Jungle fever

Our morning jetty visitor

After our stupendous day yesterday, we didn't expect much from our 6.30am nature boat ride today.  A massive rainstorm during the night had made the boardwalks very slippery (and woke us up extremely early), a situation made infinitely worse by the scattering of monkey poo. Naughty macaques.

In addition to Abas, our gang consisted of Charles & Jane, a retired Scottish couple from Leicester, and Rob & Amelia, a honeymooning dentist - very handy for advice on Duncan's painful tooth! We'd bonded on our epic nature cruise yesterday and were ready for anything today. Except big snakes. Which was a problem as there was a rather large python wrapped around the steps to the jetty. Thankfully one of the boat guys offered to get a picture for me. He got a lot closer than I ever would have!

Re-building a rainforest

Our morning trip revealed more monkeys, including proboscis and another orangutan. You may think that this is normal, but in fact it really isn't - both are hard to find. We also had a barred eagle owl, white fronted falcon and more of the birds we'd seen the previous day.

Back for breakfast and a quick rest, and we were off again. This time for a much more worthy cause : tree planting! The local villagers of Abei grow seedlings of all the indigenous trees and we all went with one each just downriver, where we could clamber onto the banks and plant a tree each. It's income for the village, saves the rainforest in a small way and lets tourists feel like they're doing good. What's not to like?

We chose to eat in the village; the choice being chicken or chicken. Both of which were delicious. A tour of the village and inspection of the houses which won this year's "prettiest house" competition (1st prize £1000) run by the lodge company, plus a interesting insight into the Bornean head hunters of past. (about as far from a recruitment role as you can get!) completed the visit.

In the afternoon the two of us and honeymooners left the lovely Abei Lodge to head further upstream to the Kinabatangan River Lodge (all owned by the same company as MY Nature Resort). Another evening cruise, a couple more big rainstorms and the opportunity to wear sarongs to dinner kept the 4 of us amused on our last night in this beautiful, exciting, mesmerising rainforest. I love it, but I don't think there's a single dry item in my backpack anymore. It's so darn humid...

Abas came up river overnight and we were reunited with our favourite guide for the long 2 1/2 hour boat ride back to Sandakan. We settled in to our lifejackets, thinking we'd seen almost all the wildlife the jungle had to offer. How wrong were we! With lucky charm Abas, and Duncan's newly honed animal spotting skills, we had yet another orangutan (taking our total for wild orangutans to 5 - incredibly), and a 4 metre crocodile who nonchalantly glided past the boat as if he hadn't clocked us. Right. And then, a little further on, pygmy elephants in the river.  They scrambled out at first, but once they realised we were harmless, one slid back in to get a better angle to pull out some sweet tasting roots from the muddy riverbank.

Back in Sandakan we watched the fishing boats arrive to offload their catches and prepare to head back out to sea. The fish market is literally on the dock and sellers were more than happy to show us their wares and how they prepare the fish and shellfish. More variety than I've ever seen and some items I literally had never seen before; from tuna to blue crab to sea slugs. Yum.

Dinner prep

AirAsia had us in Kuala Kinabalu by 4pm. A short flight from Sandakan. Not much of the day left to do stuff, but a walk up Signal Hill and over to the night market opened our eyes to yet another food option. With everything and almost anything for sale, all those fish we'd seen in the Sandakan market were available here. Numerous stalls with tons of the freshest different raw fish and seafood displayed on trays out front. Pick your favourite, say how you'd like it cooked and take a table.  We sat at the back, by the cooks, to watch them prepare and cook. They worked so fast and efficiently, using only 3 burners. Everything looked and tasted amazing... banana fish, king prawns and baby squid.  Too good.  We like KK!

Dinner cook!