Category: primates

After about 52 hours in Taiwan, we caught a midnight five hour Air Asia flight across the South China Sea to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Like Taiwan, Malaysia is an energy, resource-rich hotbed for wildlife that is affordable and another expat favorite for so many reasons.

AirAsia is on the economy side, but it was comfortable enough and who’s site and app were notably easy to use, even with flight changes. Uber isn’t currently in Malaysia, but there’s a few others that are similar, Grab being one I latched onto for rides for this trip. I learned the hard way from a driver that you have to match baggages with ride option and once I upgraded, it was a long hour+ drive to the central commercial zone of KL.

We got to our “hotel” and were greeting by armed guards in stand out front that gruffly let us through when we showed authorization of staying at The Manor KLCC. We went up a floor to a small hotel check-in place, realizing this place was more like executive residences than a true hotel. We paid a fee to check-in early and luckily could collapse in our unit, which felt like a luxury 1B condo overlooking the expansively growing skyline of KL, including Merkeda Tower (2nd tallest building in the world) and Petronas Towers (largest dual-connected towers in the world).

After a few hours of sleep, I set out to get a few essentials including an outlet converter as Malaysia has a different plug than ours unlike Taiwan. Malaysia is a highly Muslim country, which is evident by all the birkas on the flight, middle-eastern / conservatives appearances walking around, and the dichotomy of old world and all this new, modern construction and high fashion was fascinating.

Downtown KL has a ton of shopping and malls and the nearest grocery store was about a 25 minute hike away, past other executive residences.
I hit a food court in the mall and was lost trying to figure out breakfast options, went with what looked like the most similar and found myself trying to figure out what I got handed a hot water heater for boiling eggs with my toast and sandwich. I was able to finally figure out how to get a few staples, electric plug converter included to save the day. We learned that Malaysian food is like an Indian / Thai / Middle-Eastern collaboration, often quite spicy and there are markets dispersed for it around town. We tiptoed around it with some Thai and shwarma-like middle-eastern options.

The WOW moment downtown came at our rooftop pool – a stunning, relaxing experience to take in the sights all around.

After a day of adjusting, where we ordered in, our tour adventures continued starting with a visit to the legendary Batu Caves. We met our first Asian monkeys, who were very socialized and used to the many tourists, often opportunistically stealing bags for food jackpots and waters. We walked past the golden Lord Murugan Statue and up the stairs, where Alli was shift-grabbed by a monkey while trying to take a selfie. At the bottom and into the caves were these picturesque, colorful holy temples. Breathtaking to take it in and we had to grab a few souvenir gifts.

We stopped at a hand-painted shirt factory en route up north an hour and a half into the dense jungle for an epic elephant sanctuary visit. When offered the chance to bathe and feed young elephants as part of a private tour, we took it and didn’t regret getting soaked for the experience. Gandah, the only sanctuary-born elephant of the 40 in residence was a sweetheart. All of the gentle giants were there for injury or infringement on town areas and relocated for protection. We got to pet, feed and get to know about 8 elephants, who were eager for treats.

Off we left to fly out from there from the western peninsula to the island of Borneo, home to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysian territory. At the KL airport, we had to pay to upgrade bag coverage past the tiny allowance. The domestic flight terminal was tight and cramped and I felt bad for the quiet, unassuming line of 15 short Muslim girls who got jumped by many others to get through the gate. Between there and the pool, where they could dip feet in only, the gender disparity gap seemed pretty wide and unfair, but not my place to judge.

We arrived in Sandakan in the state of Sabah on the northeast corner of Malaysian Borneo, caught some quick winks and were picked up for our all-included tour to experience the heart of where 20% of the world’s species reside. First stop nearby was the Orangutan Conservation & Rehabilitation Center. Orangutans are down in numbers to just over 100k and live on two islands, here and Sumatra. In this swampy, sticky jungle, organutans are fed and the sick cared for. They are free to go and the food is not what they’d consider top shelf, and they often have to fight off the local macaque clans to get it, which was fascinating to watch, along with the mom with baby and other cute, flexible, swinging relatives.

