After Sepilok we travelled from Sandakan on a 2 day/2night wildlife tour of Sungai Kinabatangan River. We were to stay in a jungle lodge in Sukau.

From Sandakan we had a four hour bumpy ride to the jungle lodge. The roads were terrible, we couldn't take a bus so had to use a 4x4. Our first stop after a couple of hours was at the Gomangtong caves. These caves were renowned for their valuable edible swiftlet nests, which are harvested for birds nest soup. The most valuable of the nests, the white ones, can sell for very high prices,around 400 USD per Kg. The cave we saw had the black ones, the difference being, the black ones are made using the birds saliva and feathers whereas the white ones are pure saliva. Our guide explained how the workers harvest the nests twice a year, we saw the equipment they used was basically leather that they weaved together to make a ladder and a wicker basket on the end used for nest collection. It looked very dangerous, didn't seem like there were any safety standards in place at all but the guide explained that they got paid very well in Malaysia for doing this job, approx 25,000 - 30,000 MYR per year still only 3,500 -4,000 GBP.Not so much compensation for hanging onto a flimsy ladder by your feet to gather some spitty nests!

When we walked into the cave it smelt rancid. Apparently there are so many bats and birds in the cave that there is so much waste or guano as they call it. It made the cave really slippery but you couldn't use the hand rail as it was covered in cockroaches. All pretty grim really but good to see how others make a living. Perhaps banking wasn't so bad after all!

Eventually we arrived at River Kinabatangan where we had a short river ride to our lodge. We were allocated a small chalet which was nice, had its own bathroom and electricity so we were happy.

Our first river cruise was at 3pm. We were told it was likely we would see some monkeys and birds but they said elephants were rare along with crocs. We had our fingers crossed though.

The first animals we saw were the Proboscis monkeys. They were sat high up in the trees alonside the river. This monkey is endemic to the riverine forests of Borneo, so cannot be found anywhere else in the world. It is an endangered species as there are only about 7,000 left in the wild. The Proboscic has an usual look, it has a huge nose that overhangs its mouth so much that the dominant male with the largest hooter has to actually scoop up its own nose to eat. The purpose of the large nose is unclear but it has been suggested it is to attract females and help with sexual selection.They also have huge pot bellies due to the fact they eat posionous leaves,so have two stomach chambers one to digest the food and one to neutralise the toxins. Hmm pot belly, big nose ring any bells?

The next animals we saw were elephants! I Know we couldn't believe it! We were told they were rare and it wasn't the season to view them. As soon as the boatman called 'elephant' our small boat took off down the river to catch up with them. As we got nearer we could see several elephants crossing the river probably around 14 or 15 of them. It was an amazing site, there was a whole herd in the water. You could see the parents pushing the baby elephant out of the river up onto the bank. They were wading and splashing around making trumpeting sounds. We never thought we'd be so lucky to see something like this. We had even more luck on our way back to our lodge as we saw more elephants crossing the river. This time 39 crossed right in front of us. We think we saw a whole herd as apparently there are only about 200 in the whole area and we saw over 50 in our one outing.

On our way back we also saw a small crocodile and several birds, the White Egret, Snake Bird, Kingfisher, Flycatcher and a yellow ringed python.

The next morning after breakfast we headed back to our jetty for our early morning river cruise. After yesterday we didn't expect to see much as we knew we had been so lucky. However the first thing we saw was another elephant which was washing itself in the river. Again, this was a brilliant site, they are such a huge animal but they seem to be quite agile when getting in and out of the river. This one actually ducked under a log that was just above water level and then knelt on the river bank so it could scramble upwards.

Our cruise also enabled us to see another small croc and several snakes up in the trees, including the green tree python and the yellow ringed python. A little worrying as they took the boat right under the tree where the snake was coiled and we were sat right in the front!

After the cruise we were taken for a jungle trek, something we weren't really looking forward to as we had been warned about the leech's. They basically told us to expect to get bitten by one, we even bought leech socks as apparently they can just bite through cotton socks. Armed with our socks we started our walk. It was really muddy and we had to clamber over all the tree branches and jungle plants. All a little grim as when you rubbed against the leaves of the trees and plants you could often see a leech hanging waiting to get its next meal. Well it seemed that no-one in our group was attacked by the leech except Rich of course. We were about half way through our walk when Rich shouted leech and we could see one entering his trousers through his fly hole. Allison came to the rescue and tried to first pull the leech from Rich's trousers but it already had a firm grasp so she sprayed it with insect repellent and then pulled it from him. The funny thing was when the guide turned around and saw it he said 'must have been a desperate leech'.

Later that afternoon we went for our final river cruise. This time no elephants but we did see a huge monitor lizard lazing on a tree branch and a fully grown crocodile laying on the river bank. We also saw several troops of Proboscis monkeys swinging in the trees along with long tailed macque monkeys, snakes and a few more Kingfishers.

We had an amazing time travelling down Sungai Kinabatangan River, one of the highlights of our whole trip, definately a must see for those of you who venture to Borneo, Malaysia.