Klias River

Our last morning on Pulau Tiga, and our last full day in Borneo Malaysia.  What a trip!  We didn't have too much time between breakfast and when we had to check out of our room, so we didn't have much planned other than to walk around the grounds, hang out, and wait for the return boat ride to Kuala Penyu.  A very cooperative hornbill descended to the ground not far from the walking path this morning, and I was able to get some more excellent shots and good looks at these amazing birds.

There aren't many places to hang out on Pulau Tiga while one is waiting for the ferry.  If your swimsuits are all packed, there are even fewer options for things to do.  After two days on the island, we were more than a little famliar with the main grounds, but that didn't stop us from having a little fun.

Around noon, we bought a can of Malaysian pringles and a couple of beverages to keep us hydrated while we wrote postcards for family and friends.

We included a postcard to ourselves with memorable moments, moments we wish we could forget, and phrases to go along with both.  We never know if these postcards will arrive, but we did the same for Cambodia and it was fun to receive a postcard from ourselves in the mail back in Okinawa.  Writing postcards helped to pass the time, and the ferry/motorboat was waiting for us before we knew it.  We would recommend Pulau Tiga to anyone without reservations.  It offers lots of good things for just about every hobby, and how often is it that you can pretend you have a whole island to yourself?

We made it to Kuala Penyu with slightly fewer bumps but a lot more splash than on our first trip. We were lucky and had the drier side of the boat.  A family from China got quite drenched.  They were good sports about it, but they were ready to switch into drier clothes as soon as we landed. Our taxi was waiting for us, and we hopped in and headed to our next adventure: a half-day Klias River cruise to see proboscis monkeys and fireflies.  There must have been at least 20 signs demarcating tour docks along the Klias River, and we weren't quite sure if our driver understood what we were saying.  Fortunately, I had a picture of the sign, and we found it shortly thereafter.  
We were almost 45 minutes early for our tour, so we were offered a table and some food and tea. We booked our tour with Borneo Authentic, but we ended up joining an independent tour with a group of tourists from China.  The tourguide spoke fluent Malay, English, and Chinese, and she had no problem welcoming two Americans to the group.  In fact, she and the driver made sure we got seats at the very front of the boat, and I'm not sure we would have seen as much as we did were it not for these seats.

The Klias River is one of a few rivers in this low-laying part of Sabah, Malaysia.  The entire area is protected, but as is often the case with protected areas is poorer countries, there were lots of homes and other indications of strong human presence in and around our dock.  We paid our entrance fee, and were on our way.

The first monkeys we spotted were the long-tailed macaques.  Ryan and I exchanged knowing glances and did not raise our binoculars to get a better look.  The next monkey species was a different story: the silvered leaf monkey.  We only saw 2 or 3, and this was the best photo I took:

They were extremely shy and did not linger once our boat moved towards them to get a better look.  If you are feeling curious, google "silvered leaf monkey" and you will see the cutest blonde baby monkeys you've ever seen.  The three we saw were all adults, so none of the cuteness that a google search will show, but still lovely and I was happy to have caught a glimpse of them.

Not too much further, and we saw our first proboscis monkeys.  You may not know the name, but you absolutely know the face if you've ever seen a National Geographic or a Nature documentary or something or other.  These monkeys have a facial feature that HAS to be either sexually selected or confer some sort of fitness advantage among members of the same gender.

We saw several small groups of proboscis monkeys on our tour, and they delighted every time we saw them.  They were not as skittish as the silvered leaf monkeys, and some groups put on quite a show of jumping through the tree tops.  Most of them sat and stared right back at us, until they were clearly bored and walked away.

There were a few younger members of some of the groups, and it was beyond thrilling to see their sweet faces staring at us from the trees along the river's edge.  After a few sightings, I began to find the larger nose on the adults a lovely feature rather than something funny.  I'd never thought of these monkeys as especially beautiful when I'd seen them in magazines, but in the moment they were really striking: the contrast of the fur with the foliage, the glow of the setting sun, and their soft faces, especially when compared with the macaques.

I was more than satisfied.  I was worried that this last half-day tour might be too much.  We had been on the go in Malaysia for over a week, started the day on an island, had a rough boat ride, this tour, and then a 2-hr bus ride back to Kota Kinabalu before our 0700 flight back to Okinawa.  I am so glad I threw caution to the wind and went for it.  See my look of satisfaction?

We also saw some of our old friends on the tour,

and a fisherman we met along the way showed us his catch.  The novelty and beauty of these crayfish made me momentarily forget that we were in a protected area...

We went back to the dock for a traditional Malay dinner, which was wonderful.  Before leaving, we went back out on the boat in search of fireflies once the sun had set.  We found them, and we found them in DROVES.  So many fireflies, and they all seemed to flash simultaneously in the same type of tree.  Although the edges of the river were thick with trees and shrubs, it was obvious that these clusters of fireflies preferred one tree, or at least one tree at a time.  They flashed rapidly, like the most rapid flicker setting on a set of LED Christmas lights.  In fact, a few of our Chinese tour members who understood English agreed that these firefly-ridden trees were Malaysian Christmas trees.  I tried to get pictures, but one must have specialized equipment to capture the beauty of these fireflies.

After the firefly encounter, we made our way back to the dock, thanked our Chinese tour group for letting us accompany them, and found the tour group that we'd originally booked with for our return trip to Kota Kinabalu.  This was a perfect end to a vacation that was quite the adventure. We learned a lot about how to travel with our array of interests, we learned that we should avoid the rainy season if we have heave backpacks, we saw and experienced all that we'd hoped and them some (except for orangutans, but there's time for another trip someday), and we knew we'd sleep well before our flight back to Okinawa.  If you are interested in biodiversity and like to see different habitats and organisms, a trip to Borneo Malaysia should be on your bucket list if it's not there already.