Hi all,
This morning we had breakfast at a local cafe, and then packed up and set off for the Kinabatangan River.
Ned gave us some good news when we boarding the bus. A farmer nearby had called him and told him the Rafflesia flower was blooming at his farm. We hadn’t had much luck seeing this mysterious flower yet, as every other popular rafflesia site that we passed said we had just missed them blooming.
The Rafflesia flower (pronounced locally as “raff-lees-i-a” is the largest flower in the world and can grow to a whopping 1m in diameter. They only bloom for four days, so they’re quiet elusive. They’re parasitic and rootless, and use a particular vine in the area as a host which apparently only grows over 400m in altitude. They’ve been found in other parts of south east Asia as well as Borneo.
The rafflesia was first discovered by the western world by a French naturalist in 1797. However it wasn’t brought to the attention of scientists until Sir Stamford Raffles and an expedition he was on rediscovered it in Sumatra in 1818 - hence the name “Raffles”ia.
The type of Rafflesia we saw was the Rafflesia Keithi, the second largest. We saw one dead one, and two that were blooming. The first was on its second day, and the second on its third day. They looked fake!! The red petals are so bumpy, and the spores inside the centre were really interesting. They’re said to smell like rotting flesh to attract and trap insects and rats, but we thought it smelled more tangy/citrusy. The ones we saw were about 30cm in diameter so still pretty big. They were very interesting! The farmer must make a fortune off tourists. He made 480 ringgits total (approx $180) just off our group alone which is a small fortune here.
Back on the road, we saw more death march signs as we did on Wednesday, and then had a quick stop for snacks. Along the way today we could see evidence of deforestation which was pretty sad. Palm oil is used in lots of food and products we all buy for every day consumption. Unfortunately, obtaining palm oil from the fruit of oil palm trees has caused a ginormous amount of deforestation, leading to loss of habitat for animals like orang utans in order to plant more and more oil palm trees. I felt guilty and horrible driving through seeing trees cut down, plantations and petrol stations. It was interesting hearing Ned’s perspective. He has grown up with his family in the palm oil business. So the way he sees it, if we stop using palm oil all together, around one million people will lose their jobs. While this is sad too, if we don’t look after our planet, there’ll be nothing left soon and lack of jobs will be the least of our worries. Ned told us 30% of the palm oil in Sabah is sustainable, meaning the same area is used over and over with new trees planted. Sadly this is still a small percentage, and I hate to think what the percentage is in the Indonesian part of Borneo.
We arrived at the Kinabatangan River, crossed it on a short boat ride and then had lunch at our jungle lodge. It’s beautiful, with chalets nestled amongst the jungle. We even saw two types of monkeys swinging through the trees right outside our room. I think they were silver leaf monkeys and macaques.
After lunch, we got ready for our boat ride to spot wildlife. An ominous clap of thunder sounded while we boarded, but thankfully it didn’t rain at all. If it had, we would have had to turn back. Climbing into the boat was a challenge though because our legs hurt even more today!!
Mum and I were in a boat with Dianne and Sam. The four of us crossed our fingers and hoped and prayed we would see some wild orang utans. From what Ned told us the other day, a few years ago it was estimated there were just 5000-8000 of them left in the wild. This is absolutely tragic. Probably even less today.
As we drove down the river, we could see a couple of boats stopped to our left. We went over to look and couldn’t believe our eyes. Two orang utans (a Mum and a child) were high up in a tree. It was tricky to see them in much detail, but we saw them. The zoom on my camera is good so I managed to get a few photos considering how far away they were. We sat and watched for a while, Sam wiped away tears of joy and I came pretty close to crying too. I really fear that one day I’ll be telling my children or grandchildren about these wonderful animals and that there’ll be none left. They probably won’t believe me that I got to see them in the wild. I’m really excited to see them at the rehabilitation centre in Sepilok and see what efforts are being made there.
The rest of the boat ride was very successful too. We saw heaps of proboscis monkeys. They are the orangey/red/white monkeys with huge noses and huge bellies. We had a laugh watching some of them fly from tree to tree. It looked like lots of fun!!
We then saw a family of mafia monkeys with a very cute baby, followed by some hornbills (birds) sitting in a tree and then flying.
We saw some silver leaf monkeys, a monitor lizard, macaques (the cheeky awful ones) and an egret (a white bird). So really we saw everything except a Pygmy elephant. I was elated just having seen the orang utans, so everything else was a bonus. Sitting there watching all the different monkeys interact and look so similar to us yet so different was absolutely amazing and something I’ll never forget. To top it all off, as we headed back we saw one of the most amazing sunsets I’ve ever seen!
Once we were back, we had dinner. I asked Ned some questions about orang utans and he said their name means “people of the forest”. He also said we were extremely lucky to see them in the wild. Apparently fruit season is July to September, and when we saw them they were eating durian high up in the trees. I personally hate durian, but today I was very grateful for it!!
After dinner, we set out on a night walk. Our mission was to see the western tarsier, but no dice. We did see lots of interesting insects though, as well as a woodpecker and a mouse deer. It is SO humid here. I was drenched with sweat by the end especially considering we had to wear gum boots due to the bad mud. Now we are getting ready for bed and listening to the jungle noises outside. I can hear lots of bugs and some monkeys.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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