We had to drive across a part of Borneo for a good whole morning to get to Lahad Datu, the town gateway to the famous Danum Valley rainforest. It was a tiring journey to say the least. We ended up arriving at the park’s research office an hour too late on Friday and so we had to spend the weekend in this town. We decided to milk it and spent 2 euros more than usual on accommodation and got quite a comfortable place to sleep in, it was a gifted “time wasted in transit” moment. Plus Van got her pampering before roughing it up. We ended up spending 5 days in this local unexciting town as the next trip out to the Valley was the following Wednesday.
Valley upon valley, countryside across countryside and palm oil plantations are all I see nowadays outside cities across Indonesia and Malaysia. I can say with a breath of relief that going to Danum Valley was a breath of fresh air, literally. Before we even got to the park’s guarded entrance there was at least 10km of moderately dense rainforest. I had been waiting for a moment in this trip to truly feel like I am entering wild and uncontrolled terrain, and this was it. We saw a couple of Sambal Deer on the way there but the anxiousness and excitement came once we were told that there had been reports of elephants in the area in the past weeks, therefore our eyes were peeled the whole way until arriving at the research centre. Elephants were not seen though we did come across a lot of dung. We’re not ones to complain though as only a week ago we had come up close, like 1 metre close, to a herd of elephants along the river banks of the Kinabatagnan River.
We arrived late in the day and were briefed up by the park officials on the routines and rules of the centre. Once that was done they showed us to our lodging, being backpackers we obviously went for the most feasible but decent accommodation. Little did we know that over here they abided by certain Muslim laws and had separate huts for males and females….. Van’s face dropped and looked at me like a puppy that was taken away from its mother. I was obviously sad about that but it was pretty funny seeing her reaction. I did feel for her though as she was here because of me and the thought of her being surrounded by wild animals and bugs…many bugs, did make me try find ways to help her embrace the beautiful surroundings whilst not next to me hehe. This does not mean it worked, but that wasn’t my fault. She got unlucky.
Our first day here and we tried to trek around together and it started well up until I wanted to go deeper into the jungle and take heaps of photos. But before that happened we saw a female Orang-utan who came within 3 metres of us, but we kept our distance as we heard that this female is known to have attacked a woman in the past and she was hurt quite badly. However to be fair to the Orang-utan who has a massive tumour on her neck, it sounded like the woman who got attacked did not take the precautionary measures when being close to these amazing wild beings and it also sounded like she could have been the cause of the attack on herself. We didn’t get too far, the humidity and heat made sure of that. After maybe an hour of exploring we got back to camp and just chilled out and had a chat with some locals there. We thought it was best to acclimatise ourselves before taking on any more treks. I’d like to say it was a joint decision however Van seemed to have already taken a big liking to the camps resting area and was contemplating skipping the treks and instead making herself comfortable with her books and diary with a constant supply of tea/coffee and water whilst hearing the rainforest around her at a safe distance. Little did I know that this was a serious contemplation and I would be doing most treks alone.
We did make a good friend there through Mo Piercy, and I think he can back me up in saying that he found Van quite amusing on certain days. Especially with her obsession with leeches and constant questioning on whether or not she would get one stuck to her.
It felt like being at school again with the whole male and female separate quarters, bunking with dudes and sharing stories. Maybe minus the breaking stuff and playing tricks on one another, and sneaking into the girls quarters. One thing is for sure, it’s definitely a deep sleep you get into with all the peaceful sounds of the rainforest. I wish I could say the same for Van, she got a cockroach crawling on her one night and that didn’t give her much reason to sleep well that often.
Danum Valley itself is over 438km² and most of it is undisturbed. I only managed to scale the eastern area, through mapped paths or research paths which only led a few km’s into the rainforest. Most of the days I spent walking silently and at a slow but steady pace, just doing my best to get a glimpse of the wildlife that lives within this dense area. I mainly spent the treks foraging for big game such as monkeys, sun bear, civet cats, tarsier, elephants, deer and bearded pig. Stumbling on an Asian Pygmy Rhino would have been a dream, and a dream it will remain. With my gear at arm’s length, I did manage to get some shots of quite a few mammal species and more than a few bird species. One of the days I even spent about two hours up on a lookout tower with a family of big spiders and a hornets’ nest to keep me company as I wait patiently for some movement down below. One thing I learnt is that you have to be more than patient and a tad lucky to get a good glimpse of any big game, let alone capture some shots. Time has to be on your side, and I mean months. This is the wild, and that’s how it should be.
On one of my night walks with Ryan and a Scottish guy, we had our eyes peeled on every tree and moved like leopards on the hunt just trying to get a glimpse of a slow loris or a tarsier. Ever so elusive, the whole night walk search was in vain. It was awesome trekking through it at night though, the Rainforest can get extraordinary loud. We weren’t always this unlucky, on the third day here I went up on to the tree platform, which was about 7 stories high and overlooked the eastern part of the rainforest canopy and parts of the west. On the 5am start, Ryan and I witnessed a whole family of red leaf monkeys foraging through the tree tops and jumping from tree to tree, what a sight!
Then on our fourth day when we were on the way to a waterfall a few hours into the rainforest, we came upon a couple of Silvery Gibbons and guess what! Vanessa decided to join us for this one, knee high leech
socks and all. She wasn’t planning on having leeches on her…..hah yet she was the only one of us three who ended up getting one on her shoes, they didn’t get in thank god!
The trek to the waterfall was one of the best as it took us to some variable terrain and then the waterfall itself was pretty dreamy. A nice fresh water pool just below the main pool where the water fell. One metre up on the left lay another small jacuzzi-like pool, and that’s where we chilled for most of the time. It was perfect.
On the last day we enjoyed a drive to the top of a vantage point just before sunrise, and that’s when we saw an elusive civet cat just sprint from one side of the bush to another side. Too fast to get a shot but it was a cool sight. The Sunrise itself was amazing and mystic, it made the whole Danum Valley look like something out of a fantasy book with its jungle sounds and foggy outlook over the whole rainforest canopy. You would think that Dinosaurs lay waiting in that vast area of wilderness.
On our last days Vanessa kept on chilling at the camp or near our sleeping quarters and she did venture with me once or twice more, whilst I did my best to go on treks either alone or with Ryan and the two Jessica’s. I was pretty pleased with my photography on this expedition however I feel I will be back to try out a longer expedition, hopefully deeper into the jungle. Or maybe we will venture into the even wilder Maliau Basin, Ryan?
This was an awesome experience for the both of us in the end, Van may not go back into a Rainforest like this, but at least she knows what she will get into if she does and like that enjoy it even more.
Our roughing it up and wild adventures are over for now, off to magical Bali we go!
– Marc-
Marc and Van Explore 