I am taking advantage of the awesome internet connection in our hotel here in Hong Kong to upload all of our safari photos from Borneo and finish writing up our experience.

After seeing the Orangutans at SORC, we had a lovely lunch at our resort, and were picked up by Uncle Tan’s.  We spent a little while there while they briefed us for the wildlife safari.  We were to have a 2 hour bus ride and then another hour-ish on a boat to get to camp.

The river was quite pretty.

On the ride in we saw two Orangutans in the trees.

We also saw a baby crocodile but I didn’t get a good picture.

We got to camp, set up our stuff, and had a short briefing.  After the briefing we had some chow, which was a really cool atmosphere because the Malay workers brought out their guitars and were singing American pop songs throughout dinner.

I almost forgot!  During dinner I had yet another battle with walking.  I went to take a step and kicked a wooden picnic table.  I kicked this table so hard that Matthew and I are pretty sure that I broke my toe as it is a month later and my toe is still swollen and sore.  Matthew wanted me to “man up” and didn’t quite believe me when I said that I thought it was broken.  (Only at the moment of the incident, I may add.  I mean, seriously, is your answer to failing at walking, to fail at walking yet again? It seemed beyond believability.)  Needless to say, I soldiered on and continued with our program. (Or, in a dissident opinion, was left with no options and so endured.)

After dinner we headed out on our night boat safari.  We didn’t see anything too good but we did see quite a few different kinds of birds.  I don’t have great pictures from that night because it is quite difficult to take good photos while on a boat at night.

This a monitor lizard in a tree.

This is a Buffy Fish Owl.

Here is a Kingfisher.

I forget what these little guys were called but they were cute.

Here is another Kingfisher.  I really liked the Kingfishers!

Anyway, we called it an early night because we had to get up at like 6am for our morning boat safari.  The morning safari wasn’t as fruitful as we had hoped.  The point of the morning safari is to see Orangutans and we saw quite a few things but no Orangutans.  We did see a Gibbon but it was a little too far away to get a good picture.

Above are all pictures of Macaques.  Macaques were everywhere.  It was really easy to get good photos of them.

Here is a little crocodile.

We also saw some birds, the Gibbon, and another lizard.

After breakfast we headed into the woods for “jungle trekking”.  I was a little worried because I was having trouble walking but I loaded up on the Ibuprofen and headed off.  It was not really good for seeing wildlife but our guide, Leo, showed us lots of fauna and explained a lot about the environment to us.

We saw a millipede.

Here is a bad photo of Leo.

This is a photo of an Orangutan nest.  They build two nests a day, I believe.

Here is another millipede.  This little dude smells like anise when you stroke it.

After getting super muddy wading through the mud to get to the boat, we took a siesta during the hot part of the day.

After the siesta we went out for another boat tour.  This time we were going in search of Proboscis Monkeys and man did we find them.  As soon as we were on the water we found a troop of them.  I have a ton of photos from there.

We also saw a Silvered Langer Monkey but I didn’t get any spectacular shots of him.  We saw, yet another, troop of Proboscis Monkeys but it was getting dark so I didn’t get anything good of them.  Of course we saw lots of birds, including a Rhinoceros Hornbill.  Sadly, I didn’t get a great shot of it but it was awesome to see!

After another musical dinner, we headed out for night jungle trekking.  We were hoping to see Civets and some people did see one right at the beginning but it scampered away quickly.

We did see a few frogs and other bugs.

Above is one of the froggies.

This is another little frog.  Leo wasn’t sure what kind he was…

While we were looking at the frog, a little visitor landed on Matthew’s shirt.

We found a sleeping Kingfisher and I got close enough to touch it!

There were these weird little insects that apparently turn into moths. (Cotton bugs, we were informed. This picture doesn’t capture the size of the colony there, which was enough to cover the branch for a few inches in solid fluff. There was also a mature one, in moth form, which is less remarkable than the adolescent bugs.)

At the end Leo taught us this trick for finding spiders.  When I was shining my flashlight in the beginning I noticed all of these glittering dots but I thought they were water droplets.  Leo taught us that they were spider eyes.  If you put your torch (flashlights for you Americans) in front of your nose, you’ll see reflecting dots wherever the spider’s eyes are.  We saw millions of spiders in the forest.  It was both creepy and awesome.  Sure enough though, every time we went to check, there was a tiny spider.  (You can spot them literally meters away, and they are literally on every surface. Trees, leaves, ground, mud; even water.)

That night we all stayed up late.  Everyone was drinking and talking.  I went to bed at around 1:30am but Matthew, the Brit, and the Frenchmen stayed up until past 3am. (Pastis!) The awesome part about staying up late was that a Civet cat crept into our camp to rummage so we got to see it up close. (Quite a few times for the late-nighters. He came back for every trash can, so we got to see him four or five times at a distance of about three meters. It was incredible, and though the company was great fun, it was the best part of the evening.)

The next morning we headed out for one last boat safari.  We were lucky enough to see an Orangutan, catch the tail end of some pigs, see another croc, and get some GREAT shots of an Oriental Pied Hornbill.

Orangutan!

Oriental Pied Hornbill.  This second shot is priceless!

Here is Uncle Tan’s camp.

Just before we all took off, they had a staff versus tourists game.  I’m not sure if they threw the game but the tourists won.  It went to a shootout and Matthew scored the winning goal.  Sadly, I didn’t get a good photo of his victory.

Here is a list of the animals we saw.  Leo forgot to put on a Silvered Langer Monkey.

We got back to Uncle Tan’s and showered!  Woohoo!  Matthew had a little friend come to visit.

After Uncle Tan’s we headed back to Kota Kinabalu.  We were going to take a steam train ride but we found it was booked up and we thought that getting a 5 star hotel might be a nicer way to spend our last two nights.  A five star hotel in KK is about the price of a Best Western in the US so we thought it was a steal.  We spent our last days swimming, drinking buckets of Stella by the pool, relaxing in the sauna and jacuzzi, ordering room service, and venturing out to our favorite local Malaysian food restaurant at the night market.  On our last night there we took a full stroll around the night market and I got a VERY warm welcome from everyone.  Every fifth person told me that they loved my tattoos.  If they didn’t know English then I got a thumbs up.  Matthew thought it was amusing to walk in my wake.

Malaysia was amazing and I miss it.  I can’t wait to go back (or maybe even work there someday).