Kinabatang River (Borneo Part 2)

The Kinabatang River flows through the rainforest of Borneo's northeast. I participated in a 3-day tour there. That means I stayed in the rainforest for 2 nights and there were 2 boat trips and 1 night walk per day. Joyce also participated in this tour and I was so glad because there were so many couples. And we had a lot of fun together! We arrived in the afternoon and already during the briefing we were proven wrong. An American put his plastic bag with bananas on the table, it made a loud noise, a monkey jumped on our table, grabbed the bag and climbed onto a beam. It happened so quickly that we couldn't react at all. There were many smaller aggressive monkeys inside and around the lodge where we stayed. We were told not to look into their eyes and not to show our teeth because they would feel attacked. Before the first boat tour, we had coffee and cake and then I discovered something that shocked me... I had been thinking the whole time that it was cool that there were no other Germans there and BAM a huge German tour group showed up.

They drove me a little crazy and irritated me a little because they fulfilled every stereotype a little bit. But it was fun for Joyce and me. The first tour started at 4 pm. We saw so much! Actually, 2 orangutans (the 2nd one was even pregnant).

many different types of monkeys, including the long-nosed monkeys...

...various birds and a beautiful sunset.

After dinner, the night walk started. In groups of 6, we walked through the forest with flashlights, and it was crazy what our guide saw with his eyes.

We even saw stick insects or something similar that we only found after a long look.

We also saw 3 sleeping birds, frogs, and a scorpion. The birds are really crazy when they sleep. They are not interested or bothered by anything, especially not flashlights. The next boat trip started at 6 am.

When the fog hung over the water, it was really beautiful but also quite chilly.

Unfortunately, we didn't see much, except for sleeping lizards high up on branches, a small crocodile, and a beautiful sunrise.

After breakfast, we took another small walk through the forest, but since the animals hide during the day, there wasn't really much to see here either, but our guide told us some interesting things. After lunch, we had free time until the next boat tour at 4 pm. During that time, I lay in the hammock and took a nap because getting up early was tiring and I unfortunately caught a cold.

Anyway, at 4 pm we set off again, but we had to drive much further until we discovered animals. There was also an orangutan again, and in a narrower canal, we saw many small monkeys and were quite close to them.

We also saw a smaller crocodile and a sleeping snake in a tree.

The human eye wouldn't have been able to see both the crocodile, whose eyes only protruded from the water, and especially not this snake. But our drivers were really hardcore. Even during the night walk, it took us about 10 minutes to be able to guess a ... very high up in the treetop. But Joyce and I had a lot of fun the whole time, laughed a lot, and got along really well! In the evenings, she also showed me how to take such great star pictures with my camera.

The last morning came, and the last boat tour surprised us with 4 crocodiles, among others, a very large one!

That was definitely a nice ending. After that, we went back to Sandakan, and during the journey, I realized for the first time how many palm oil plantations there were everywhere. Palm oil plantations as far as the eye can see. And when I thought about where else I saw such plantations, I was a little shocked. I knew they existed, that they were anything but good. But I only fully realized how it all looked and to what extent later on. You could already see the palm trees through the trees in some places.

I actually wanted to go diving then, but because of my cold, that didn't work out, so I took the bus to Kota Kinabalu two days later and didn't do anything there, but fully recovered. You know the rest :)

Short update, today is April 5th and I have been in Sri Lanka for my internship since Sunday. How should I say, I'm doing pretty well! The working hours are great, there are 5 other interns with me - great atmosphere - and the beach is only 5 minutes away. It's really beautiful and quite large, but it has too big and rough waves to swim in. I'll tell you more soon :) Goodbye with üss!