Onroad 2 Borneo Revisited :This is not HILTON

Kinabatangan River Borneo, 3-5 March 2005
After a really good night sleep at Summit Lodge in Kinabalu Parks we checked out about 11am to catch the SIDA Express bus to Sandakan. We waited outside the Park until the bright yellow coach turned up. On an email from Eugene, this bus recommended to go to Uncle Tan Wildlife Jungle Camp HQ in Gum Gum village. It took about 4 hours journey to the village. The night before I tried contact Eugene to get latest development about the camp at lower Kinabatangan River. It was flooding in last 3 weeks so we just want to know whether the water level started residing.
On the junction of KK-Sandakan-Tawau, we’ve been stop due the immigration control. The officer with blue uniform in military style carrying riffle jumped up to our bus to checking ID or passport. I sat on the very end of the bus and got my chance. He asked my ID and I gave him my scruffy Indonesian passport. He quick glanced on it and notice few things. Then he smiled (pfffff…thanks God), asked questions in a good manner including where I have been and what I have been doing. The two British bloke just left without checking.

The bus driver knew where we should go. So we ended up in the Batu 16 Gum Gum just by the Uncle Tan office. You can easily spot this office since they put a big sign on top of their second floor where several basic room for stay overnight. We would not stay in this place. We want straight down to the camp –about 2 hours away from the HQ. But we got problem. They did not mention that we should arrive in their office at least at 130pm, otherwise we will missed the shuttle transport to the boat point. I argued that last night when I rang them I clearly mention that we will arrive at 3pm. And we did, not missed a single minute. We understood that we would not get chance to see orang utans at Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre. But that what we wanted. We just want to go to the camp.
After negotiation and calling the big boss (Eugene –apparently he is the son of late Uncle Tan), he agreed to transport us with fancy Toyota 4wheel drive fully AC at 5pm. Thanks for the email correspondence before our arrival and also Mark’s tips about using camera flash. So here we are….on the fancy car. We drove back to the road junction and again met the immigration control. But now they seemed not bothered about us. I asked about these to Shahril -the Uncle Tan driver. He said that Malaysia aware about potential smuggle immigrants from either Indonesia nor Philippine.

Someone coming with a warm welcome. The guy –about late 20s typical Asian, dark skin, well built, long hair with a black Uncle Tan T-shirt gave a hand to everybody. His name is Lan. He would take us to the camp along with two others kids. On the dark, we set off with the boat. On our way, Lan showed us animals that he’ve seen it in just a glance with his bright spotlight. It took about an hour to reach the camp through oxbow lake and floodplain of Kinabatangan river. As I mention before, the camp in flooding conditions, means that now the camp became a water camp. Actually the location of the camp is by Danau Girang or Lot No 6 on the Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary level means that people can across the land without permission but not allowed to logging or farming.



The first night safari were great, we spotted frogs, owls, eagles, scorpions and flying foxes. In two hours we were scattering the river tried to find animals. Lan was really experienced guide. He told us the latin name, common habitat and the diet of each animal we found. I excited with this new experience, specially I am not a wildlife photographer. Lan himself is a keen wildlife photographer. Most of pictures on the board of the camp and the HQ were him. Eugene –his boss also a mad photographer. If you see some crocodile pictures or kingfisher or snake, they were all amazing. It needs a lots effort and determination to capture such beautiful moments.
In the next morning we started early to see how the animals moving from their territory to the jungle for feeding or daily activities. We went to the oxbow lakes to spot some of proboscis monkeys. We saw eagles as they moved to another area, also the famous one –Oriental hornbill. We had another safari in the mid day, then we had broken machine when we back to the camp. Problem was : we got to go upstream, so Lan decided to take a boat by river bank away from the main river. It took us more than 45 minutes through the swamp area with cutting the tree and leaves along the way. We survived by local boat just passed the river, carried us to the Observation Tower opposite the Uncle Tan camp.

There is a list of wildlife animal that we spotted in three days during our stay at Kinabatangan River.
- Proboscis Monkey (Nasalis larvatus )
- Long Tailed Macaque (Macaca facicularis)
- Silvered Leaf Monkey (Trachypithecus cristatus)
- Red Leaf Monkey (Presbytis rubicunda)
- Oriental Darter (Anhinga melanogaster)
- Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris)
- Asian Black Hornbill (Anthracocecos malayanus)
- Wrinkled Hornbill (Aceroscor rugatus)
- Great Egret (Egretta alba)
- Intermediate Egret - small version (Egretta intermedia)
- White Collared Kingfisher (Halcyon chloris)
- Stork Billed Kingfisher (Pelargopsis capensis)
- Grey Headed Kingfisher
- Brahminy Kite (Haliastur Indus)
- Crested Serpent Eagle (Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus)
- Bornean Blue Flycatcher (Cyorniscaerulatus)
- Cricket Frog (Rananico bariensis)
- Brown Bull Frog
- Green Tree Lizard (Anolisbima culatus)
- Monitor Lizard (Varanus indicus)
- Buffy Fish Ow (Ketupa ketupu)
- Plyn Pygmy Squirrel (Exilisciurus)
- Stick Insect
- Orb Weaver (spider)
- Brown Bush Grasshopper
- Black Scorpion
- Dollar Bird (Eurystomus orientalis)
- Tractor Milipede (black )
- Giant Milipede (red)
- Storm Stork (Ciconia stormi)
- Pig Tailed Macaque (Macaca nemestrina)
- Short Billed Spiker Minter
- Flying Foxes (Pteropus hypomelanus)
- Civet Cat Viverridae
- White Bellied Woodpecker (Dryocopus javensis)
- Green Imperial Woodpecker
- Blue Eared Kingfisher (Alcedo meninting)
- Malay Badger (Mydaus meliceps)
- Wolf Spider
- Frilled Tree Frog
- Centipede
- Blue Totter Bee - eater
Update 20 March 2006 : thanks Obot for the corrections !
Labels: travelling
4 Comments:
I envy you... I hope i still got the time to see kalimantan's wildlife before it turned to desert...
some correction that i remember:
Ketupa ketupu
Halcyon chloris
Ichtyophaga ichthyaethus
Macaca fascicularis
white bellied woodpecker: Dryocopus javensis
I don't have kalimantan's field guide in hand.. so I can't say much about the others. We are not supposed to memorize species name after all, that's what field guides are for ;)
Thanks Obot. I have been searching field guide books about animals in Borneo's wildlife. Hope will do more 'fun' in the future !
Wah hebat ya petualangannya
ngomong2 udah pernah meng-explore jogja ngga?
such as simple life of jogjanese maybe you can compare with singaporeans who work extremly hard with them who work extremly nyante
nuwun
arek djogja : he he he saya ini wong jogja mas. Masih sering ke cafe pakualaman kok...
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home