After our diving in Sipidan we decided to stop overnight in Semporna, the mainland town which is the gateway to the islands instead of heading on to our next destination. We had seen the lovely over-the-water hotel in the harbor and thought we'd stay there. The rooms were basic enough but comfortable - or at least they were comfortable until about 5 am the next morning when the rats came to steal our Pringles and brushed against my leg along the way. But prior to that, we set our stuff down and headed into town in search of internet, excited about the prospect of comments on the blog (this was 2 weeks ago and there were none).

I’m not sure how to put this delicately but Semporna town sucks. It’s filthy, smelly and full of sullen young men standing on street corners who stare and make comments to you that don’t sound friendly; and the only internet place in town was full of kids playing very noisy video games. Now maybe that’s uncharitable of me since all internet cafes in Malaysia are full of boys playing really loud video games, but no one can deny that Semporna reeks and has a bad vibe. After a frustrating hour on the internet, we retreated to the hotel and had a couple of beers and some bad Chinese food.

Early the next morning (very early thanks to the rats) we headed off to the bus station to catch a 5 hour bus to Sandakan. Sandakan bills itself as the nature city but it’s no more green or attractive than any other town we’ve seen in Sabah. It is, however, where all the tour companies are based that will take you out into the wilderness. We booked an overnight trip to the Sungai Kinabatangan region, one of the best places to see wildlife in Sabah. Our guide from Wildlife Expeditions picked us up the next morning and explained what we would be doing (in great detail). We had a 3 hour drive and he talked most of the way and was quite informative if also exhausting. We stopped off at Gomantong Caves to see where swallows nests are collected for use in the Chinese delicacy birds nest soup. The cave was entirely forgettable except that we got to see a troop of pig-tailed macaques, which were new to us having only previously seen long-tailed macaques.

After another hour, we were loaded into a boat and taken to the lodge where we had lunch and an introductory lecture on primates of the river. Around 3:30 we set off on a boat up a tributary of the Kinabatangan River and we promptly saw some proboscis monkeys, the potbellied funny nosed creatures we had seen earlier in Bako National Park. We learned that these primates are found only in Borneo, that they are potbellied to accommodate their two-chambered stomachs which are needed to digest the poisonous leaves they eat, and that only the males have funny noses, the females have human like noses. We encountered several groups of proboscis monkeys as well as some pigtailed and long tailed macaques on that river cruise, including some very cute babies who came down to the river to get a drink.

That evening we donned our leech socks and took a night walk. Our group consisted of 2 English girls, 3 Dutch people whom we had seen on Sipidan, and 4 guides. I was sure that with 11 people tromping around in the dark we would not see anything but our guide had very sharp eyes. We saw lots of insects, a couple of sleeping birds (very weird the way they just sit there and you can get much closer than in the daylight), and we were very lucky to catch a glimpse of a civet.

Early the next morning we went on another river cruise up to Oxbow Lake and for another jungle walk. We were all quite sleepy heading up the river until we spotted another boatload of tourists looking intently at some trees. We sidled up next to the boat and peered into the brush. It was our guide who finally saw it and said excitedly “orangutans!” Sightings of wild orangutans (really wild ones not the rehabbed ones) are quite unusual and this area of the river had quite a bit of human activity on it with a lot of land clearing for palm oil plantations so it was surprising that these shy creatures were so close to the river. The guides had decided that this was a lone juvenile about 6 years old when all of a sudden another orangutan came swinging by, carrying an infant. The guides got even more excited and guessed that it was a juvenile newly pushed out of the nest (they really do build nests) and that he was still hanging close to momma. Orangutans are solitary primates and it’s rare to see them traveling together.

As the great apes meandered into the forest away from the river, we took off toward Oxbow Lake and our jungle walk. The tributary leading to the lake had been clogged overnight by a violent rainstorm and there was a chance we wouldn’t make it but our fearless captain pushed his way through though at one point we all had to lie on the floor of the boat to clear a fallen tree. We stopped off to take a jungle walk but didn’t find much except a glimpse of an eagle and lots and lots (and lots) of leeches. They were waiting for us on leaves next to the path, stretching themselves to their full length every time one of us got within a foot. The guide behind me on the trail got at least 3 leeches and I had one on my foot but thankfully none of us were actually bitten by any. It was, however, the stuff of which nightmares are made.

All in all it was pretty cool to see the orangutans and we saw lots of birds that I promptly forgot the names of (I remember the lesser fishing eagle, the snake bird and we saw at least 3 types of kingfishers and lots of egrets), but I really could have done without the leeches. I’m also glad we missed the wild elephants that raided the lodge two weeks prior to our visit.