Long Tailed Macaque Monkey Photos
The long tailed Macaque are the closest to the definition of cheeky monkeys. We passed by them in a little branch of the main river and got real close for some nice shots. Just like the Orang Utans they were chilling out eating some fruit and there were about 15-20 of them in a close proximity to our boat.
This first one was sitting quite close to our boat so managed to get a good shot:
This little fella was very curious, coming very close to the boat. It's a long tailed Macaque. Click the image to get a much better view.
This second Macaque is just chilling out in the tree, putting his (or her) legs up and checking out the visitors (notice the comfy position of the legs and arms). Again I managed to get quite close thanks to the experience of our guide.
This Macaque is chilling out, putting his legs up. Again, click the image to see full size.
I used the 70-200mm lens for all the monkey shots. Generally some cropping was required when the subjects were far away, but in this instance a minimal amount was required, which I’m quite pleased with. I’m aiming to put up some photos of Mount Kinabalu plus a sunset next – a little monkey break…
Poring Hot Spring
It’s now 3pm and we’re back in our room, having spent most of the day in Poring Hot Spring. We took a cab there after breakfast, which was at 730am. It took about 1 hour and cost 85 ringgit (about £17 or 170 NOK).
When we arrived we could enter for free as it’s run by Sutera Harbour, the same company that runs the place we’re staying. If we didn’t stay here it would have cost 15 ringgit to come in (£3 or 30 NOK).
Poring Hot Spring is a water source coming from a mountain that apparently has been volcanic in the past and still produce the sulphur rich water that make Poring Hot Spring. Apparently it’s supposed to have healing qualities. We’d have expected it to be more natural but it’s a range of bath tubs you can jump into and take a bath. You can also hire a private indoor pool. There’s also a swimming pool and it’s all built up with small huts with changing room/shower as well as small kiosks that sell refreshments. While many others jumped in, we decided to skip it and rather walk up to the canopy walk, which is a set of suspended walkways that go between the tree tops. It was a little bit scary but most of all enjoyable. We also had a nice trek up and down, about 1km altogether. Walking shoes are the preferred option. It costs 5 ringgit (£1 or 10 NOK) per adult plus 5 ringgit per digital camera (30 ringgit for video camera! (£6 or 60 NOK)). We paid for 2 adults plus a digital camera and were told off when Ling tried to take out the compact to take a photo (I managed to take one with the iPhone though!)
After the canopy we walked to one of two waterfalls, about 0.5km away. Got some nice pictures. There was also a bat cave, but in order to get there we’d have to cross the river and we weren’t too keen to get soaked so we walked back for lunch.
We returned to the Poring Hot Spring entrance and had our lunch at a local restaurant just outside. That saved us about 50% compared to eating inside, at 41 ringgit (£8 or 80 NOK). Very nice!
The taxi driver waited for us at no extra cost (guess he was just happy to chill out) and we started the trip back to Kinabalu Park. On the way we stopped by to see the world’s largest flower, the Rafflesia. It blooms only for 5 days twice a month and is very rare, as it is a parasitic plant which grows only on certain types of plants and only under certain conditions. Photos to follow. Because it’s so rare the locals know to take advantage (which you would do) and charge 20 ringgit (£4 or 40 NOK) to see it (Ling managed to haggle it down to 15 ringgit as after all she’s from Singapore and therefore a neighbor, not a foreigner!!). The only staff you need to is two grandpas as guides plus a money box or bag, and you’re in business. With only 40 visitors/day 10 days/month they’ll be making 800 ringgit/day & 8000 ringgit/month (£1600 or 16000 NOK), which is quite a lot when you can eat dinner for less than 5 ringgit and work the remaining 20 days. Let’s all move to Borneo!
We’re catching the plane from Kota Kinabalu back to Singapore tomorrow morning at 1030am so need to head off at 645am to get there in time for check-in wit Jet Star. We’re using the same taxi driver to make sure we get there on time. 180 ringgit is the normal price but we (I.e. chief haggler Ling) managed to get the price down to 130 ringgit (£26 or 260 NOK) for a 2.30 hours journey. Well done!
I might be able to put up some pictures then – we’ll see, there’s about a 1000 of them 
Cruises, Monkeys & Leech Bites
There’s no feelinglike trying to sleep while dozens of flying foxes (bats) are scavenging the Rambutan tree above the lodge for fruit, continuously dropping remains onto the very thin tin roof. It’s almost like someone constantly banging on the door and is not a good sleeping medicine.
