We get up at 6:30 to have a quick breakfast and get our bags ready for departing to the Borneo Rainforest Lodge (BRL). We bring our bags to the dock only to find we've should have brought them to the road. There are 8 of us travelling to BRL and the bags are retrieved and quickly loaded into 2 vehicles to begin the trek. The first part is from our lodge to a city, Lahad Datu. This is where to tour operator's office is and we're required to do a bit of paperwork there.
We travel in a little Toyota bus. There's seating for 9 but with our luggage, the back seats are folded up to make room for them. It's going to be a 5 hour drive, a long day in those tight little seats.
We leave the lodge and pass by the festival site that we took in last evening. When I went to bed, I could hear the band playing faintly but couldn't tell wether they were playing top 40 or traditional music. When I was hanging out at Mulu National Park, the music being broadcasted over the speaker included a collection of country music, Patsy Cline, Garth Brooks, someone singing "Beautiful Alter of Prayer". Apparently country is well liked here.
Our travel mates were Kevin and Gana from Cornwall, England area. I enjoyed their company--I think they had some problems initially trying to figure out why Judith and I traveled together; by the last day 5 days later when they said goodbye, I'm not confident they they knew anything different. Gana found it amusing how much Judith talked to everyone; I explained she lives alone. Ha ha.
The road to Lahad Datu is all paved. On the way we had to pull over to allow a bike road race to pass by. Fortunately the race was towards us; when we were permitted to get going again, we could see a long lineup of vehicle traffic behind the bikes. We saw a few of the riders throw their plastic water bottles far into the bushes in the side of the road. I guess it takes a while for some to figure out this is not sustainable.
The interesting takeaway from this road trip was how much of the real estate is being used to produce palm oil. Of the 120 kms we traveled in the first part of the trip, about 110 of it was growing palm oil trees for as far as I could see. We passed several processing plants where trucks full of mesh bags of palm nuts would be headed.
The controversy here is that most believe the North American and European hate for palm oil is unfounded. That it's due to the industry lobby groups of corn oil or other vegetable oils manufacturers against the foreign palm oil import. Many people talked about the health benefits of palm oil. It's interesting to hear another side of the argument. It is a huge industry here. Large sections of the Rainforest has been clear cut to grow palm oil plants. These days there is a move afoot to implement better growing practices and in Malaysia no more rainforest is being destroyed for farming. At least that's what the guides say...
But the amount of land already used for palm oil is astounding, particularly when seen from the air as I witnessed during our short haul flights.
The driving to Lahad Datu seems like it goes on forever, but eventually we end up at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge office. The lodge is owned by the state government. It is the only lodge operating in the Dunam Valley Conservation Area which is untouched primary rainforest. It's 440 square kilometres of protected pristine rainforest.
We're given a refillable water bottle that I'll be adding to my ever expanding collection at home. Since our bottles all look the same as the next, we write our names on the bottle with a sharpie. Some tea, a bathroom break and we're off again.
We have another 85 km to the lodge. About 20 is on paved roads and the rest is along gravel roads. The little Toyota wagon takes a beating long these roads but we eventually get there somewhat shaken by all the vibration.
On the way into Danum Valley, the guide riding in the other vehicle spots an orangutan in a tree. We stop and get out of the vehicles. He's alone and a big brute.
We arrive at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge around 1:00 pm. We open the door and are immediately hit by the heat and humidity of the jungle. It's 32 degrees and 100% humidity according to my weather app. The four of us are greeted by a hostess who places banana leaf leis over our heads and leads us to the upstairs lounge. There we are given a cold clean face towel and a cold drink. We get introduced to our guide, Adrian, who will be taking us around for the next few days. The guide lets us know there is an orientation meeting at 2:30. We're next invited to enjoy their extensive buffet lunch. After lunch the hostess takes us to our room via a long boardwalk which connects all of the units.
The room is pretty great. It will be fun to hang around it for the next two days. I don't know what we're paying for these accommodations, but my guess is that it's probably the most costly to date.
We attend the 3:30 briefing given by one of the guides. All of the activities are outdoors and will involve a lot of sweating. It's hot and humid in the jungle. The guide talks about appropriate apparel. Long pants and sleeves. And the necessity for leech socks. Judith had advised that we would need them, but I thought she was exaggerating. Apparently she wasn't. The "socks" are ill fitting cotton knee height booties that you slip your foot into. You must fully tuck your pant leg into the bootie and cinch up the drawstring top firmly above your calf. This prevents leeches from crawling into your pant leg. While pretty effective, it's not fool proof.
The guides will be taking their groups for a late afternoon walk lasting about a hour. They do this to assess fitness levels. We go to the gift shop to buy our 30 ringgit ($10) leech socks.
We get our jungle attire on and head out. There are five people in our group which I think was a mishmash of the two Canadians, two Australians, Kelly and Jeffrey and a lone traveller from Singapore, Aioko.
I am careful to get my leech socks on properly. There is a lot of extra fabric in the foot part so I fold it over the top of my foot before I put on my shoe.
It's hot. I'm sweating just putting on my shoes. And the we're going for a hike. We start following the guide. He points out some animals including another orangutan. We troop trough the jungle paths and he points out a leech. This one is hanging off a leaf right beside the trail. They have the ability to sense your heat and will move their body towards it. They can drop off leaves onto unsuspecting victims. We watch in slight horror as he moves a finger near the leech and watch how the leech is able to track the direction of his finger. Later we see the leech drop off the leaf and starts to inch its way towards Kelly. I am glad I am wearing my wide brimmed hat.
With the walk over we all managed to pass the test. It was time for dinner and we went back to our rooms to get ready for dinner. It's another buffet and they have a stir fry and a grilling station so I go and get some veggies, corn and satay. Yum
After dinner was the night drive. We were loaded onto seats in a flatbed truck. Adrian used a big spotlight to find animals and there was also a spotter in the cab. We drove on the road leading into the lodge. He was specifically looking for the light reflecting off the animals eyes. It was amazing how effective this was as you could spot their eyes from great distances.
There was a young deer at the side of the road where the mother had left it so she could search for food. When Adrien shon the light on it we were all surprised by how close it was. We then spotted a flying squirrel high up in a tree. It leaped off the branch and glided what seemed to be an impossibly long distance in front of the truck to another tree. That was pretty cool. There were a few other animals but those were the highlights.
With the drive over, we went back to our rooms to crash for the night. There's a big hike tomorrow.
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