Kinabatangan

My first jungle experience in Borneo was to be in the Kinabatangan region where I visited a small environmental and cultural conservation project run by a group of local people called MESCOT. MESCOT'S objective is to provide local people with an initiative of their own which encourages cultural preservation and prevents palm oil plantations from destroying local ecosystems. With the MESCOT organisation we travelled up Kinabatangan river where we saw crocodiles, hornbills, macac monkeys, silver langurs, proboscious monkeys, and more. Afterwards we set up hammocks in the jungle to sleep in for the night and went for a walk through the jungle at night to see frogs, various insects, lizards, and more leeches. The night in our hammocks started out for me to be a slightly claustrophobic experience, but soon became one of the most comfortable sleeps I have ever had. After another early walk through the jungle we headed back to the MESCOT centre where we cooked our own lunch. I made the salad because all that involved was cutting up vegetables and avoiding standing over a gas cooker in the heat.
After lunch we relaxed for a while before heading into the ridiculously hot sun for some games of volleyball. Both matches were won while much sweat was lost. In the sweaty state we were all taken from the volleyball courts to our hosts for the night's traditional home-stay. Our hosts were a lovely old lady who spoke no english, her daughter who spoke quite well, and another of her daughters three year old sons. I spent the afternoon playing with the little boy until dinner was served, where we ate river fish, rice, and pumpkin. The food was nice enough to eat but not amazing..
After a very hots night sleep in our hosts house that was also interrupted by the local mosque's calls to prayer we were up early and on our way to Sandakan, our leaving port for turtle island.
Kinabatangan was a wildlife filled region and a shining example of successful localised development initiatives that provide a sustainable environmental alternative to Malaysia's enormous, and destructive, palm oil plantations.