Born-eo To Be Wild!

November 2nd, 2024

Greetings Friends, Family, and Fellow Travelers,

We are currently in transit after a week and a half in Borneo. This has been a truly remarkable experience, and we can’t wait to share more about it with you. Justin put together a stunning album of some of our favorite photos of the wildlife we saw along the way:

Sara’s Thoughts & Recap:
I can’t quite recall when I landed upon the idea of going to Malaysian Borneo as part of our epic world trip, but know that it ascended to the top of the destination list pretty early on in my research process. We knew we wanted to spend a considerable amount of time in Southeast Asia, and I thought Borneo would be a unique and fun destination for all of our kids, but particularly Jonah. Jonah has an encyclopedic knowledge of animals, and a keen interest in spotting various species around the globe. Many of you know that I am not really an “animal person,” per se, but I think after this experience, I could probably call myself an “animal person under certain conditions.” These conditions include when you’re doing a walk through the remote jungle and there’s an orangutan just chilling above your head. Again, this was such an incredible experience for all of us.

Our trip to Borneo was divided into four locations: Sandakan, Kinabatangan, Danum Valley, and Kota Kinabalu. While this meant a lot of packing and unpacking, it also meant a lot of novelty and diversity in our experience here.

Sandakan: We started our trip to Borneo in Sandakan, where we arrived in the late afternoon and visited the Puu Jih Shih Buddhist Temple. There, we were treated to a gorgeous view of the Sandakan Bay. Then, we went for an early dinner at the English Tea House, where the kids spent most of their time playing with the cats on the property. Our animal adventures begin! The main draw of Sandakan are the various local sanctuaries serving orangutans, sun bears, and proboscis monkeys. On our first day in Sandakan, we visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, where we observed the orangutans during feeding time. Our guide explained that the center is for young orangutans (up until the age of 7). As orangutans are solitary creatures, one of the goals of the center is to help orphaned orangutans learn how to live and survive on their own in the jungle. We watched a few of them eat, and as soon as they cleared out, dozens of macaque pounced upon the platforms, just lying in wait to steal the remainder of the food. Next, we visited the Bornean Sun Bear Conversation, which currently houses 44 rescued ex-captive sun bears. One of the sun bears was named Kala, so naturally we all took an immediate liking to her. In the afternoon, Justin took the kids to the Rainforest Discovery Center while I stayed back to nap. I don’t know what wiped me out, but I didn’t wake up until Justin started banging on the door at 5:30pm!

The following day, we checked out of our hotel and stopped at the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. These monkeys are only found here in Borneo, and gosh they are just so adorable. The males are the ones with the long noses, while the females have smaller, upturned noses. I loved watching these monkeys eat and play. We learned that proboscis monkeys cannot have glucose, so they are fed sugar-free pancakes and cucumbers. We agreed that none of us could ever be proboscis monkeys. All in all, a great start to our time in Borneo.

Kinabatangan River: We transferred via boat to our hotel by the Kinabatangan River, which is the second longest river in Malaysia, and has one of the world’s richest ecosystems. Our two days there were spent primarily doing river cruises. On our first afternoon, we spotted a giant crocodile and more proboscis monkeys. Jonah was dying to see a pygmy elephant, even though our guide, Max, told us it had been about 6 months since he’d last spotted one. While we were cruising, Jonah kept thinking he maybe saw an elephant, but it was just the great Bornean pile of leaves or the great Bornean tent. As we were watching the monkeys drift off to sleep, the sky started looking ominous, and we began to worry about rain. Sure enough, we started to see lightning flash in the sky, and by the end of the river cruise, we were getting drenched. Despite bringing five ponchos and a dry bag to Borneo, they were useless to us back in our hotel room, and we vowed to be better prepared the next day.

On our second day, our boat’s engine died out during the AM cruise while we were taking a snack break, so we need to be rescued. Happily, we’d already seen several animals, though not the orangutan as hoped. We also went for an afternoon cruise, but the highlight for me of day 2 was the night cruise, where Jonah and I saw a beautiful kingfisher bird and trees lit up with fireflies. (The younger kids sat this out as they were too tired.)