Nextdoor was a Sun Bear Conservatory, another fascinating animal nearing endangerment, who are secretive without much known about them. These guys are the smallest and most vulnerable of the bear species. We saw these little around 8 of these brown-faced critters munching on vegetation shared happily, including sitting up knawing on carrots. We saw a resource fight between two, which featured high-pitched squeals and screams and some chasing that felt more akin to badgers than bears.

From there, we drove to Sim Sim Jetty, a Chinese coastal neighborhood in the community, which featured some large Amazon pet fish and all kinds of beautiful potted plants lining this dock. Off we went staring at the mountains that fed into this coastal community with a scenic mountain island and speedboat ride sending us ripping our way an hour and a half into rivers with thick mangroves and trees lining the shore. En route, we spotted a large ~13 foot saltwater croc sunning on shore (the first I have seen!).

Our first river lodge (Kinabitu ?) had a lot of character, cozy cabins with AC and a fan, which helped in the sticky humidity. I appreciated getting to walk the labeled boardwalks trying to spot creatures, including at night with a headlamp, seeing tree frogs, spiders a lantern bug and more. At dawn and near dusk, we set out on our skiff to seek out wildlife near the shore at peak times to catch there. Our guide Lat knew so much about the species and both he and the driver were able to spot animals while moving fast, while also coordinating with other tour guides. The government protects the area with the help of tourist taxes, and it shows as the animals show little worry about nearby gawkers.

We quickly spotted Borneo-specific harems of Proboscis Monkeys, featuring an alpha and the mates and offspring. The pot-belied males feature the giant, long floppy noses and despite their figure, can launch themselves from tree to tree. The females have smaller, pointy noses. Reading Ancestor’s Tale, it details the divergence of humans down the line of primates and the Probiscus are a nearer relative not far off from the split from orangutans ~13 million years ago. Easy to see the resemblance, really started at you and sat there picking and eating leaves and you could confuse with people without too much imagination. We enjoyed watching babies doing acrobatics and bachelor groups as well.

Easy to enjoy the beauty of the river and sunsets, river inlets and quiet lakes off the main river and at dusk, the fireflies lighting up around a few trees and calls of the wild all around.

The lodge offered great fresh-cooked delicious meals featuring steamed veggies, rice, noodles, fish, shrimp, fried wontons, and delicious local fruits and tasty deserts. There was a special night that we all wore the native Sarongs and enjoyed a meal with local women old and young playing soothing music with their instruments.

At this point, we were seeing a number of sub-species of Horned Bills, one of the few species that picks and stays with a partner for life. We saw a pair of grey langurs, one grooming the other. In a palm tree at the second lodge, a staffer pointed to a flying lemur that was probably nearly 4 feet long, waiting for the chance to soar when night fell. We were seeing so many macaques that they were becoming pedestrian. At the second lodge, they gave us sticks to beat them off as they are known to go after bags for food. Alli stayed in the pool when everyone else went to lunch and the pack jumped right in, partying like it was spring break – hilarious!

On the reptile front, there was an emerald green pit viper sitting in the same spot daily near the kitchen with a lump of a catch from recently, fascinating to see it sitting in the bush like a stick a few feet away. We saw numerous skinks and geckos and were lucky enough to watch another nearly 10 foot croc from close before he spooked, snapped and leapt in the water.

What really made this incredible experience all the more special was that on the way back, the 1st lodge reported an orgunutan visiting, and we were able to zip back and watch him in the canopy near our breakfast spot the previous day. Part of the group instead followed a pygmy elephant, who came to the riverbank. As we waived at the staff sending us off and zipped past the floating bottles with fish flying off the wake, looking at the islands of the coast, we just smiled having experienced a truly incredible part of the world. I hope gets the protection it needs to stay that way.