Uncle Tan's Rain Forest Camping

We went camping in the tropical rain forest located along the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Borneo with a tour company called Uncle Tan's. Unfortunately, most of the rain forest has been destroyed and replaced with plantations, so there are only small pockets of forest left. These pockets are connected by thin corridors along the river. This forces the wildlife to live close to the river, making it relatively easy to spot.

We camped for 3 days and 2 nights. The first night we went on a night ride down the river. The guide had a big torch light that he used to light up the animals so we could see them. It was really impressive how well the guide moving at 20 miles per hour and was able to spot animals as far as 200 meters away. Even when they were hiding behind the bushes and trees. That night we saw long-tailed macaques (a type of monkey), a crowned owl, stork billed king fishers (which are really cool-looking birds that are bright and colorful with huge heads), a creepy crocodile, civets (a small mammal that is part of the cat family), and proboscis monkey (famous for their large noses).

Sleeping in the rain forest is an adventure within itself. We slept in stilted, 3-walled huts with two other couples. The only thing protecting us from the creatures of the jungle was a mosquito net. Leslie and I were quite squeamish that first night as we kept imagining all the different creepy crawlies that could sneak onto our bed while we sleeping. The noises of the forest kept me awake for a while. All night long you hear an orchestra of chirping, squawking, grunting, humming, and clicking. It may even be noisier in the forest at night than during the day!

At 6am the next morning we went for a morning boat ride. Animals are the most active at this time of the day because it is still relatively cool. We saw orangutans, horn bills (birds with big horns on their beaks), egrets, a Brahminy kite, a white-billed fish eagle, and a monitor lizard swimming in the water. But the coolest part of the ride was when we spotted a whole group of river otters frolicking at the edge of the riverbank. They were scurrying along the shore and diving in and out of the water.


Can you spot the simian in this photo?

After breakfast we went on the morning trek. It was hot and muddy, but still really fun! We saw a lot of strange insects including really fat millipedes that rolled into a ball like a rolly poly (they were over an inch wide!), spiders, lots of colorful butterflies and moths, and other critters that we didn't know the name of. We also spotted a pygmy squirrel, which is the size of a small mouse. It was really cute as it bounced around in the tree branches. My favorite animal of the hike was the tractor millipede. It is about three inches long and smells like marzipan when you scratch its back! I wonder if it tastes like marzipan...Apparently, the millipede secretes the marzipan odor for protection because most animals don't like the smell. Oh yeah, there were also small glow-in-the-dark mushrooms growing along the side of the trail every so often.

We had some down time in the afternoon because there are not too many animals out during the hottest part of the day. Leslie and I spent part of the time relaxing in hammocks, looking up at the canopy. It is amazing all the life you can see when you lie still. All around us were insects, lizards (with a really bright yellow neck), and squirrels. It was so relaxing we both ended up falling asleep.

In the late afternoon it started raining (as can be expected in a rain forest), so we rushed into the boats for our evening boat ride. As Leslie and I huddled under our umbrella, we watched proboscis monkeys and macaques jump through the trees and chase each other along the river bank. We also spotted silver leaf monkeys and all the other birds mentioned before. By far the coolest thing we saw that ride were the hundreds of flying foxes (a type of large bat with a face that looks like a fox) soaring through the sky.

We made it back just as it started pouring and got to enjoy a nice warm dinner.All the meals at Uncle Tan's are really good. It was buffet style with seven to ten different stir fries over white rice. And they go heavy on the veggies which was really nice. The meal always ends with cut up watermelon, which is a perfect dessert in the hot, humid tropics. As you can imagine, Leslie took full advantage of this buffet! One British dude even commented on the massive amounts of food Leslie ate, saying, "For a small guy, Leslie can sure eat a lot!".

Our last outing was the night hike. It was really fun because we all had flashlights, so we could all participate in finding wildlife. We saw 2 different types of frogs, another kind of civet (whose eyes flashed red), the poisonous wolf spider (which is about 5 inches big and has a really cool pattern on its back), and, of course, a lot of other insects. Our guide also found a sleeping ashy-tailor bird. It was an adorable small fluff ball that cannot see in the dark, so we were able to get as close to it as we wanted. Right at the end of the hike, Leslie spotted a huge (8 inches long!) centipede. It was feasting on a worm when Leslie first saw it, but quickly ran away when we shined our lights on it to get a closer look. Our guide told us that centipedes are poisonous and can leave some nasty bites. It took a lot of will power to crawl into bed that night!



Overall our rain forest camping experience was really cool and exciting. But we were definitely grateful at the end of three days when we got back to the luxuries and comforts of civilization.