Danum Valley: We were told that once we got to the Danum Valley, everything that came before would feel like small potatoes compared to our experience there. The Danum Valley Conservation Area is truly the middle of the jungle, with a rare variety of animals including the Bornean pygmy elephant, rhinos, monkeys, and the clouded leopard. Prior to coming to Danum Valley, we had also spent a lot of time trying to find these shoes called “Adidas Kampung,” as the internet swears that these are the best shoes for jungle trekking in Borneo. They are made of rubber, and cost about $3, which also made them ideal candidates for ditching as soon as we finished up our time there. The Borneo Rainforest Lodge is a pristine jungle escape, housing both guests and researchers alike. To get to our lodge in the Danum Valley, we needed to: 1) Take 90-minute boat ride from our resort in Kinabatangan to Sukau Lepit Jetty; 2) Drive 2 hours to Lahad Datu; 3) Meet Borneo Rainforest Lodge staff, and take two jeeps for 2.5 hours, including 2 hours over a bumpy road. We arrived at our hotel exhausted, exhilarated, and famished, and were treated to a huge lunch buffet. (More on the buffet experience later.)

 We met our guide, Wan, in the afternoon. Wan was so great with the kids, patiently answering all of their questions, and praising them when they spotted animals before he did. On our first day staying at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge, we went for a short afternoon hike to get better acquainted with the area and then later, we took a night drive in an open top golf cart. We saw a civet and a tarsier, which is an animal I’d never heard of before, but immediately decided I adored. They are carnivorous, nocturnal primates, even though they sort of look like tiny koalas. We kept driving until suddenly the car stopped due to…. pygmy elephants crossing the road! Jonah was delirious with excitement, even though we had to call off the rest of the night drive due to the safety risk. (Our guide explained that they’d previously spotted a baby elephant, which makes its parents more protective and on guard.) I’ll let Jonah say more about this experience, as it truly was a dream come true for him.

The next day, we headed out early for a four-hour hike. We spotted an orangutan (Kate, aged 13) as soon as we left. Orangutan Kate was named after Kate, Duchess of York, because Duchess Kate and Prince William were visiting around the time the Orangutan Kate was born. Later on in our hike, we spotted gibbons, and we continued to ascend to a stunning viewpoint where we could see all of the Danum Valley. After taking in the scenery, we headed back down to swim in a natural jacuzzi. The cool water felt glorious; the nibbles on our toes by the tiny fishes, less so. Simon couldn’t decide whether he loved it or hated it, but he refused to get out of the water, so I assume the former. After lunch, I went for a massage, and then we all headed back out again for the canopy walk. It began to rain, but by this point, we’ve learned that jungle rain is quite different from Seattle rain. Even when it’s pouring buckets, the rain is blissfully warm and can feel like a welcome reprieve from the incessant heat and humidity. It also helps keep the mosquitos away, which is always a good thing for our bite-prone family.

We headed back to the resort for a cocktail hour, and then headed out once again for a night walk. This was really something special as Wan shined his flashlight and pointed out the creatures lurking in the rainforest once the sun goes down. We saw lots of bugs and were all particularly entranced by the glow in the dark scorpion. While scorpions don’t actually glow in the dark, when UV light is shined on them, the look fluorescent blue-green due to their exoskeletons. Also spotted on our night walk: forest mouse, mouse deer, giant millipedes, a sambar deer, and frogs. After a long and successful day of wildlife sightings, we headed back to the lodge for a final delicious dinner. Our last morning at the lodge, we were on our own, so we went for a nature walk and to visit the frogs once more. Calla decided to play tour guide; please see this video a snippet of her in her element:

After lunch, we were driven to the Lahad Datu airport. Just as we started to head out, it began to rain heavily and suddenly Justin cried out, “please stop the car!” Against all odds, he’d spotted yet another pygmy elephant way off in the distance by the water. The driver pulled over, and while it was very hard to see, all of us were able to get a brief glance of the elephant before it disappeared behind the trees. A perfect and fitting end to our time in Danum Valley.

A (probably incomplete) list of animals spotted on our trip to Borneo:

Pygmy elephant

Forest mouse

Mouse deer

Giant millipede

Sambar deer

Orangutan

Long tailed macaque

Tarsier

Venomous centipede

Scorpion

Tarantula

Crab

Frogs

Civet

Moths

Hornbill

Grasshopper

House gecko

Leaf bug

 A note on leeches:

I’d been joking with my kids about needing leech socks in Borneo for months. Joke’s on me, though, because I sort of thought leech socks were like the Yellow Fever vaccine. They’re a necessary precaution, but it’s not like you’re really going to need them. (Probably. Hopefully.) It turns out I was very wrong. On our first afternoon in the Danum Valley, Simon – who has always seen things others miss – spotted a leech first on Calla and then on our guide. (This was actually pretty funny, since the leech was on Wan’s butt and Simon felt embarrassed to tell him.) Since Simon was such a leech spotting expert, we figured we were home free. Alas, when we got back to our room and Justin took off his backpack, I noticed a large spot on his back. I asked him what it was, and when we lifted his shirt, we noticed that his back was bleeding and because of all the “in sickness and in health” nonsense, and I had to remove a very sad looking deceased leech from his back. We quickly had the kids leave all their clothes in a pile by the front door and strip down for inspection, at which point I discovered that Simon had two bites and was bleeding from his left armpit. Turns out that leeches have an anticoagulant in their saliva, so their bites – while harmless in the long run – result in quite a bit of bleeding. Jonah was very concerned at this point and declared that he was done with rainforest hiking. Fortunately, some internet research and conversation with our guide convinced him to change his mind, plus I wasn’t going to let him miss out on such a spectacular experience due to a newly formed phobia. A few tips in case you need them for future jungle travels: wear short sleeves (rather than long sleeves) so that you can see leeches crawling on your arms and tuck your shirt into your pants, even if you look ridiculous. On day 2 of our jungle adventures, we still spotted a few rogue leeches, but no one got bitten. I will spare you all photos here, but please know that we have them at Simon’s request.

Kota Kinabalu: We stayed in an upscale family-oriented resort for our final few days in Borneo. It was a huge change of pace for us, as we don’t typically frequent resorts with lots of bells and whistles, but I think ended up being very good for the kids since they were able to split up and do their own thing, plus no one was ever bored. The resort was filled with our families as our dates overlapped with Diwali, which is a public holiday in Malaysia. (We were also here over Halloween, and it was very strange to not be celebrating.) Calla immediately made friends at the kids’ club and decided she never wanted to leave. Simon made a new friend at dinner and spent our entire second day the resort hanging out with him. Jonah dominated in the game room, winning a coke on day 1 after beating some poor kid 10-1 in air hockey. I did what I always long to do when there is good weather, a pool, and/or a beach: read, swam, and went to the spa. I was also talked into going on all three waterslides, and the five of us engaged in a spirited “Parents vs. Kids” water balloon fight that no one and everyone won. On our last evening, I insisted on actually visiting the town of Kota Kinabalu, where we hit up the Filipino Artisan and Night Markets. Both were kind of a bust, so we headed back to the hotel and opted for a quiet evening and room service.

Post-script on buffets: I have a very clear memory from when Jonah was around three of visiting my grandmother at her retirement community. On Sundays, there was a big brunch buffet, and during one visit, he and I walked around gathering items for his plate while his older cousin confidently navigated the breakfast buffet all on his own, returning with a freshly made waffle piled high with whipped cream. Jonah cried, “When I’m four I can go to the buffet all by myself!” like it was the most exciting, elusive “big kid” pleasure he could possibly imagine. I think of this memory a lot when I watch my kids navigating a good breakfast buffet.

Honestly, there’s really no scene more gleefully chaotic than three children let loose in a fancy hotel buffet breakfast, pulled in various directions by the promise of pastries and dumplings and endless types of juice. In Kota Kinabalu, I stumbled upon Simon at the outdoor pancake and waffle station dousing his waffle with Nutella. Just one day prior, both Simon and Calla independently decided to cover their streamed buns with the chocolate syrup that had been left out for the pancakes. Jonah – now a confident navigator of a good breakfast buffet – has eaten primarily noodles, dumplings, and sushi for breakfast for the last three days, and he still can’t quite believe his good fortune. 

And it’s not just the breakfast buffets. In Danum Valley, there were huge buffet lunches and dinners, as well. One evening, Jonah, Simon, and Calla all returned to the table with only white rice, a half ear of corn, and a steamed bun on their plates. There was one day where I’m pretty sure Calla ate only steamed buns and some ice cream. We remarked – as we often do – “you need protein to grow.” “THIS IS PROTEIN!” she cried as she shoved her 7^th or 8^th steamed bun of the day into her mouth. (We eventually agreed to putting some smoked salmon on her plate.)

The other night, we attended Malam Kampung, which included a huge buffet featuring food from carious Asian cuisines, as well as a Borneo Cultural Performance and fire Dance. Lured away by balloon swords and a bouncy house, Simon and Calla barely touched their food, and it was the adults who piled their plates high with grilled lobster, Mongolian stir fry, and sushi. Guess the apple doesn’t fall too far…

Finally, I want to wrap up by making a huge pitch for visiting Malaysia. I don’t think it gets nearly as much attention from US travelers as other countries in Southeast Asia, but we’ve absolutely loved our nearly three weeks here. I’d love to come back some day and explore more of this diverse and hospitable nation, perhaps visiting Langkawi or Penang.  

Justin’s Soapbox:

Our time in Borneo has felt like getting back to the core reasons we went on this trip in the first place. To go to places that are very different, a little challenging, and to work together to have adventures in places we've only read about in books before. But I want to open by saying that between here and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia has shot to the top of my "want to return" list. Every place we visited here was truly exceptional, in some way.

