A glorious Borneo sunrise greeted me this morning, as the Muezzin call drifted out over the city of Kuching and its inhabitants began to stir.
An interesting day which became a cultural immersion rather than wildlife viewing. The Irrawaddy dolphins and native crocodiles were not being cooperative this morning – so we cruised slowly along the mangrove choked shorelines, a breeze off the ocean and a shade canopy keeping the heat at bay as the Borneo coastline drifted by.
Following the shoreline our boat eventually landed at a small native village along the Santubong Delta accessible only by water. This turned out to be a wonderful turn of events as we walked around the village built on stilts over the river exploring boardwalks, coming upon bee hives, small raised gardens, cats, colour and smiles everywhere we looked – I will let the photos tell the story. Also if anyone is interested in what an Irrawaddy dolphin and the local crocodiles look like I have included a photo of each.
The heat of the afternoon was wiled away back at the hotels lovely infinity pool with an incredible view over the city towards Kubah National park our destination for the evening.
Kubah National parks claim to fame is the recent discovery of a new frog species (the Kubah Narrow Mouthed frog) , adults of which are the size of a pencil lead tip. They live their entire lives inside insect eating pitcher plants – smart amphibians to set up house with a built in protection system and buffet. Our guides were Solomon and Abraham – two very knowledgeable young men of Asian ethnicity with North American accents. I would have loved to find out their story but there wasn’t the time. We did find the pitcher plants but no frogs – the pitcher plants themselves were amazing, growing in colonies all over a hillside.
A steep scramble up into the forest brought us to what is known as the frog pond. Cicadas provided the musical accompaniment to our climb as fire flies and our head lamps lit the way. We were blessed with a myriad of frog sightings, plus some spiders and cicadas the size of sanitation trucks……. I will leave you with a brief photo gallery of what we saw. A wonderful end to the day.
Tomorrow we fly to Mulu to visit the famous bat caves of Borneo. Until then selamat Malam!
Travels with Anne 