The Kinabatangan area is known for its remarkable wildlife and habitats like riverine forests, freshwater swamp forests, oxbow lakes and salty mangrove swamps near the coast. And that was exactly where we were heading. After the bus took us further, we got a 5-10 minute transfer to our cabins near the river. After we had checked in and got some lunch, we went for our first "rivercruise". Now I bet you you're all thinking that it was very big with a lot of people... just mass tourism. But we were pleasantly surpirsed as we were going with small motorboats 6-8 people around the river to spot some wildlife in the water and along the river banks. In total, we did three of those trips and with all of them, we proved to be very lucky once again. Here's a quick recap of the things we've encountered:
Some makake monkeys, chilling in the trees, the elusive proboscis monkey (more on them in the next post), big monitor lizard (1.5m) chewing down on some awfully smelly carcas, a reticulated python snuggly curled up in the tree, some very nice birds, but that day's smacker came in the form of an Asian elephant family. Now Asian elephants are not that common anymore in Borneo but seeing a classic, almost Disney-like, case of family love is even more unique. Here's how it went down. We heard some rumbling throught the bushes and thought, wow, this must be quite a big animal, nothing more. But than the big guy started trumpeting and pushed his way through to the river bank. Suddenly, on the opposite side of the river, a female elephant and a baby elephant came out of the bush and they started trumpeting towards each other (the baby made such a cool noise, you have hear on video).
Sois and his well-footed new friend
Curious baby pigtail Makake monkey
Pigtail Makake Monkey
Now it started to seem that they were missing each other more and more every minute, judging by the trumpeting and beating around the bush. After a minute or two, dad couldn't refrain himself any longer and walked into the river and swam approximately 2 meters from our boat towards the other side to be reunited with his family. We almost cried of joy and excitement ;-). Truly magnificent animal equalled truly magnificent experience (yet again). And with that in mind (and quite a nice jungle buffet dinner in our tummies), we went to our mosquito-net covered beds (we were also taking malaria tablets just in case). Alright, see ya'll next morning.
The Kinabatangan area is known for its remarkable wildlife and habitats like riverine forests, freshwater swamp forests, oxbow lakes and salty mangrove swamps near the coast. And that was exactly where we were heading. After the bus took us further, we got a 5-10 minute transfer to our cabins near the river. After we had checked in and got some lunch, we went for our first "rivercruise". Now I bet you you're all thinking that it was very big with a lot of people... just mass tourism. But we were pleasantly surpirsed as we were going with small motorboats 6-8 people around the river to spot some wildlife in the water and along the river banks. In total, we did three of those trips and with all of them, we proved to be very lucky once again. Here's a quick recap of the things we've encountered:
Some makake monkeys, chilling in the trees, the elusive proboscis monkey (more on them in the next post), big monitor lizard (1.5m) chewing down on some awfully smelly carcas, a reticulated python snuggly curled up in the tree, some very nice birds, but that day's smacker came in the form of an Asian elephant family. Now Asian elephants are not that common anymore in Borneo but seeing a classic, almost Disney-like, case of family love is even more unique. Here's how it went down. We heard some rumbling throught the bushes and thought, wow, this must be quite a big animal, nothing more. But than the big guy started trumpeting and pushed his way through to the river bank. Suddenly, on the opposite side of the river, a female elephant and a baby elephant came out of the bush and they started trumpeting towards each other (the baby made such a cool noise, you have hear on video).
Sois and his well-footed new friend
Curious baby pigtail Makake monkey
Pigtail Makake Monkey
Now it started to seem that they were missing each other more and more every minute, judging by the trumpeting and beating around the bush. After a minute or two, dad couldn't refrain himself any longer and walked into the river and swam approximately 2 meters from our boat towards the other side to be reunited with his family. We almost cried of joy and excitement ;-). Truly magnificent animal equalled truly magnificent experience (yet again). And with that in mind (and quite a nice jungle buffet dinner in our tummies), we went to our mosquito-net covered beds (we were also taking malaria tablets just in case). Alright, see ya'll next morning. 
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