Wild River Cruising and Proboscis Monkeys
Trip Start
Jul 06, 2007
1
Trip End
Jul 14, 2007
Where I stayed
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Sunday, July 8, 2007
All settled in, we had a fantastic traditional massage in the hotel. My masseuse was Kadazan, one of the major native tribes of Sabah and very skilled at what she did. Can't wait to book another 90 minute session before I leave!
Checked out all the various trip options including a possible dive this morning which I eventually skipped. Having only had a total of 9 hours sleep the past 2 days took its toll, so I slept in instead :) :) Pauline joined a 7 am yoga class, and Yogi went for a morning dive in contrast! Lunch and we were ready for our afternoon excursion, a "Wild River Cruise".
Meeting at the lobby at 2pm, we took a 1.5 hour drive to the Kuala Penyu wetlands sanctuary which is approximately 20 Kms inland from the South China Sea/Labuan Island vicinity. After a quick stop for tea and goreng pisang (banana fritters), we boarded the motor boat and started going up river. We lucked out with the weather as it was nice and relatively cool as the clouds had moved in for the rest of the day. It was very calm and serene most times but the idyllic moments were disturbed by other boat loads of tourists including some very noisy ones, including a very excitable Hong Kong lady who could not stop but give "everyone" around a running play by play commentary of what the monkeys were up to. icon: roll eyes!
We went up and down the river a fair bit, no crocodiles but very fortunately, a lot of proboscis monkeys which was really whom we came to see. These monkeys are a species that are native only to the island of Borneo and in particular, north Borneo in the states of Sabah and Sarawak, both of which are part of Malaysia. They are also different from other monkey species in that they don't eat fruit and nuts but feed on leaves (hopefully, not a threatened species like koalas and panda bears, all one plant species consumers). The proboscis monkey is recognisable with its distinctive feature, a large red bulbuous nose! We managed to sit and observe them for quite a while - given that the weather was so co-operative and we timed it right (late afternoon). They're usually in a group, one alpha male and his harem all perched on trees and looking very serene.
We were also lucky to spot a pair of greenish parrot-type birds with a pair of binoculars (species??) and a herd of water buffaloes enjoying an evening swim. We were told that a good healthy male buffalo can cost a small fortune here for local farmers (RM2000/~USD550). Back to the start point, we had a very nice dinner before wandering further back down the walkways to the river to see the fireflies. Not as prolific were the fireflies in Kuala Selangor (Peninsular Malaysia) which are now a threatened location due to pollution, they were still a pretty sight and good to know that we still have them around.
I had a great time and felt privileged to see and enjoy what we as Malaysians take for granted or worse, ignore. At the same time, I also felt a little sad looking at the current state of some aspects of the operations (and many boats run by other tours) and its impact on this place. Responsible tourism awareness needs to increase dramatically as we should be finding alternatives to ferry tourists into the wetlands without using noisy and polluting outboard engines and building zero impact rest stations, particularly in a gazetted protected location. Mindsets are slowly changing though but there's still a huge gap in attitudes and behaviour that will help us save, preserve and maintain our huge tracts of natural treasures for the future generations if we don't destroy them first through greed, corruption and ignorance. It's still hard to be positive when a coal-fired energy plant is going to be built close enough to one of the world's oldest virgin tropical forest reserve in the Danum Valley (in Sabah) renowned for tropical diversity and research to cause huge concerns as to its impact as raised by local environmental groups and anyone with a brain between their ears. Okay, enough ranting but as you can see, still huge challenges and pressures to what we have left and seems to always be so when it comes to $$$$ in the name of "development" and the environment.
