The next day we woke at a reasonable hour and left on a public coach for our 5-hour drive to a village in one of the districts near Sandakan. A 20-minute longboat ride later, we arrived at our jungle eco-lodge, in the middle of…ah the jungle, I guess (I wasn’t exactly sure where we were, to be honest).
The river was beautiful, birds and monkeys singing and swinging above us, the muggy hot air finishing off the tropical vibe. My lodge was a tiny wooden room with a sharply slanted roof, set on stilts with a large verandah, set adjacent to a gravel path that led to and from the dining room and toilet block. It was all quite luxurious, really, but we were warned that if we heard scratching underneath our cabins, it was just wild boar, which was strangely concerning yet fascinating, and I immediately felt as though I was on Lost.
We saw monkeys looking down on us, playing in the trees as we walked (read: hobbled) back to the dock for our afternoon river cruise. We set out slowly on the longboat, spotting proboscis and long-tailed monkeys and hornbills, and other random birds that I don’t know the name of. After about an hour I got sleepy, and kind of sat there relaxing in the afternoon sun. There were little men up the back of the boat who simultaneously steered while throwing buckets of water out, which was concerning to say the least, so I was glad when we arrived back to the eco-lodge safe and dry without seeing any crocodiles.
Dinner was chicken curry and rice with green beans, and we left soon after for a jungle night walk. The vague path we were following was so muddy I was concentrating more on where I was stepping rather than the wildlife, but we did see frogs, insects and sleeping birds (no boars though, thank goodness). We also saw fire ants and had to quick-step army-style, then jump into a run, everytime someone saw the biting ants. I couldn’t hear what was going on up ahead, but as soon as everyone started running then checking their shoes, I did the same. Except I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for. I couldn’t see anything but mud, in any case. I’m sure Jack and Kate never had this much mud on their shoes in Lost, and they hiked through the jungle everyday.
When I was very sick of trekking through the jungle and tired of being paranoid about being bitten by something, our trail suddenly turned and we arrived at our cabins. Outside of my cabin there was a tiny woodpecker, patiently looking out of the little hole it had dug into the bark, slightly above head height. Definitely the highlight of the evening, and it was right outside my bedroom, with no mud involved. Isn’t that always the way.
-Sarah
Sarah