Nevertheless we managed to get a few hours sleep last night and woke up at 530am to enjoy a lukewarm shower. We were clear that if it was pissing down outside there would be no morning cruise, and at 530am it was doing exactly that: pissing it down. Luckily it stopped only 15 minutes before departure and we headed out on the river at 630am for our first of 3 cruises of the day. Because it had just rained there was a reduced chance of seeing animals, and besides am eagle and a few hornbills the prediction came true. The cruise also included a short trek through the jungle for which we needed heavy duty wellies as well as leech socks and insect repellent to keep the leeches away.
A leech is basically a walking tentacle that survives by sucking blood from innocent bypassers. They’re about 3 cm long and have about 100 teeth in their mouth which they use to grab hold of their victim. The bottom line is that they’re not dangerous at all and the locals actually say being bitten is good for you as it sucks only the bad blood.
The trek consisted mainly of walking through a flooded forest, which is where the wellies came in handy. Only too bad one of my wellies had a hole in it and I became soaking wet… We had to buy the leech socks at 15 ringgit for the pair and hired the wellies for 10 ringgit. Despite the protection the leeches easily found their way onto Ling, who seemed to be very attractive to the leeches. It was however in the end me who got bitten in the foot with blood (only bad blood of course) pooring out – nothing an antiseptic wipe and a patch couldn’t fix though.
It wasn’t until the second cruise in the afternoon we got some monkey action. As the photos will show (will be some good ones in there) we saw 4 different monkey species including Proboscis (long nose, only found in Borneo), wild Orang utan (a mother and a kid), a whole flock of long tailed mackau monkeys (got some nice close-ups, at times I could have touched them!), and finally 2 silver leaf monkeys, one with a baby. The photos will speak for themselves when I’m back – it was an unforgettable cruise, led by our guide Dim and his trustworthy companion and boat driver.
As we didn’t get to go on a cruise yesterday due to the weather, we had one spare and we therefore got a night cruise today as well. The most amazing part of that was the clear sky where we could see billions of stars – I’ve only seen such clear sky in Scotland so it was amazing.
The night cruise consisted of cruising around in the boat looking for birds using flashLights. We saw a few variations of Kingfishers as well as some other birds. The best thing about the night cruise was that it was very chilled. I’m not sure though how good it is for the birds to be disturbed with lights while sleeping buy we’ll leave that. Discussion for another day.
We were really lucky with the weather, as it rained between the cruises but not during them. We also met a couple living in London who had a stopover for some lunch before they were on their way again. Really nice couple, a Croatian guy and a Finnish girl. Compared to our 2 weeks they have 6 weeks to explore south east Asia! We need more holiday!
Anyways, we’re waking up at 6am tomorrow with breakfast at 7am, and then we head off at 730am to catch the bus to Kinabalu Park where we’ll be staying at a mountain resort and visit Poring Springs,a hot spring… I’ll know more after we’ve been there;).
It’ 1140pm and I can hear the bats starting to drop fruits on the roof, which means it’s time for bed… Good night.
Rain, Guard Bats & Bugs in the Dinner
It’s 945pm 20 January and we’re in the bedroom at Barefoot Lodge in Sakau, 2 hours south of Sandakan, Malaysia, Borneo.
Today we willingly left the comforts of the Shangri La resort in Kota Kinabalu (KK) to venture on a 2 day/night jungle safari by the rivers of the east coast of Borneo.
We took Air Asia from sunny KK at 1pm, landing in heavy rain at Sandakan airport. We were met by the lodge staff at the airport, who first brought us to a cheap local diner (£1 for the meal – they were paying as it’s included in the deal) and then on the way to Sukau on a 2 hour journey in heavy heavy rain.
The view on the way consisted of primarily palm oil plantations, with palm oil being Malaysia’s largest export industry. They extract the oil from spikey fruits in the palm trees in large factories and the oil is then used for cooking oil, soap, cosmetics and soon bio fuel! It’s also worth noting that the emergence of palm oil plantations is the main reason why the rain forest is disappearing and the orangutan have become an endangered species. Why do I know all this stuff you ask? Jessie our driver is a very nice guy and told us everything we needed to know.
On arriving at the lodge just before dark it was still raining, and the contrast from Shangri La’s deluxe rooms became clear. The rooms at the Barefoot Lodge are small with white painted boards for walls, two single beds and a bathroom with electric shower. A slightly musty smell and of course no aircon and a plug to charge the camera battery.
