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From the Jungle to the Sea

Our Pangaea Posted on by
 

  

A monster leaf, a hot chick and a flash car

At the risk of stating the obvious, you can’t be on an island covered in mountains, jungle and oil palm plantations without also being surrounded by the sea.  So after a couple of days inland we now turned our sights towards life on the Kinabatangan River and the world famous diving and snorkeling islands near the coastal town of Semporna.

 But not so fast.  Our overnight spot of Sandakan would be recognisable to WWII buffs because it was the site of the large British post before the war and the site of the Japanese POW camps later on.  The town, which is crammed in between the port and the steep mountain escarpment, and the port were totally bombed during the war.  The home of the British High Commissioner (or some such title) on the hill was rebuilt after the war in it is original state (now called the Agnes Keith House to commemorate the Commissioner’s wife who wrote award winning books about life in Sandakan) and makes a fascinating history stop to see how the British lived and ruled this distant outpost during the 19th and first half of the 20th century. 
A few reminders were left behind at the Sandakan War Memorial
 

We then went on to the Sandakan War Memorial, site of the huge POW camps which the Japanese set up to house 1600 Australians and 600 British during the last couple of years of the war.  This was a horrible place to be held captive, very basic conditions, minimal food, oppressive heat, lack of sanitation or medical support, hard labour. 

 
 
 

Julie standing in front of a longhouse before entering the Gomantong Cave

But it is most famous for what has been known as the Sandakan Death March when the Japanese forces marched these weakened POWs through the jungle to the inland town of Ranau.  Eventually all POWs died except the six who miraculously escaped and lived to tell the horrifying stories of the camps and march.  More Aussies died at Sandakan than building the railway from Thailand to Burma.

 
On that cheery note we drove on heavily battered roads through the endless rolling oil palm plantations, which were depressing in their own way as well as being (grudgingly) impressive, to the Gomantong Caves.  These caves are famous for the harvesting of birds’ nests to make the highly prized birds nest soup (which is basically bird saliva and sticks warmed up in a yummy broth). 

One of the magnificent hornbills we saw, carrying around quite a beak

 

The cave was a huge cavernous area filled with bats and birds.  This unique setting came with a large challenge to our senses – a very strong, putrid smell from stale and stagnant urine plus the mountains of bird and bat poo. I mean enough poo to cover the boardwalk, the old rickety wooden handrail, everything.  And with the poo came a million cockroaches, crawling everywhere, unavoidably under every footstep, covering the handrail making it doubly unusable, absolutely disgusting.  So here we are in this dark creepy place with torches, don’t touch anything or slip and fall over, stay calm, take photos, look up at the bats, don’t faint from the smell, avoid getting anything over the edge of your sandals, don’t squeal in disgust (embarrassing), take more photos and make it back to the cave mouth without too much damage.  As Julie said, very cool and very gross.

 
 

Uncomplicated living on the river

 
 
 
But the boardwalk to and from the cave through the deep foliage unveiled other surprises.  On the way into the cave we came across a huge family of red leaf monkeys, which a passing guide said were very rare and he hadn’t seen them in two years, all playing in the trees directly above us, jumping from branch to branch, having a great old time. 
 
 

Sunset on the Kinabatangan River

On the way back to the Proton we heard and saw more rustling in the trees just off the track and stopped to see what we assumed were more monkeys.  But no, unbelievably there was an orangutan mother with her little baby, not 20 feet off the trail, just eating fruit and resting.  Julie and I stood in silence and total awe, this was the rarest of treats, a private showing to one of the most wonderful animals we’ve ever seen, in their natural wild setting, just going about their business.

 

Mum and bub orangutan entertaining their visitors on a boat below

 
 

We eventually guided the Proton onto a side road and followed it deeper into the jungle until it became a narrow one lane track to the little village of Sakau on the banks of the mighty Kinabatangan River.  From the Sakau Barefoot Lodge, really a fairly primitive backpackers place but magnificently set right on the river banks, we joined a few others for our afternoon cruise on the river. 

 
 

He's a big boy but he moves through the trees with incredible ease

This river has gained a reputation for being a fantastic place to view wildlife, mainly because the encroaching oil palm plantations have driven animals to the last remaining strips of native rainforest.  With our trusty driver and guide Joe we headed up this wide and swollen river, high up to the top and even over its banks in some places, with its strong muddy current and huge floating logs which made a good slalom course.

 This was a fantastic experience in the wild, made us remark yet again about thinking where we are on the map right now, cruising the banks looking for animals.  During the afternoon we spotted the Black Hornbill and Rhino Hornbill (very rare), both large birds with very distinctive colourful upturned beaks and loud unique screeches, many proboscis monkeys, also some red leaf monkeys (not that rare after all!) and the grey macaque.  We also enjoyed the locals as they went about their daily life on the river, fishing, playing, cleaning, cooking from outside their small timber homes, life moving along at a pace slower than the river. 

The mighty Proton having a little rest amongst the big bad oil palms

The next day we rose early to do it all again – a river cruise at dawn!  The morning light was beautiful across the river, everything was calm and quiet, just a stunning experience.  We saw the Pied Oriental Hornbill, and Wrinkled Hornbill (there are actually eight different variations of hornbills so we didn’t see them all), the colourful Collared Kingfisher (the bird, not the beer), and yes, more orangutans. 

Homes and even villages are built over the water, this one in Lahad Datu

The first ones we saw were a mother and her baby high up in a tree overhanging the river.  Our boat nudged up almost directly under mum and bub, they looked down quizzically and we looked up quizzically.  The only difference between us and them (besides the 3.6% of genes that don’t match) is that we had cameras and they didn’t.

Further down the river we found a solitary male, an absolute monster of a guy, big ugly bald head, otherwise with long red hair, huge arm span picking and eating fruit off a tree on the river bank, later using his massive arms and legs to swing slowly between trees.  This guy was a classic, a real Discovery Channel character, lazily feeding himself without a worry in the world.  The video looks great.

Coupla kids putting a box to good use

After a tree full of frolicking proboscis monkeys we returned to the lodge for breakfast and headed down the road.  We picked up five litres of fuel from a boy on the side of the road who poured it from a milk container using a funnel and a section of garden hose, then started our drive through more oil palms to our stop for the night in Semporna.

Malaysia produces 40% of the world’s palm oil and it is a fascinating plant.  The buds from which they harvest the raw elements that make the oil grow in a huge clusters under each new palm frond.  These clusters are the size of a toilet bowl, they are sticky and spiky and almost impossible to pick up both for their weight and their texture.  The palms themselves can grow up to 10 metres high and are frequently covered with various vines, ferns and other plants, much as you would expect in a rainforest. 

But we have to remember that it is western society that is demanding products made of or with palm oil, these guys are just meeting that demand and trying to make a living.  Note to self – don’t buy products with palm oil (easier said than done).

We arrived at Semporna in time to wander amongst its lively fish market and to book our snorkeling trip to the islands the next day.  It appears Semporna really lives for those two purposes – a fishing village for the locals and a base for world class diving for the foreigners.  The fish tasted good, now we have to check out the reefs.

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