Day 7: Kinabatangan River

/ invadercee

It’s another early start today as we have our biggest transit day. After breakfast, we load up in the minivans and take the 5 hour trip to our next destination, Sandakan.

As we get closer to Sandakan, the jungle landscape gives way to one lined with palm oil plantations. In the Western world, palm oil has a pretty bad reputation because of the destruction these plantations have caused to the natural habitat of the orangutan. The issue isn’t so cut and dry for locals though as they rely so much on the plantations. Palm oil is also used in so much food and manufacturing here. Due to international demand, palm oil output from Malaysia is expected to triple by 2016.

The government appears to be taking steps to preserve large parts of land to protect habitats of the wildlife which is a positive sign.

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Arriving at the jetty, we are met by two boats. We take a short 5 minute boat cruise to the Bilit Adventure Lodge located in the midst of the Bornean jungle. Lunch overlooks the Kinabatangan river and pictures dot the walls with the local wildlife we hope to glimpse that afternoon. Our rooms are basic, but the surrounding jungle can’t be beat.

The river boat cruise takes us a little over 2 hours, and in that time we see an array of wildlife.

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Monitor lizard

Monitor lizard

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Proboscis monkey

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We arrive back just as the sun has set.

After dinner, we all don leech socks and gumboots and go for a night walk in the jungle. Alas, we don’t see much apart from the occasional frog, spider and snake. However, we’ve seen so much amazing wild-life on the river cruise, I can’t be too disappointed!

Borneo Travel Diary