After stopping in Sandakan for two nights to organise various trips over the next week or so we headed to the Kinabatangan river. We hadn't planned to go there initially but we had some time to spare before our next trip and it sounded a pretty amazing experience. Basically the river is in the middle of the jungle in the East of Borneo and you get the chance to cruise up the river in the evening and early morning looking for pygmy elephants, orangutans, proboscis monkeys, crocodiles and lots of other wildlife. 

We hadn't organised a tour or anything so had to hire a car and drive. This pleased me greatly as it was the first time I'd driven since leaving the UK! It took us about three hours to get up there, along one road, mostly passing palm oil plantations which was just so sad to see because we knew at one point it used to all be fantastic forest with huge amounts of wildlife. As far as the eye could see just all palm oil plantations.
 
We arrived late afternoon, found a place to stay and within an hour we were on a boat looking for pygmy elephants. We were lucky as our little lodge offered boat trips at a really reasonable price. We were on a small old motor boat so it was just me and Hannah, two other guys and our guide so felt like a private tour. Other boats we ended up spotting every so often along the way were larger boats packed with at least 10 people. They probably paid loads for a tour too, muhahaha! It's important when looking for wildlife that everyone is quiet as well. This never happens in big groups when people inevitably get chatting! So we were happy.
 
Anyway, first of all our guide took us to a limestone rock formation which was overhanging the river and pointed out dozens of little swifts in their nests. We managed to get really close for some good photos. We then headed off further down the river, the sun was now low in the sky and it was a beautiful afternoon. After only twenty minutes or so we saw another boat had stopped and was looking intently at some tall grass by the side of the river. We stopped too and could hear rustling and see movement...then we saw a trunk pulling at the grass. It was a group of pygmy elephants! There were two adults and one little baby. We must have sat there for half an hour watching them, at one point we thought they might cross the river as they are known to but no such luck. Hannah was overwhelmed at seeing them as we really hadn't expected to have much luck as they are so rare. We found out later that they hadn't been seen for two weeks! 
 
Eventually the elephants sauntered off and we carried on up the river. The next thing we saw was a proboscis monkey. These are the monkeys with the very large funny noses and are only found in Borneo. They're endangered in the wild so we were quite lucky to see them too. At first we only found a lone male but further up the river we saw some females with their young. There were lots of cheeky macaques in the area too but we weren't interested in them. Pygmy elephants, tick, proboscis monkeys, tick! Our sole mission now was to find orangutans! 
 
By this time though the light was fading and we headed home keeping our fingers crossed for the following morning. On the way back though I saw a crocodile surface right in front of our boat, sadly the driver didn't see it and drove over it! I can only presume the croc ducked under and survived the ordeal! We had been watching out for crocs for a while too as they become active at dusk and hunt at night. You can spot where they are in the water by all the bubbles that rise to the surface as they glide along. Slightly unnerving when this is happening right alongside your little boat! We'd seen lots of bubbles just not an actual croc until then as the water was chocolate brown!
 
The following morning we went out on the boat again at 6am for an early morning cruise. As soon as we set off we could see ominous looking clouds in the distance threatening to roll in and soak us with rain. Luckily we only had a few drops but were treated to an amazing rainbow in the distance and a beautiful sunrise. What a lovely start to the day. 
 
We didn't see much wildlife to begin with apart from a number of macaques in the trees and a couple of birds we can't remember the names of! Later on we followed the river around an ox bow lake where the water was very still and it was lovely and peaceful. Here we saw a large monitor lizard swimming about and a cool little kingfisher trying to catch fish. Our guide chucked some bread into the water at a particular place in order to bring some tiny nibbley fish to the surface... I think the kingfisher knew where to wait for this to happen! We got reeeeally close to the little guy, maybe a meter away and watched him dive into the water for fish, it was awesome! 
 
We were continuing our main hunt for orangutans though during the last half an hour or so of our ride and found nothing. We were very sad as we'd not been able to help getting our hopes up of seeing one. This was until we were making our way back to the main part of the river. We were slowly passing through a really narrow section where the trees were completely overhanging the water and you couldn't see much sky. One of the guys on our boat suddenly pointed to a spot high up in the trees. At first glance you couldn’t see anything apart from branches but if you looked carefully there was a small furry orangutan jumbled up in there! We moved the boat and managed to glimpse her a bit better. Unfortunately she decided that she didn't like having her photo taken so moved even higher up the tree and hid herself from view in the thick leaves. Apparently there was a larger orangutan up there with her which we assume was her mother but we couldn't see her. Even though we could only catch glimpses of her it was just amazing to see an orangutan in the wild as they are so rare. We count ourselves extremely lucky! 
 
What a fantastic couple of days on the river. I think Hannah wished we could go on a weeks worth of boat trips here! So beautiful and just so much wildlife as well as small villages along the waters edge. This area is now protected much to the displeasure of oil palm plantation owners always seeking to expand. The whole area is now sadly just a tiny dot on the map. A small dot that the plantation owners can't get at and to think that this beautiful area is how the whole of Borneo once used to be. We're so glad we were able to have the chance to be here and see these animals in their natural environments. Sadly it's highly likely in our lifetime some of the animals indigenous to this area, especially the orangutan, will no longer be here.