In Borneo itself, it was wonderful to see Jonah and Simon so engaged with the flora and fauna aspects of the experience, and I'm glad they got to see an amazing number of creatures out here. Calla of course loved the animals too, but the boys were going through their "Steve Irwin Jr." phases even before she was born, so this was extra special for them. Some standout animal friends from the past week include the giant crocodile and not-once-but-twice surprise encounters with elephants - both unexpected and rare finds. The kids did a great job with all the hiking, and were continually engaged in looking out for wildlife. While we usually had to rely on the experienced eyes of our forest guides to initially spot the monkeys in the trees or the scorpions under the leaves, the fact that each hike seemed to yield at least one or two big finds made it really exciting to be out in the rainforest, scanning the trees for signs of life. 

Another moment that Sara mentioned which I wanted to elaborate on was when we returned from our first river excursion in Kinabatangan - this is where we first saw that croc, but the trip back through the rain and lightning was pretty exhilarating, and not just for the optics. Really big streaks of lightning were hitting fairly close to us, both in front and behind, and I'm sitting there thinking about us being in the middle of a flat river on a metal boat so I tried to act casual while asking our guide "is the lightning a concern?" and he smiled back, "oh sure, it's very dangerous!" So they gunned the engine and we sped back through the maelstrom. I was glad we made it back without incident, so this could end up being a "cool story" rather than anything more unfortunate. 

Oh, and the leeches. Boy oh boy, did I learn about leeches. It turns out that I actually didn't know what a leech really was and looked like and how it operated. I blame this mostly on movies, but I think before this week I imagined leeches as sort of slow-moving slug like things that would maybe latch on to you if you waded into a pool of swamp water and hung out in it for a while. The truth is far scarier. These things are practically xenomorphic in the way they sneak up on you, grab hold, and don't want to let go. And while they're not fast, they sure do move, sort of like sadistic little slinkies that turn end-over-end along the ground until one of those ends sticks on you. And while they're easy to pull off, they immediately stick to the fingers you pulled it off with! Horrifying! 

Perhaps the best thing that didn't happen in Borneo is that I was spared any close encounters with giant insects in my bed or bathroom, which was without a doubt my #1 fear going in. I got munched on by a leech, but I didn't have to share a shower with a tarantula, which is a very easy tradeoff for me personally. [Ed note: Calla accidentally let a giant moth into our room in Sandakan, but that was fairly benign and actually kinda cute.]

Now, to do a little horn tootin' of my own. I gotta say that I got some darn good wildlife photos in Borneo using our good camera. The camera that I don't really know how to use, but through the remarkable process of trial and error I managed to navigate multiple FLR modes and aperture adjustments, all while trading between our stock lens and the fancier zoom lens we've had for a while. And I don't even know what half those things I just wrote mean! But the pictures speak for themselves. I hope you enjoyed the gallery (scroll back to the top if you missed it!) ((Oh fine, you can just click here for it))

In reality, it's not hard to take bad pictures in Borneo, the rainforest is extremely photogenic in any circumstance, as was most of Malaysia in total. 

10/10, would Borneo again!

Jonah’s Musings:

October 25th 2024

I've been waiting for a long, long time to go to Borneo so when we arrived, I was thrilled for 10 days of seeing animals. On our first day we saw my favorite ape: the orangutan. Orangutans are the second largest ape in the world, male orangutans weighing up to 285 pounds! They are also extremely strong, up to 7 times stronger than an average man! The orangutans we saw though were mostly babies and their moms which were really cute. We saw the orangutans at the feedings center eating away at the food. The food was mostly bananas, lettuce and some other things I couldn't identify. 

After the Orangutan Center we went to a sun bear conservation center. The sun bear is the smallest bear in the world, only standing up to only 5 feet on their hind legs and weighing 150 pounds. The reason they are called sun bears is  because they have an orange-yellow patch on their chest. The sun bears at the area were really cute, they pretty much just walked around randomly. Then one of the employees brought out a bag of bear food and started tossing it to the sun bears. All the sun bears crowded around and ate all the food in about 5 minutes. The sun bear conservation was really cool, not just because of the sun bears though. In the entrance there were all the 8 species of bears cardboard cutouts. They were all on their hind legs and in size order. This is the order from smallest to biggest: sun bear, panda, sloth bear, spectacled bear, Asiatic black bear, American black bear, brown bear, and polar bear. For some reason I just really thought that was really cool. A little goal I have is to see every species of bear in the world, so far I have seen 5 out of 8. Only the panda, asiatic black bear, and spectacled bear are left.