Dinner was at 7pm – we had time for a quick nap first. A combination of the rainy season and the economy meant that we were the only guests staying there, i.e. we were alone for dinner, except the 5 house kittens of course! Although we’ve taken malaria tablets we were still a bit apprehensive seeing 100′s of moskitos buzzing around the wall lights. The food was served and we sat down, very wary of our surroundings.
And we were right to be. A second after sitting down something flew across the room just above our heads -a bat! Slightly scary at first, but we were calmed by Jessie who told us it was their guard bat, Batman. While the bat was hovering above we started eating. A selection of vegetables, chicken, tuna, pumpkin, melon and rice. Just as I was about to dig in suddenly a bug fell into my food! We removed it with an unused knife, which we decided to dirty just in case they thought the knife was clean and decided to reuse it without cleaning it 
Tomorrow morning we’re going on a morning cruise at 630am followed by a jungle trek. We have to borrow special leech socks which are massive, kind of look like large christmas stockings only without the decorations. Then we’ll have breakfast followed by more activities. With this being a, not high, but special risk malaria area we’ll be wearing plenty of insect repellent with Deet and rain coats and in general long sleeves. Wish us good luck!
Travelling in the Rainy Season
It’s now 430pm and travelling in the rainy season means that every afternoon we can expect some form of rain and wind. The wind has started picking up and the staff are taking down the parasols, so I’m expecting the Norse God Thor to soon pass by with some rain and thunder.
In the meantime Ling is enjoying a nice overpriced massage in our room, which is why I’ve been kicked out. It better be a woman giving her that massage
Last night we had a Malaysian buffet dinner with a wide variety of foods including Roti Prata, a wide range of roast meat, as well as a large range of curries. It was a very enjoyable experience followed by drinks and listening to the hotel band singing in the hotel lobby. We were both jet lagged and tired so decided to go to bed early, only to find out that our room key wasn’t working! We called on the staff to come and help us, but no one was able to open it, not even the manager with her battery driven lock pick, which I’m sure I’ve seen in one of the Oceans movies. In the end they had to call on the engineers and we were offered free drink in the lobby bar while waiting – should have asked for an upgrade to a suite instead;) the engineers managed to fix the problem and we could go to bed – turned out the battery in the lock had run out and needed replacing! Anyways, we managed to get to our bed in the end and went into a koma straight away…
So far the Shangri La’s Rasa Ria Resort has been great, although I wouldn’t want to stay here for more than a few days to relax, being of the more adventurous kind. Being a 5 star resort, the only thing letting it down are e.g. the plastic toilet seat in an otherwise great bathroom, and a poorly setup TV where not all stated channels are working (not that I’ve been watching it much).
It’s tomorrow the real adventure starts. After a flight to Sandakan on the east coast we’re being picked up and driven into the jungle to a primitive lodge where we’ll stay for the next two nights. We’re hoping to see more monkeys, elephants and they even say you might see rhinos. Wild animals! Wish us good luck… I can feel the first drops of rain now so will go to the indoor bar for a drink.
PS: I know the iPhone photos are poor quality and I’ll make up for it when I get back home.
Orangutans in Kota Kinabalu
It’s hard to get a good close up of the orangutans with the iPhone but don’t worry – when I’m back home I’ll put up some great shots I took this morning – including a shot of my girlfriend Ling with two macho rangers.
Seeing the orangutans was a great experience. The resort we’re staying at has its own orangutan sanctuary, rescuing orangutans from the diminishing rain forests of Borneo. It’s actually supported by a British charity, which was a bit of an anticlimax coming all the way from Britain to see something different 
.
Anyways, we’re having a great time and are now going out for a quick dip in the pool followed by a kayak trip!
Borneo Here We Come!
Here we are, 730am on Sunday 18th Jan 2009, waiting at Singapore Changi Airport for our flight to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, Borneo. We’ve got our Tyfoid booster jabs safely injected (half price in Singapore compared to Leeds!) and our first malaria tablets in our system.
I’ll be sending updates when I can on this 1 week adventure with jungle trekking, mountain resorts and sunbathing. Obviously it depends on where they have 3g or wireless Internet.
First stop: 2 Nights at Shangri La Beach Resort, Kota Kinabalu!
Barcelona – Real Madrid
Spent the weekend in Barcelona with work. Here I am enjoying the football with Remo my colleague as Barcelona take down Real Madrid 2-0. What a massive stadium!
