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.