My wonderful husband did something VERY kind and generous and indulged my monkey obsession with a trip to the rain forest for some river based monkey hunting (photographically speaking).
Proboscis Monkey
We originally had planned to visit the world renowned Sepilock Orangutan Rehabilitation Center to catch a glimpse of some playful Orangs in the wild- butttttt, it involved either a 6 hour bus ride, which is clearly not my style, or an early morning plane ride followed by a decently lengthy cab ride, and you are not even guaranteed to see a primate so.... well, it seemed like a lot of work and we decided against it. Maybe another trip. But much to my pleasure, the concierge at Le Meridian offered up a closer alternative for some monkey viewing. The other famous primate of Borneo is the Proboscis Monkey, which is easily identified by their rather prominent nose. Since the friendly monkey pictured above wouldn't do me the pleasure of turning around for a close up, below is a borrowed picture:
I think they are super cute. So off we went for a river cruise to look for monkeys in the trees. Dave, as you can imagine, was pumped. What the concierge failed to mention was that prior to the advertised river cruise came the exceptionally enjoyable 2.5hr bus ride in to the country side. And by exceptionally enjoyable I mean nearly life ending trip crammed in tiny seats in a bus with no shocks and minimal breaking capability. But despite the bus driver making some questionable passes on the one lane road in to on coming traffic, we survived and arrived at a palm plantation which housed the docks of "Only in Borneo" river cruise company.
Upon arrival we were treated to some good old fashioned Malaysian hospitality, which mainly included consumption of fried bananas by the tourists while the "guides" took a leisurely ciggy break before embarking on the river portion of the adventure. Eventually, when sufficient nicotine had been consumed, we were told to load the boats. Dave, never one to take safety lightly, took the process of suiting up in his life vest very very seriously.
After some some commendable effort it was pointed out that the large American man was in fact attempting to wear a child's sized life vest.
After procuring a more appropriate life vest we were off to brave the wild rivers of Borneo. OK, "wild" is a bit of an exaggeration, but it would be difficult to monkey hunt in white water rapids- so calm seas were just fine with us.
The monkey spotting got off to a rough start and after five minutes of no monkeys we found our first family of big nosed monkeys hanging out in a tree. Now as much as I would like to brag about spotting said monkeys on my own with my sniper vision- alas, the location of the monkeys was conveniently pointed out to us by the boat in front.
These rude little monkeys refused to climb down to a better vantage point to enable national geographic quality pictures.
So the downside of animals in the wild is that they don't always feel inclined to say cheese for the camera. This is actually a cool shot though because the grey monkey in the foreground is a silver leaf monkey, which are apparently quite rare, joined by his orange colored proboscis monkey friends in the back.
Dave, as you can see, was really super excited about the monkey spotting.
In addition to the monkeys, which were AWESOME by the way, we were also treated to views of the beautiful Borneo rain forest.
We did get a little additional treat on the ride home.
They don't call it a RAIN forest for nothing. While I am usually a bit weary of the commercial motivations of tour guides recommending that you buy items that can be conveniently purchased at their gift shop- the advice to purchase ponchos, for the reasonable price of 5 Ringgit (aprox. US$1.50) was excellent, and we were wise to have heeded their sage advice. As an aside, had the aforementioned ciggy break lasted a few ions less, we likely would have missed the torrential downpour. But, we have little to complain about as our boat was blessed with sufficient draining systems while the boat in front of us was forced to bail water our of the boat in a Tupperware container- no joke.
When we returned to base camp, we were rewarded with this amazing view:
Borneo is famous for their sunsets and these did not fail to impress.
OK- I cannot help it, here are some more monkeys.
i'd like to request that you send me a monkey. they really are very cute and i think willie would like one to play with.
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