Our visit to to the east of Sabah has come to an end; and with some regret, we leave the jungle for a look at a cave that houses thousands of black and white swiftlets and even more bats. The first indication we were near the cave was the smell of rotting guano. For an indication of how long this cave has been in use, you have only to see the hill of rotting guano that has built up under the bats roost. The cave is farmed for its birds' nests. Each year the lease is up for bids to harvest the nests for bird's nest soup. Using tons of rope and lengths of ladders they scour the sides of the cave in a venture that brings in millions of dollars. It is so lucrative they now build artificial caves to take advantage of the high price of birds nests. The guano is a living mass of cockroaches; and when we were asked to spit on the guano, it suddenly came alive as a moving mass of insects. The walkways were a slippery squishy mess of fresh droppings with cockroaches skittering across your path. The handrails were such you could not touch them. You had to move carefully on any incline for fear of sliding into the hill of guano. The nest is built from saliva of the swiftlets. It feels like soft rubber in your hand and contains feathers and other debris, and is cleaned before being used to make soup. The claims of its health benefits vary from curing skin disorders to making you more virile. The Chinese pay great prices for this delicacy, and after experiencing the cave I would suggest they would eat almost anything.
After visiting the Sandakan death march memorial, we must correct some of what we have said about it previously. The prisonor of war camps housed 2400 prisoners of which approximately 1200 were made to march to their death to the west side of Borneo. Only six survived by escaping during the death march or shortly after reaching the west camp. The rest died from torture, hunger, disease, or hopelessness.
We also visited a legal stilt housing complex that sits on a tidal flat. The maintenance of these homes is one disadvantage to building over water as the salt water and living creatures eat away at the stilt wooden footings. All body wastes drop directly into the sea. Talk about flush toilets.
What is a trip without some beach time? Sapi Island is a half hour trip by boat just off the coast of Borneo. We spent a day exploring part of the island and snorkelling. The water was great.
We leave for Bali, Indonesia, tomorrow.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Jungle Trip 2
Next morning, we go for another boat tour and a short jungle hike. We add a dollarbird, another hornbill, and a lesser grey eagle to our list of sightings. During the jungle walk, we saw a scorpion (about 5 inches long), a millepede, and leeches. In fact, we were constantly picking them off of each other. They are attached to the leaves of the trees and bushes, and they attach themselves to you as you brush by. Once we get back to our room, we stripped down to see if any had gotten under our clothes. We didn't find anything, checked our clothes, and got dressed--like checking for ticks after hiking in the mountains. We went for breakfast, and then walked back to spend a quiet day reading, writing, charging batteries. Suddenly, David is feeling a wet spot on his chest just under his arm. He is bleeding. He takes off his shirt, we don't see the leech, but we do see a small hole. We cover it up with tape, wash his shirt, and he goes back to reading. We did not find the leach in the shirt, but did find it later on the floor. It dropped out when he took the shirt off. Once they are full, they let go.
Our guide pointed out that the locals fish in several different ways.
They hang a vinyl barrel-like trap with wire mesh ends from a line attached to a group of plastic bottles which is then attached to a tree branch so that the trap is underwater. This trap is baited with fruit to capture prawns.
They spread big mesh nets with the edges buoyed up by bottles, and they gather the net in from the underside to capture the fish.
Some people tie individual lines to individual plastic bottles, and let these lines drift down on the river current. When the fish is hooked, the bottle acts as a drag to tire them out. Then the fisherman goes down river, and picks up the bottles and lines as the lines float to them.
Another trap is made of wicker. This is a double basket (one inside the other starting with a wide mouth narrowing down to a small mouth) attached to a long rattan shell which is then laid on the riverbank out into the river itself. The fish along the edge follow down the shell into the inside basket through the narrow mouth into the outer basket.They are then unable to get out of the basket.
Around the compound, and out in the wild, there are beautiful butterflies--large velvet black, black with a wide white stripe, tiny pale blue, brown speckled, black on the upper wing with bright yellow on the lower wing.
Our visit is ending in Malaysia. We go back to Kota Kinabalu for a couple of days, and then onto Bali, Indonesia, if the volcano eruption doesn't force us to rethink our flight plans.
Our guide pointed out that the locals fish in several different ways.
They hang a vinyl barrel-like trap with wire mesh ends from a line attached to a group of plastic bottles which is then attached to a tree branch so that the trap is underwater. This trap is baited with fruit to capture prawns.
They spread big mesh nets with the edges buoyed up by bottles, and they gather the net in from the underside to capture the fish.