October 26th 2024

On this trip so far we have not only seen my favorite ape, but I also got the chance to see my favorite monkey: the proboscis monkey. Proboscis monkeys are my favorites for a number of reasons. Number 1 is their noses which are giant, and number 2 are their sounds. The villagers in the video game, Minecraft, are definitely inspired by these monkeys. They mostly ran around and chased each other until they brought out food. It was pretty much the same outcome with the sun bears (they ate the food in a matter of minutes). I loved seeing the proboscis monkeys in their habitat. 

October 29th 2024

In our new hotel we have seen a LOT of animals! On our hikes in the day we saw orangutans, and other monkeys, and millipedes. But on the night walks we saw much much more. We saw spiders, centipedes, millipedes, mice, and a mouse deer. We also saw a sambar deer, tarsier, and my personal favorite, the pygmy elephant! I loved seeing all those animals, and if you want to see them, check out the video!

Simon’s Reflection:

Orangutans! In Borneo we’ve been having a lot of fun. The food is really good. We went to a hotel with the craziest buffet I’ve ever seen. It had pretty much everything you could imagine including ICE CREAM! I got mint and chocolate ice cream together.

We saw elephants here in the Danum Valley, as well as this little cute cat-thingy called a civet. It’s like a cross between a cat and a raccoon, and it was clinging on to a tree.

We saw proboscis monkeys that had giant noses and make really weird sounds. I’m pretty sure Minecraft villagers are based off of them. We also saw a snake in a tree that had supposedly been waiting there for 2 weeks. We also saw sun bears, they were pretty cool. We also saw a rat in the sun bear’s home.

And, we have a huge evil nemesis. It is the devil of this place! It.. is… the… leech!!! It’s like a wormy thing that will stick on to and make you bleed, but you don’t even feel it so it is terrible. The only one of us so far who lost blood from a leech is my dad and me. You can’t really stop them. We’ve been wearing leech socks and bug spray, which has really done completely nothing… so, we don’t really know what to do about it!

Then we went to Kota Kinabalu, and I’ve never seen a hotel as cool as the one we’re in. It has another crazy buffet, a water park, and they also did this fire show the day we got there, and a person ate fire! I also made a friend at this hotel named Aden, he is very nice even though he is three years younger than me. We went to the pool together and I had to get him out of the deep end because he jumped into a place that was really deep. This place is one of the coolest hotels I’ve ever been in, but I hope there’s a place that’s even cooler!

I think Borneo is definitely one of the best places we’ve been so far. It’s very nice, and the animals are very cool. Except the leeches. God, please ban leaches!

Calla’s Corner:

Mommy: Calla, can you talk to me about our time in Borneo?
Calla: I don’t know what to say.

Mommy: Can you tell me…did you like the river cruises?
Calla: Yeah!

Mommy: What about them?
Calla: So well, I saw proboscis monkeys, sun bears [Ed note: this was in Sandakan]…. One died so I’m not really going to talk about that. It was really fun going on [the tours,] most of the tours were really boring but they were really fun. And, I um, I pretty much liked it when I went into the forest to do all this exploring stuff.

Mommy: Can you talk about your favorite animals you saw?

Calla: I really much liked talking about the animals and the tour was the best, so the proboscis monkey had the biggest noses in the world, so I technically like it. I needed to blow my nose but the proboscis monkey took a little piece of my tissue. [Ed note: It was subsequently established that she was referring to Tutus, her new orangutan stuffed animal]. The real proboscis monkey….I saw a baby twirl around on the mom’s lap and I saw a big one sleeping with….and this is a little bit creepy… a teeny bit creepy…not creepy at all. You might laugh. I saw a proboscis monkey with no nose! It was silly.  

Mommy: How do you like our hotel now [in Kota Kinabalu]?

 Calla: Well, so we went to virtual reality and got to do Angry Birds and Roller Coaster. The Roller Coaster was really fun, I went up in the clouds, and there were choppers but I didn’t get chopped a single bit.

Mommy: Is there anything else you want to say about time in Borneo?

Calla: About the kid’s club [in Kota Kinabalu]. There was a party. There was a lot of baby stuff and a ball pit. We had to take off our shoes, but grown ups weren’t allowed but grown ups could come in. It was really fun. The kid’s club was the best kid’s club in the world!

We are on our way to the Maldives, which I hope will allow us some tranquility heading into Election Day on Tuesday. Like many of you, we are feeling anxious and not particularly optimistic that anything will actually be settled by the end of November 5^th.

As always, please write and say hi! We’d love to hear from you.

xo,

Sara, Justin, Jonah, Simon, & Calla