildlife reserve, which is a forest reserve along the banks of a muddy, croc-filled river. It is mostly secondary forest (ie it has been logged for any valuable wood and and new trees have since sprung up), but it still manages to support such endangered species as elephants, proboscis monkeys, clouded leopards and orang-utans that have moved back in.
We took several boat trips up side rivers and a jungle walk alongside an ox-bow lake where the boys learned how to drink from a vine.
We also had a go at fishing with weighted nets that take real skill to throw well, but we didn't do to badly for newbies.
Sadly we didn't get to see any more of the elephants than some (large) fungus-covered mounds of poo, and nothing of the leopards, but we saw zillions of the fleshy-nosed, pot-bellied, grey-gloved proboscis monkeys, a sizable crocodile, three wild orang-utans, kingfishers, eagles, and many hornbills of various species. Oh and the odd pit viper, which seem to sit on the same branch for days on end until they need to go and find food. The boat man was a bit casual about this, as he pulled the boat in to show us the (dangerously venomous) snake, he manoeuvred us so that Ariel and I in the bows were just a couple of feet below it. Lucky they don't jump, mostly...
From Maria's we headed via bus through miles and miles of the dreaded oil palms (Sabah seems to be extensively covered by palm plantations) to Sepilok (and the very nice Dragon Inn, perched on stilts over the harbour waters) where the next day we got a very fast speed boat out to Mabul and Sipadan islands for Maja to go diving.
We stayed at Uncle Cheng's which is a divers' resort, again built on stilts over the water like the real and friendly water village next door.
It was a great place for the kids and I to chill out,
while Maja went bravely out to meet sharks, turtles, barracuda, nudibranchs (sea slugs) and more on two of the world's best dive islands (dive pics thanks to anonymous Japanese man).
I was very jealous and was wishing I didn't have my silly fear of going beneath the waves brought on by a bad dive 'try out' a couple of years ago (more on this in the next installment). The huge turtle that came cruising through our Uncle Cheng's to munch sea grass every high tide was a real highlight for me, though (image not same turtle, but possibly an acquaintance).
Dives over, we flew down to Kuching - a nice, relaxed colonial-era town in the midst of its noisy 'One Malaysia' celebrations. We stayed, oddly, in a shabby but interesting guest house in the grounds of the cathedral, which was one of the oldest buildings in the town, dating from the British occupation.
The local Chinese temples around the corner were a hive of activity, putting on opera, theatre and music every night to celebrate a saint's birth, or was it death? I forget.
Inside the temple, a huge amount of offerings were laid out - cooked ducks, fruit, huge dumplings and even a whole roast pig with its chubby head still in place.
We spent a nice couple of days wandering around and sitting on the embankment beside the river stealing wi-fi from some local business to do our emails.
Just at the southern tip of Sarawak, about an hour's rattly bus ride from Kuching, is Bako national park, which you can only get to by boat over crocodile infested waters - the presence of stinging jellyfish, sting-rays and some mean catfish also add to the risk.
The park is not huge but is home to Bornean bearded pigs (like non-aggressive wild boar), proboscis monkeys, pesky thievin' long-tailed macaque monkeys, pit vipers, mud-skippers and horseshoe crabs (as well as fiddler crabs and hermit crabs too). The bearded pigs actually used to wander through the camp seeking titbits. In fact the proboscis monkeys, the pit vipers and the macaques were also seen in camp. The jungle walks were nice but void of animal life. The big wow moment in Bako was seeing a flying lemur actually fly from tree to tree outside our chalet. Stunning, as was this sunset.
Thus ended out 6 weeks or so in Borneo.
If you still want to know what we were doing over the last month, read on, here's a catch-up...
-------------
From Kota Kinabalu we took a cheap cab to Sepilok orang-utan sanctuary, where you get to see ex-captive or orphaned orangs being re-habituated into the wild. It's a bit of a zoo-like experience, as you are kept behind barriers while the apes come in from the forest reserve and feed on fruit twice a day. I'd hoped to be mingling more closely with our red-haired cousins, but it was still good to see once maltreated apes looking so happy.
