The ‘people’ of the forest
Natalie Crockett discovers that modern entertainment is no match for the wonders that Mother Nature has to offer the curious adventurer on a Bornean safari.
It came out of nowhere. The triumphant trumpet of a pygmy elephant cut through the soft rumble of voices and scraping of plates at dinner time.
Diners exchanged hopeful looks as if to question whether we’d really heard what we thought we had. This is why we’re here.
Just a few hours earlier, we’d been scouring the bush line next to the water, eager to get a glimpse of the elusive animals, as we meandered along Borneo’s Kinabatangan River, near the village of Sukau.
Our guide, Fernando, tells us they were spotted two days earlier, so our eyes carefully scan the edge of the dense rainforest for any movement. No sign so far but, no bother, as there’s no shortage of wildlife to discover along the murky, tea-coloured waterway that is Malaysia’s second longest river.
Today, we’re on the lookout for Borneo’s big five – a collection of rare and endangered species that make the area surrounding the river their home. They are the rhinoceros hornbill, the bulbousnosed proboscis monkey, the pygmy elephant (Asia’s smallest elephant), the estuarine crocodile and, of course, Borneo’s iconic orangutan.
I was prepared for this to take a while. But, a cup of tea in hand and standing in the restaurant of Sukau Rainforest Lodge, our home for the next two nights, we tick one off the list immediately.
Five oriental hornbills descend on the tree above us, completely unfazed by the growing group of people now trying to get a good look at them.
Before there’s time to snap a picture, I’m being beckoned to look at the opposite riverbank where a group of Borneo’s endemic proboscis monkeys sit atop a tree. Scratching their bulging pot bellies, it’s easy to differentiate between them and the ubiquitous grey, long tailed macaque, thanks to their auburn fur and the large, fleshy noses they’re famous for.
Eager to see more, we hop on a boat, glad that the deluge of water that emptied from the sky just an hour before, disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving us with a picture-perfect evening on the water.
With the gentle hum of the boat’s electric engine beneath us, we make our way up the river. Along the way, we see myriad birds, including crested serpent eagles, bushy-crested hornbills, rhinoceros hornbills, and egrets.
The idyllic surroundings are accompanied by a soundtrack that boasts a cacophony of bird song and monkey calls, interrupted only by the shriek of thousands of cicadas.
As we cruise down hidden creeks, chasing after the sunset, I’m in awe of the lush surroundings. It’s not difficult to see why Sir David Attenborough and Dame Judi Dench, who have separately highlighted the need to protect the area and its animals, were so moved to do so.
The novelty of the landscape doesn’t wear off when we’re back on the water at sunrise the following day.
The elephants we heard the evening before are high on our agenda, and it’s not long before we’re
racing up the river like James Bond, to investigate a suspected sighting. No such luck, but we enjoy the chase and another chance to take in the biodiversity of the landscape.
As the world’s third largest island, Borneo is home to some of its oldest tropical rainforests, which boast a rich collection of plants and trees, with thousands of species per hectare, and are home to 10 per cent of the planet’s insects.
But thanks to the world’s insatiable appetite for palm oil, which now appears in everything from washing-up liquids to ready meals, many of the animals that call them home are under threat.
Though Borneo’s government, and organisations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), are taking steps to buy land to prevent deforestation, animal numbers continue to fall and there are fears some could be extinct by the end of the century. Illegal hunting and the pet trade are among the reasons for their decline.
It is a relief then, and most certainly a highlight, when we spot our first orangutan. A dark-coloured blob in a tree about 100 metres back from the riverbank, it’s a sobering sight in an area where the forest continues to be lost to palm oil plantation expansion.
We had our first glimpse of these magnificently graceful creatures earlier in our trip at Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, near Sandakan.
But to see them in the wild is a different experience entirely. It doesn’t matter that our view of the so-called ‘‘person of the forest’’ is little more than a silhouette in a tree.
Just knowing it’s there, where it’s supposed to be, is enough for me.
But in the same way you wait for a bus and then three come along at once, we’re lucky enough to spot more as we continue our trip.
Our third day on the water takes us out at sunset, and sees us scouring the muddy banks for lazing crocodiles, still hopeful of an elephant spot. A fear of the apex predators means one, in particular, of our group is thankful we don’t come across any.
We end our time on the river accepting we probably won’t complete the big-five checklist, but there’s one final delight to behold – and it comes in the dark.
The boat’s lights are switched off and, squinting and wondering what we’re supposed to be looking at, thousands of tiny, buzzing lights suddenly appear, dancing in the trees next to us.
Like fairy lights on a Christmas tree, or the Eiffel Tower’s twinkling illuminations, fireflies bring the riverbank to life along the stretch of trees in front of us.
It’s a magical sight and one that reminds me of something our earlier guide Fernando told us was the reasoning for not providing guests with TVs and radios in their rooms.
‘‘This [the river and the rainforest] is our big screen and Mother Nature is our symphony.’’
Quite right.