On Saturday night Sarah and I did a night walk with a guide around the orangutan centre which was excellent! We started off by seeing an orangutan making itself comfortable for the night before watching a couple of giant flying squirrels glide between the trees. This was followed by snakes, scorpions, and even a Malay badger! It was absolutely superb and the best night walk I had ever done....until we got to our river lodge on the kinabatangan river!

It took 3 hours to get there and it poured down with rain the whole way but as we neared the rain eased off and we were left with a very sticky feeling and instantly dripping with sweat as soon as you got off the air conditioned bus. We checked into our dorm and then had a river cruise at 4pm. Within 5 minutes we spotted a large male orangutan up in the trees! Unbelievably lucky. We watched him for a while before heading of further downstream to watch the seemingly endless trees full of various kinds of monkeys settling in for the night.
We got back to the lodge just in time for dinner and then at 8.30 we were told to meet up for our night walk. Once again, within 5 minutes we had spotted something amazing, this time however it was a western tarsier, a small nocturnal primate who was anything but bothered about us being within a few inches of him while he looked for bugs to eat. Another incredible experience. The night walk lasted just over an hour and we saw huge stick insects, 2 beautiful sleeping kingfishers, various kinds of spider and then right at the end another amazing sighting, a civet cat about the size of an average dog!
Monday was an early start at 5.30am for our morning boat cruise. While not as many sightings as our first one we still saw all the usual monkeys, kingfishers, hornbills and a large monitor asleep up in a tree. Breakfast followed the boat ride and then a trek through the forest to a hidden oxbow lake. The trek lasted almost 3 hours and while we didn't see much, it was fun walking through the jungle, getting stuck in the mud and listening to the sounds all around you.
On the evening cruise our lucky streak continued and we were fortunate enough to see an elephant in the water, a very rare sight as our guide said it had been 3 months since we last saw one. Unbelievably in my opinion, our luck got even better on the night walk and we saw a slow loris high up in the trees. Something that I had always wanted to see!
The next day was our travelling day and after an early morning cruise we left the river lodge. After a long bus ride, 2 flights and a taxi we arrived at our hostel (six degrees) in Jakarta. Yesterday morning we were up early and explored the city, visiting the largest mosque in SE Asia, the national monument and the national museum. During happy hour at the hostel in the evening we met some nice people and all went for dinner and drinks to ring in the Chinese New Year. Unfortunately though as it was Chinese new yer all the trains are fully booked to our next stop for a few days so we have ended up having to spend the whole of today in Jakarta before flying to Yogyakarta tomorrow evening.
Today was a lazy day and apart from doing some much needed washing, little else was achieved. Jakarta is an incredibly busy city, with a lot of large holes all over the place, and we will both be glad to get to the slightly quieter city of Yogyakarta tomorrow.