Sandakan trips 2004 and 2017

TRIP I: Sepilok June 2004

I first visited Sepilok in 2004. I've been fascinated with Bornean wildlife since I was 7 or 8, so if I was visiting Malaysia I had to go to Borneo.

I arrived at the small airport in Sandakan at about three in the afternoon and took a van that left me at a bus stop next to a lonely, unappealing area by a dock. There was a small market there. I looked around in it and  locals were actually  pointing their fingers at me and laughing. I wasn't wearing anything weird so I don't know what was going on. Anyway... After a while I got on a van that would get me to Sepilok jungle resort. People were getting off at several different points and after the last person was dropped off I was suddenly alone in the back of the van. It was pitch dark now and we were deep in the jungle.  I wasn't following the conversation the driver and his co-pilot were having because they spoke the local language but I did notice them suspiciously looking at me through the rear-view mirror. I was beginning to get a little nervous. A few minutes later they dropped me off in what seemed to be a random spot in the jungle and I stood looking at the van disappear back into the darkness. I was paralyzed with fear for a moment when I turned around and saw nothing but jungle all around. 

Then at  the last second I saw the lights of the resort some 20 meters away. There were people having dinner outside. I was there! Beautiful place. Easy, friendly check-in and a clean comfortable room. The orangutan rehabilitation center is maybe 100 meters away.

From the resort rehabilitation center next door, go on a tour to Gomantong cave, or head to the apparently amazing Danum valley, or to the Kinabatangan river to catch a glimpse of wild elephants, orangutans, proboscis monkeys, long and pig-tailed macaques, silver and red langurs, tarsiers, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Most tours are quite cheap, and food is reasonable as always in Malaysia. Staff is really nice. 

I saw some kind of small flying squirrel the size of a small hamster maybe. It landed on my room's window and held on to the mosquito net for a bit. It startled me because I thought it was a huge bug at first, but safe behind the net, I had a closer look and noticed it was furry and cute and a lot like a sugar glider, though  I'm not sure they got those there. A baby colugo maybe?

Watch out for tiger leeches. They are pretty to look at in a way but damn! their bite stings. There's brown leeches too but their bite is painless. None of them transmit diseases to humans.

After seeing a young orangutan and some macaques at the center's breakfast platform I got a 10 ringgit extra ticket to see the last red Sumatran rhinos, all two of them, which were kept at a special isolated pen a short distance away from the main feeding platform. I was carrying ridiculous, super heavy WWII-style binoculars but an Australian who was going the same way lent me hers for a minute, to have a better look at a bug that had flown from one tree to another. Her tiny binoculars were way better than mine and I could see very clearly it wasn't a bug. It seemed to be just a beautiful little lizard but then it opened its tiny "wings."

It's really a remarkable little guy. Beautiful, vivid colors.

After failing to see any rhinos ("they're shy" we were told) The Aussie proposed a walk to the birdwatching tower somewhere in the area. We walked for ten minutes or so and she was picking up spiders and stuff and showing them to me before carefully returning them to where they were.  We got to the bird-watching tower and were admiring the area when I realised we were in a sort of clearing in the forest and the floor was covered in tiger leeches. I mean 5 per square foot, easy. We got away from there and the Aussie went her own way. I came back to the resort and sat next to some brits on a bridge. We were chatting when I felt a bite in my ankle. I though it had been a mosquito or a small spider but when I opened my boot and removed my sock there was a big fat tiger leech feasting on my blood.I tried to flick it off with my finger but it hardly noticed my feeble attack. I didn't know that they are totally disease free so I wanted it gone ASAP. I borrowed a lighter and went medieval...

It let go of me soon after I put the flame to it. When it fell to the ground I squashed it with my mighty boot.

The creature rolled away spurting a tiny bit of my blood, unharmed, and jumped into the river. Indestructible, nasty little thing. The pain went away quickly and there was no itchiness but it did take a while to heal, considering what a tiny bite it was. This is of course because of the leech's anticoagulants which it injects when biting.

I spent two more nights there and left Borneo with a good taste in my mouth. The thickness of the jungle, the amount of wildlife and exotic plants and the cacophony of sounds coming from the forest were amazing. Sadly,  when I  came back in april 2017 the jungle was mostly gone, along with so much wildlife.

TRIP II: Kinabatangan and Sepilok April 2017

This time I stayed at the slightly more adventurous Nature lodge Kinabatangan, a few hours away from Sandakan. It is by far the cheapest option for wildlife tours in the area. Clean, with helpful staff and comfortable rooms. Food wasn't that great but never bad.

There was a scorpion with me in the shower on day two. I respect arachnids as much as I can but a scorpion near my feet in the shower is a big no no. The bottom of the shampoo bottle took care of it. Later that day, a huge beautiful beetle lounged on the oversized toilet roll.

 There were loads of different colorful lizards in the garden outside the rooms and lots of tupayas in the trees. I nearly cried when I saw the little bastards as I really wanted to see them in 2004 and had no luck. I saw one in Sarawak at Semenggoh with my girl in 2014 but it avoided our cameras. At least the lizard below is actually my photo.

 On the early morning boat rides we saw macaques, proboscis monkeys, langurs, a couple monitor lizards, a saltwater crocodile, an oriental darter bird, a couple of different Rhinoceros bills and a pretty big eagle. No luck with orangutans nor elephants this time around.

From here on it's all my actual crappy photos.

 In the jungle walk we did we saw an orangutan nest, evidence of elephants and bears and lots of interesting bugs too. Mud was knee-deep in some areas. Our guide kept rushing us and when we asked him to take it easy he told us we were just too slow. We weren't, I have a feeling he had a schedule to keep and started late or something. He was fine apart from that.

The sad part of all of this was the way back to Sandakan. It was about two hours of fucking palm oil plantations as far as the eye could see, on both sides of the road. This was all jungle when I first visited in 2004. Sabah has killed its own unique rainforest for money. It is truly heartbreaking to see the extent of the devastation. I left Borneo feeling a little sad and vowing never to come back to Sabah. Except maybe to see the famous Danum valley before it disappears.

I'm hoping to get back to the much better kept Sarawak sometime.