Proboscis Monkey River Cruise at Bilit, Kinabatangan River

Bites Tale : Had a quiet New Year eve... dinner and watching DVD at home... thanks to my flu and fever... But it does feel good to be able to "escape" from crowded restaurants and traffic jams. Wishing everyone a happy new year 2009 and may this new year brings you abundant joy, love, health and prosperity!

We arrived Bilit Adventure Lodge and was welcomed by something we least expected at the jetty... a freaking leech... that was my 1st time seeing the little blood sucking creature... it looks so excited.. non-stop twisting and "extending" its body so it could somehow "stick" on us. I was too scared to take picture... and i can't even dare to move a step forward... me and my friends were being "blocked" by this creature while our 2 guides and driver just stepped passed it carrying our bags. One of the staff / boatman came and asked what's wrong... felt so ashamed when we told him we were afraid of the little leech... and his next reaction was laughing at us and then stepped on the leech.

Next, we were invited to go to the communal dining area overlooking the kinabatangan river while waiting for the boat to be ready for our river cruise. It felt as if i was in Klias, only this time the proboscis monkeys are more and bigger in size. Apart from searching for Proboscis Monkeys, our lead guide was very excited and was hoping that we could have the opportunity to see Pygmy Elephant.

Pic : Off we go for our river cruise

We were in good luck but not great that day... we saw alot of birds and proboscis monkeys. However, most of the photos i snapped do no justice... most of them were blurred, if not, too tiny to see what i was trying to snap. We were all mumbling to ourselves that we can't zoom in too much with all our digital cameras. (Sigh... i missed my camera!!! Was lucky enough that the memory card can survived until we transferred all the photos on this road trip to our computers..)

Pic : Can see kah?

Pic : Proboscis monkey sighted

We return to the lodge at around 6pm for dinner. Dinner was good and we were told by the guests and staff there that there's so much to see and to do at the lodge itself. We could either join the night walk in search of wild animals or we could also join the tree planting for RM10. They kept telling us that we missed out on something great... turns out that they caught a big phyton crawling in search of food near the dining area 1 night before our arrival. Everyone keep snapping picture with it before it was released back to the wild. (I was actually thanking god while they were talking... luckily we arrived 1 day later... but i need to act cool in front of them.. the last thing i want is to meet with leech and don't talk to me about snakes ... muahahaha)

Pic : What i had for dinner

I refused to join the night walk as my guts automatically disappeared once darkness sets in. This happens even when i'm in KK... so i wouldn't put myself into any possibility that i might get a heart attack or even went crazy for not knowing what will i meet next in the jungle. So we went to bath early and enjoy chit chatting and supper (cup noodles, junk food and hot drinks).

We had to wake up at 5am and get ready by 5.30am to go for a morning river cruise experiencing how the wild wakes up... The sound of birds chirping, monkeys yawning, fishermen throwing his net and etc turns into music to our ears.

Pic : Everything looks so dark, we had to use the torchlights

Pic : So quiet, so calm

Pic : I love this pic!!!

Pic : Fisherman at work

Pic : See clearly.... it's birds!

Pic : Part of Kinabatangan River

Pic : I forgot what is this... Eagle?? Big Bird?? Monkey?? Don't know oh...

Pic : Lizard

We were approached by a fisherman on our journey back to the lodge.... because of this...

Pic : He wanted to sell this to us

Pic : Look at what he caught that morning

Pic : Yerr.... i love to eat unagi bah...

I've forgotten how much he charged... but anyway, i'm allergy to prawns... luckily... if not, i might be one of them who was forced to finish all the prawns that night.

Will tell you more ya!

Pic : Breakfast is a must for everyone

Road to Kinabatangan River

Bites Tale : For a moment, i thought i actually meant something to you, but in fact, i'm nothing.

Coming out from Rungus Long House and we head off to Bilit, where we will be staying overnight for that day. It was a tough ride that's mean we will be on the road for hours passing by oil palm plantations, villages and gravels.. one of us got sick due to long ride. I'm still doing fine, thanks to nescafe 3-in-1 and honey from the bee farm.. if you are asking how come we can have coffee on the road.. that's because the guide will stopover to fill the flask with hot boiling water throughout the journey.

Ya.. i never had coffee or food in the middle of no where... we would stopped at a village / highway or anywhere where the guide feel it's safe for us to stopover and stretch our muscle, had some food and coffee or even for the guys to pee... that's my 1st ever experience... i kinda missed the trip already.. so many 1st time.. with great companion.. and great guide who look after us very well.

Pic : Gravels and oil palm plantations

Nothing much to see through out the journey... we were already bored with so many oil palm plantations along the road.. as for me, i slept until we stopover for lunch.

Pic : Kedai Kopi Forest

I forgot where is this shop located.. as the name stated... Forest.. this row of shops is in the middle of no where... i only remember there're lot's of oil palm plantations around. We just had a quick lunch.. went to the loo... and off we go again.

Pic : Ah.... raining again... Grrrr!!!

We reach the jetty at around 4.30pm, there will be a boat waiting for us to bring us to the lodge where we'll be staying for the night. We need to park our car at the village as car cannot go into the lodge.

Pic : Walking down to the jetty

The Kinabatangan River is the 2nd longest river in Malaysia i.e. 560 kilometers from its headwaters in the mountains of southwest Sabah to its outlet at Sulu Sea, east of Sandakan.

Pic : Kinabatangan River

To our surprise, the water was very fast and there were no life jackets for us.. we requested for life jackets but the boat man said it's a 1 minute ride across the river.. our guide talked to them but to no avail.. so off we go.

Pic : The boat we rode on

Pic : The washroom at the Jetty

Pic : Our bags... there's so much.. we worried that the boat will be overloaded

The guide told us that Kinabatangan River is renowned for its remarkable wildlife and habitats... we could even see pygmy elephants if we are lucky enough. Since we were already lucky to see "something" (will reveal to you at the end of this post), we might be lucky to see the elephants too.

Pic : Off we went

Pic : This took us more than 1 min as per told by the boatman.. grrr!!

We reached the lodge i think about 3 - 4 mins.

Will be posting bout the lodge and our trail to oxbow lake soon.

And about that lucky thing we saw....

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We saw 7 hornbills ... ya.. 7.. while we were on the road...

But... i can't get the pic... they flew off.. this is the best i could get..

Pic : 3 hornbills... they really look like cartoons.