On coming to Borneo we really wanted to try to see some animals in the true wild. During one encounter with a fellow traveller (can’t remember for the life of me who this was now), they told us about this amazing homestay they had been to in the jungle of Borneo and gave us the number. So prior to heading to Borneo we contacted this number and asked about the homestay and the tours they did, which all seemed really reasonable so we booked a night, with this being all we could really fit in with a week over all in Sabah. We had no idea really what to expect but we were up for trying to have an experience in the wild jungle.
The homestay arranged for a driver to pick us up from Forest Edge to transport us the couple of hours to the homestay. Joe, the driver was lovely and talked all about his love for Chelsea football club and how he’d seen them twice when they visited Kota Kinabalu. We travelled along the highway unfortunately seeing endless palm plantations where the jungle used to be. Palm plantations bring in good money for the local people and palm products bring in big money for corporations with a lot of beauty products and food having palm in them. It is horrendous to see how much of this beautiful landscape has been taken over by these plantations as this has caused habitat loss for many animals including orang-utans. It also means the animals that try to live in plantations after often killed due to them destroying the palm. Due to seeing this we are now trying to avoid shampoos etc with this in and in obvious foods such as peanut butters etc or with rainforest alliance symbols for sustainable palm products.
Sustainable palm product logo
We made our way through the palm and towards the jungle on the edge of the Kinabatangan river where we met some locals at their house and Yanti the owner we had been liaising with. We were informed there had been some wild elephants spotted nearby and asked if we wanted to do a 4x4 tour to see them (100 MYR pp). We jumped at the chance, so quickly boarded the boat to go to the homestay and take our luggage over, before whizzing back along the river to the jetty. We jumped on a 4x4 with a couple of local guys, where we made our way to the plantation the elephants had been spotted. After stopping a few times to ask the workers where they were spotted and driving around for about half an hour we eventually spotted a group of elephants among the trees (surprisingly easy to miss in the bushes). We watched them slowly munching their way through the plantation, with a young baby elephant that was incredibly cute. Eventually they moved away so we couldn’t see them. As we circled back around we spotted a huge male elephant on it’s own. We watched it for a while before the guys we were with began whistling at it and it moved towards us, where they backed the car away. As the elephant then moved away again our car followed it slowly, where suddenly the elephant changed its course and coming straight towards us. Our car moved away slowly until the elephant started to charge up road towards us and we had to step on in until we were far enough away that it went back into the trees. On our way back we spotted the group again and then 2 more with 2 baby elephant, about six months old on the way back through the plantation to the homestay.
After seeing the elephants we headed back along the river to the homestay. We were staying in Osman’s family house (on Tripadvisor and booking.com as Osman’s homestay in Kinnabantagan) so had a room in their wooden house next to the river. Whilst we were there, there was also an Austrian couple and 3 germans staying at his house. The rest of his family end up sleeping in the lounge area and other room. It was a bit strange to start with, feeling as if we were kicking the family out of their house but this is how they make their income and the family themselves were lovely. We spent some time on the balcony overlooking the river chatting to the fellow guests. We were a bit gutted that we couldn’t stay longer as it sounded like the guests had managed to see some amazing animals and experiences with Osman as their tour guide over the few days they had been their. Osman and his family put on a lovely dinner for us all- soy sauce chicken, sweet and sour catfish, rice, vegetables, salted duck eggs, soy bean dish. Then some fresh pineapple and orange for desert. We spent the rest of the evening talking to Osman where he explained (and also ranted a bit, understandably) about the NGOs and government patrol teams on the river that are supposed to conserve the jungle and animals but that were actually corrupt and not helping the animals with a lot of animals being killed. Osman and his family set up their homestay and tours in order to make alternative income than from selling land to palm plantations. He is also trying to spread this message to rest of the local community to encourage them to also do this, in order to prevent all the jungle from being sold to palm plantations and to protect some of the wildlife around them.
In the morning we made our way out on the river on a boat cruise with Osman to spot some wildlife. It was rainy but Osman managed to spot animals where we couldn’t even see anything initially. We managed to see some proboscis monkeys in the trees, macaques, silver leaf monkeys as well as a host of birds. We spotted lots of cranes, stalks, eagles, hornbills, kingfishers, cormorants and a woodpecker. In the river we saw a couple of otters bobbing up and down and even saw a couple of crocodiles eyes and heads peaking out of the water. It was a great experience even if we didn’t see any wild orang-utans. These are apparently harder to spot nowadays due to the deforestation, however some of the other guests had managed to find some on one of the other days we were here. We were back at the homestay at 7.40am where breakfast was put on. Afterwards we said our goodbyes and were driven with a few other guests to meet the bus that was heading to Semporna (20 MYR to bus, 45 MYR bus to Semporna).
I would highly recommend Osman’s homestay for accommodation and tours. You can find Osman’s homestay on booking.com. We paid 100 MYR pp for the 4x4 elephant tour, 50 MYR pp for the boat cruise and 70 MYR to stay for the night, including all food. It is a fantastic way to give the locals the income needed to prevent further palm plantations and promote more ecological, conservational tourism. We would have loved to of stayed longer in order to have time to see more animals but managed to see wild elephants as well of a host of other animals along the river so were very happy.
Alex
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