River Safari in Beaufort, Sabah (Part 1)

On Friday 9th April 2010 which was my 28th birthday, we went on a river safari. Azman had make earlier arrangements (one day in advance, earlier la sangattt) with travel agents called Only in Borneo and signed up for Garama River Cruise.

For RM150 per person, the guide picked us up from our hotel, (we stayed at Cititel Express, Kota Kinabalu) and took us on a 2 hours van ride to Beaufort.

Miki fell asleep on the van, I wanted to sleep too but I didn’t because I didn’t wanna miss the scenery. They took us to Garama village occupied by the Bisaya people who are Muslims.

In the tour van. Miki slept on my lap with his current favourite stuffed animal, a rabbit birthday present from Azman’s sister, also he named Kokades.

My mom, Azman and Cimiki; who would never look at the camera when we try to take a picture.

After we arrived at the Garama base camp, we had to walk for about 10 minutes through palm trees towards the river. From afar we could see houses of the locals. Our tour guide Phillip has expressed that Garama River is the best place to go for proboscis monkey-watching because there are still plenty on them in this area. And the reason for that is – THE LOCALS ARE MUSLIMS. MUSLIMS DON”T EAT MONKEYS! YES, SOME OF US PRACTICE POLYGAMY BUT WE DON’T EAT APES! GROSS!

So the proboscis monkeys here are very much safe from their distance cousins -people who eat apes namely the Kadazan-Dusun people. I wonder what recipe do they use to cook monkeys. Do they make proboscis monkey’s nose kerabu? Or sate? Yum!

The girl in blue behind me looks like a ghost eh? she is a tourist from Kedah and she is very nice. hehe

The yellow family. Here is the 3 of us at the base camp before getting on the boat, we were served some refreshments. They  have very nice banana fritters in Sabah, don’t know what kind of banana that they use.

What are you looking at Miki? Sampai juling2 bijik mata.

Of course we were required to wear the safety jacket and here is the smallest jacket on Miki. He was very excited about going on a boat ride and was holding the yellow disposable rain coat. Tapi kejap je tu….. ko tengok la kejap lagi dia camana!!!

Miki in the beginning was a bit nervous in the boat. The tour guides kept saying that they can’t promise the appearance of the monkeys and other wildlife. It’s all depended on luck and weather. But before we knew it, we saw this Big Daddy on a tree.

Male proboscis monkey also known as monyet Belanda ( Hollanda monkey) by the locals.

Miki was impressed!

And then we saw a kingfisher. It was sitting on a tree facing the open water and a few minutes later, it took off into the air. I am not very jakun towards kingfishers. There are still plenty of them in Klang Valley as well. But this Kingfisher is really a KING okay? it is not like those puny stunted scrawny sickly (ehhh ko cakap pasal burung ke pasal diri ko sendiri?) kingfishers that you see in KL, ok? This one is HUGE! I think it is as big as a good sized pigeon while those I see in our neighbourhood is as huge as Miki’s foot! Kesiannn…

To be continued.. cerita panjang sangat! wakakaka