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| Sunday, July 05, 2009, 06.22 PM | |||||
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Home » FeatureStory
Roland Kilos, our tour guide and boatman, came minutes later. After strapping on our life jackets, we embarked on our dawn river cruise. In the crisp morning air and with the wind playing havoc with our hair and hats, we scanned the riverbanks for wildlife. We saw endless stretches of elephant grass along the riverbanks but no elephants! This was the second day of our trip to the Kinabatangan floodplain of Sabah but the opportunity to spot the Bornean Pygmy elephants in the wild continued to elude us. We saw and observed wildlife like proboscis monkeys, macaques, storm storks and oriental darters, spectacular hornbills and even an estuarine crocodile. But no elephants. On the third day, we had a valuable tip-off from Sukau further downstream, the biggest settlement along the river. A herd of elephants was spotted crossing the river to the left bank. Eureka! With the location narrowed down to a smaller area, surely we would get a sighting soon. After all, guests had been writing comments like: “We saw loads of elephants” and “We saw 81 elephants!” Cruising The River The Kinabatangan is the longest river in Sabah. The 4,000 sq kms of forested flood plains and lower basin of this river is the largest in the country and is an important conservation area of 200 species of birds, 10 primates and critically threatened species of wildlife like the proboscis monkey, orang utan, pygmy elephant and eight species of hornbills. Life revolves around the river and cruising in open boats is the best way to view all these spectacular creatures in their natural habitat. So there are river cruises at the crack of dawn, in the late morning, in the heat of the afternoon, at dusk and in the pitch black of the night when spotlights are required. Visitors are not allowed to disembark on to the banks to feed or disturb the wildlife in any way. This world-recognised wildlife sanctuary is divided into several lots for supervision and studies and numerous international conferences have been held to help conserve the wildlife here. Issues like logging, oil palm estates encroaching on habitat, creation of linking corridors for the elephants and poaching are discussed with increasing urgency. Wildlife Country During our stay in Bilit, the second biggest village on the Kinabatangan, we saw six and heard one of the eight species of hornbills found in Sabah, an encouraging indication of the healthy status of the wildlife there. In other parts of the country, it is difficult to see even one hornbill. Here, it is possible to see about 10 hornbills of mixed species perched on a single tree! Proboscis monkeys were sighted on every cruise. They frequently congregate on their favourite trees in large numbers of 20 or 30. Macaques were everywhere and loud calls of gibbons that often culminated in piercing crescendos, woke us up in the mornings. Then, like an echo, another troupe will pick up the calls deeper in the forest. Oh, the music of the tropical rainforest! Trek To Ox Bow Lake “Yours is a size 7,” Roland told me after one look at my bare feet. We had to be fitted with gum (Wellington) boots in preparation for our trek into the jungle to reach Danau Bilit, an oxbow lake. I wore ordinary socks inside leech socks and tugged in the ends of my long pants before putting on the boots. Conveniently, boots and leech socks were available for rent at the resort. After a short boat ride, we were taken to the start of the trail. I had to get used to walking in gum boots as this was the first time I had worn a pair! Initially, I was not convinced that I needed them and wondered why I could not wear my own hiking shoes. After 10 minutes, I realised the wisdom of wearing the boots. Not only were the tracks extremely muddy but many flooded sections had calf-deep water through which we had to wade gingerly. Ordinary shoes or sandals would stuck in the soft mud and sucked in deep even as you struggle to put one foot in front of the other. An Australian family from Brisbane, the Maetams, recounted how their teenaged son, who wore a size 14, could not get any boots his size. So he trekked in his own open-ended shoes, much to the worry of his mother who feared snakes and sharp objects. “I wouldn’t do this even in Australia!” she said. But his son chipped in to say that the hike to the lake was the highlight of the whole holiday. He especially liked the fact that the guide had to machete his way through a new trail. Maybe he had read about the “Sandakan to Ranau death march” of the Allied Forces POWs during World War II, trudging through similar terrain to reach a new airstrip they had to work on. This would be a good tale to tell his friends back home. We took over an hour to reach the lake and were relieved to see a spacious, covered wooden platform with seats where we could rest and eat our lunch prepared and carried in by the resort staff. As we enjoyed our picnic, we had a lovely view of the serene lake where several oriental darters, perched on dead branches in the middle of the lake, were sunbathing with outstretched wings. We were especially appreciative of this sight because this species is extinct in Peninsular Malaysia. The ever-changing mighty Kinabatangan with its rich wildlife is a fascinating place to visit. Malaysia has many such natural attractions, the envy of other countries. I am glad that increasing numbers of entrepreneurs with foresight are developing these areas and making them available to ordinary tourists. The local people, especially the Orang Sungai, are also benefiting from the development of nature-related tourist industries because of increased job opportunities and homestay programmes. However, I noticed that about 90 per cent of the visitors to such places were foreigners. I wondered why! Elusive Elephants Did we ever get to see the Bornean Pygmy elephants? Sad to say, we didn’t. On our final afternoon there, we went by boat as far as Sukau and for a couple of hours, staked out at a few spots where patches of trampled elephant grass indicated the presence of the jumbos. Two or three other boats were doing the same and the boatmen were in constant communication on their cell phones to report any sighting. But with the failing light of dusk, hopes of ever sighting these unique pachyderms dwindled. Then it drizzled, so we reluctantly made our way back to base camp, a disappointed bunch. Suddenly our boatman swung his boat across the river. There, lying on the opposite bank was a magnificent specimen — a 2.5m long estuarine crocodile! We managed to get to about five five metres from it, snapping pictures and marvelling at its large jaws seen at such close range. We were ecstatic with this find and regarded it a worthy consolation prize for not “getting” the elephants. I was to learn that one week later, three Bornean elephants were fitted with satellite collars, the first in Sabah, by the Elephant Conservation Unit (ECU) in the Danau Girang Field Centre. Situated near Sukau, the ECU aims to study the little known social structure of the Bornean endemic elephants, as well as human-elephant conflicts. The “tagging” device would surely make tracking the elephant herds much easier in future. Would tourists benefit from this latest development? Nevertheless, we still regarded the trip to Kinabatangan a great adventure and patted ourselves on our backs that we were among the small percentage of Malaysians who had been there. Everywhere we went, foreign tourists overwhelmingly outnumbered local visitors. On a recent visit to Sepilok and the lower Kinabatangan, Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said too commented on the small percentage of local visitors. She promised greater development of the eco-tourism sector in that part of Malaysia and said efforts would be stepped up to promote the place locally as well as internationally. Contacts Bilit Adventure Lodge on R. Kinabatangan, two hours drive from Sandakan. Main office is Sepilok Tropical Wildlife Adventure on Jalan Tiga, Sandakan, Sabah. Tel: 089-271 077/88. Email: info@stwadventure.com Activities include river cruising, bird watching, jungle trekking, tree planting and fishing. Nearby Attractions Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, Sepilok Jungle Resort (five minutes walk to orang utan sanctuary), Turtle Island, Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary, Gomantang Caves, scuba diving and snorkelling, Sandakan city tour, war monument and floating seafood restaurants How To Get There AirAsia flies daily from Kuala Lumpur to Sandakan. Most river resorts can arrange airport pickups and land/boat transfers. Pictures by CHAN AH LAK, SHARON NG & NST FILE PIC
 
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