The most exciting part of this stop was the 2-km jungle walk on which we discovered a great number of leeches lurking in the foliage, eager to feast on our blood. Aron totally freaked out and would not stand on the ground, so I had to carry him most of the way out and back again. Ariel was just happy the leeches had come to say hello. On the way back we were attacked by some pig-tailed macaques that I foolishly got too close to, but after sending us running they left us alone. An exciting, if scary, day.
Our next stop was a homestay with Maria (actually Mariati) in Kinabatangan wildlife reserve, which is a forest reserve along the banks of a muddy, croc-filled river. It is mostly secondary forest (ie it has been logged for any valuable wood and and new trees have since sprung up), but it still manages to support such endangered species as elephants, proboscis monkeys, clouded leopards and orang-utans that have moved back in.
We took several boat trips up side rivers and a jungle walk alongside an ox-bow lake where the boys learned how to drink from a vine.
We also had a go at fishing with weighted nets that take real skill to throw well, but we didn't do to badly for newbies.
Sadly we didn't get to see any more of the elephants than some (large) fungus-covered mounds of poo, and nothing of the leopards, but we saw zillions of the fleshy-nosed, pot-bellied, grey-gloved proboscis monkeys, a sizable crocodile, three wild orang-utans, kingfishers, eagles, and many hornbills of various species. Oh and the odd pit viper, which seem to sit on the same branch for days on end until they need to go and find food. The boat man was a bit casual about this, as he pulled the boat in to show us the (dangerously venomous) snake, he manoeuvred us so that Ariel and I in the bows were just a couple of feet below it. Lucky they don't jump, mostly...
From Maria's we headed via bus through miles and miles of the dreaded oil palms (Sabah seems to be extensively covered by palm plantations) to Sepilok (and the very nice Dragon Inn, perched on stilts over the harbour waters) where the next day we got a very fast speed boat out to Mabul and Sipadan islands for Maja to go diving.
We stayed at Uncle Cheng's which is a divers' resort, again built on stilts over the water like the real and friendly water village next door.
It was a great place for the kids and I to chill out,
while Maja went bravely out to meet sharks, turtles, barracuda, nudibranchs (sea slugs) and more on two of the world's best dive islands (dive pics thanks to anonymous Japanese man).
I was very jealous and was wishing I didn't have my silly fear of going beneath the waves brought on by a bad dive 'try out' a couple of years ago (more on this in the next installment). The huge turtle that came cruising through our Uncle Cheng's to munch sea grass every high tide was a real highlight for me, though (image not same turtle, but possibly an acquaintance).
Dives over, we flew down to Kuching - a nice, relaxed colonial-era town in the midst of its noisy 'One Malaysia' celebrations. We stayed, oddly, in a shabby but interesting guest house in the grounds of the cathedral, which was one of the oldest buildings in the town, dating from the British occupation.
The local Chinese temples around the corner were a hive of activity, putting on opera, theatre and music every night to celebrate a saint's birth, or was it death? I forget.
Inside the temple, a huge amount of offerings were laid out - cooked ducks, fruit, huge dumplings and even a whole roast pig with its chubby head still in place.
We spent a nice couple of days wandering around and sitting on the embankment beside the river stealing wi-fi from some local business to do our emails.
Just at the southern tip of Sarawak, about an hour's rattly bus ride from Kuching, is Bako national park, which you can only get to by boat over crocodile infested waters - the presence of stinging jellyfish, sting-rays and some mean catfish also add to the risk.
The park is not huge but is home to Bornean bearded pigs (like non-aggressive wild boar), proboscis monkeys, pesky thievin' long-tailed macaque monkeys, pit vipers, mud-skippers and horseshoe crabs (as well as fiddler crabs and hermit crabs too). The bearded pigs actually used to wander through the camp seeking titbits. In fact the proboscis monkeys, the pit vipers and the macaques were also seen in camp. The jungle walks were nice but void of animal life. The big wow moment in Bako was seeing a flying lemur actually fly from tree to tree outside our chalet. Stunning, as was this sunset.
Thus ended out 6 weeks or so in Borneo.
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