Some people tie individual lines to individual plastic bottles, and let these lines drift down on the river current. When the fish is hooked, the bottle acts as a drag to tire them out. Then the fisherman goes down river, and picks up the bottles and lines as the lines float to them.
Another trap is made of wicker. This is a double basket (one inside the other starting with a wide mouth narrowing down to a small mouth) attached to a long rattan shell which is then laid on the riverbank out into the river itself. The fish along the edge follow down the shell into the inside basket through the narrow mouth into the outer basket.They are then unable to get out of the basket.
Around the compound, and out in the wild, there are beautiful butterflies--large velvet black, black with a wide white stripe, tiny pale blue, brown speckled, black on the upper wing with bright yellow on the lower wing.
Our visit is ending in Malaysia. We go back to Kota Kinabalu for a couple of days, and then onto Bali, Indonesia, if the volcano eruption doesn't force us to rethink our flight plans.
Jungle Trip
We are going to deepest darkest Borneo--an Eco lodge in the jungle.
We board a plane to fly to Sandakan on the east coast of Sabah. Actually, people still call the island Borneo. Once in Sandakan, we are taken to Sepilok Orang Utans Sanctuary. The orang utans were fast becoming an endangered species because the babies were being orphaned by the locals so they could have the babies as pets. An organization decided to try and rescue these orphans, and try to reinstate them in the wild. They bought enough land for a rehabilitation centre and a reserve. It takes 6 to 10 years for the orang utans to become sufficiently self supporting to leave the compound, and live in the reserve. If it is a male orang utan, he is moved to another reserve further away as the males are very territorial. We went out to the feeding station to watch them feeding. These stations are set up further and further afield with less and less food available from the main compound so that they learn to forage in the forest for their food. Occasionally, an orang utan may decide to stay in close because there is no good reason to change the status quo--be fed rather than to forage.
Next door is the sun bear conservation project. The sun bear is the smallest bear in world, and is an endangered species due to its habitat being destroyed, and the Chinese using the bile from this animal in their medicines. The sun bear has large razor sharp claws for foraging, and protecting itself.
After this,we make a long, bumpy journey by road, and then a five minute ride on the River Kinabatangan to our home for the next few days. After settling in, we are taken on an afternoon boat trip down the river to a tributary where we see: an orang utan in the wild, black hornbill, a small and a stork kingfisher, shorttail and longtail macacquet monkeys, proboscis monkeys including the dominant male (the dominant male has a very large proboscis or nose), snakebirds (look like snakes when they are sitting on top of the water waiting for a fish), a monitor lizard (can grow to 2 meters in length). Suddenly, our boat captain jumps into the seat beside our guide. He has been sitting in the motor compartment. We look into the water and see what has startled our driver --a large crocodile!
We board a plane to fly to Sandakan on the east coast of Sabah. Actually, people still call the island Borneo. Once in Sandakan, we are taken to Sepilok Orang Utans Sanctuary. The orang utans were fast becoming an endangered species because the babies were being orphaned by the locals so they could have the babies as pets. An organization decided to try and rescue these orphans, and try to reinstate them in the wild. They bought enough land for a rehabilitation centre and a reserve. It takes 6 to 10 years for the orang utans to become sufficiently self supporting to leave the compound, and live in the reserve. If it is a male orang utan, he is moved to another reserve further away as the males are very territorial. We went out to the feeding station to watch them feeding. These stations are set up further and further afield with less and less food available from the main compound so that they learn to forage in the forest for their food. Occasionally, an orang utan may decide to stay in close because there is no good reason to change the status quo--be fed rather than to forage.
Next door is the sun bear conservation project. The sun bear is the smallest bear in world, and is an endangered species due to its habitat being destroyed, and the Chinese using the bile from this animal in their medicines. The sun bear has large razor sharp claws for foraging, and protecting itself.
After this,we make a long, bumpy journey by road, and then a five minute ride on the River Kinabatangan to our home for the next few days. After settling in, we are taken on an afternoon boat trip down the river to a tributary where we see: an orang utan in the wild, black hornbill, a small and a stork kingfisher, shorttail and longtail macacquet monkeys, proboscis monkeys including the dominant male (the dominant male has a very large proboscis or nose), snakebirds (look like snakes when they are sitting on top of the water waiting for a fish), a monitor lizard (can grow to 2 meters in length). Suddenly, our boat captain jumps into the seat beside our guide. He has been sitting in the motor compartment. We look into the water and see what has startled our driver --a large crocodile!
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