May 17, 2022: Kinabatangan River, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo (Author: J)
As I mentioned – due to attraction closures — our day 11 itinerary was fairly similar to our day 10 itinerary. That meant an early wakeup for another wildlife watching cruise. Most of the travelers in our boat were interested in looking for monkeys this morning, so our guide set out for a branch of the river that usually yields good monkey sightings. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that our wildlife viewing would be limited to a few swiftlets and hornbills. An area palm oil plantation had set fires (not to burn down more rainforest, our guide assured us) and the smoke had sent any wildlife in the area running. I couldn’t blame them; the smoke smell made for an unpleasant journey, like sailing through a barbeque grill.
After our disappointing morning safari, we headed back to the lodge for breakfast. This morning, we had a Western style breakfast with eggs, beans, hashbrowns and the like. Since most of the items on the buffet were vegetarian friendly, we did not receive a special veg option.
We had a long gap between breakfast and our next activity, an evening safari. When we received notice that our cave tour had been cancelled, I was pretty worried about how we would fill the day. It turned out not to be a concern, even with the pool closed. We began by spending some time on the back deck of our cabin where we watched various birds and squirrels. When the mosquitos chased us back inside, we decided to take a walk on the boardwalk trails around the lodge. Just a few steps up the path, we noticed a swaying tree. Remembering what we had learned about how orangutans move through the forest, we staked out the area. Sure enough, a young adult male orang was foraging just off the boardwalk. We watched him for a while and then completed our loop of the boardwalk trail. On our way back to our cabin, we ran into one of the nature guides who was out looking for orangs and we were able to point him in the right direction.
Back in the cabin, I did the lion’s share of the unpleasant chore of repacking our suitcases. We then decided to head down to lunch early so that we could visit the gift shop for some final souvenir shopping. Because we still had a large account credit, we decided to splurge and buy a mug and two figurines. (Somehow, we got these fragile items home safely).
After lunch, we headed back to the cabin. We weren’t there long before we heard something in the trees outside. We grabbed our cameras and went to investigate. We quickly spotted a group of tourists looking up, so we did the logical thing and joined them. It turned out that they were watching two different troops of monkeys. The first was a troop of macaques playing in the trees. Those monkeys were responsible for the sounds we heard; from time to time, they came down from the trees to scamper across the cabin rooftops.
The second group was more unusual; it was a family of langurs being followed by a lone male proboscis monkey. The langur family was pretty adept at evading the proboscis monkey, making it hard to know exactly how many monkeys we were observing. But we did see at least two adults, one juvenile, and the piece de resistance, a baby. Baby langurs look like something out of a children’s show (specifically, Teletubbies). They have bright orange fur that comes to a point at the top of their heads. Try not to squeal when you see them. (Squealing is a sure way to scare off a troop of langurs). We spent a long time tracking the langurs and trying unsuccessfully to get an orange baby photo. Unfortunately, the proboscis monkey made that difficult because he kept the langurs on the run.
A guide later told us that the proboscis monkey seemed to be trying to install himself as leader of the langur troop. The langurs – understandably – were having none of it. Langurs live in small family groups of a mom, dad, and offspring, so the proboscis monkey’s behavior was a little like a random man showing up at your house and telling your kids that he’s their new dad.
The ability to explore on your own – something that is not feasible at every ecolodge — pushed Sukau to the top of the list of ecolodges we have visited. We tracked monkeys for most of the afternoon, stopping only because it was time for tea, followed by our evening cruise. The difference between our evening and morning cruises was night and day, both literally and figuratively. We saw multiple large troops of macaques, and smaller troops of proboscis monkeys and langurs. The highlight was spotting an adult langur with red fur. Sightings of the red morph of the dusky langur are rare; our guide’s excitement at finding one was palpable.
After our evening cruise, we enjoyed our final dinner at Sukau. It was tasty, as usual; we all agreed that we would miss the food when we left the lodge. P and I ended the evening with a final night cruise.
Travel Monkeys 