Uncle Tan Rainforest Adventure

Reminiscent of our hardcore camping trip in Corsica last summer, we just returned from Borneo last night. A highlight was staying in the rainforest for two nights at Uncle Tan's camp. www.uncletan.com

Uncle Tan provides quite primitive cabins with no doors and no showers unless you call the big, blue plastic vats full of brown, muddy river water a douche. We had such a good time and mainly because our spirits were high as we edged along the Kinabatagan river looking for proboscis monkeys, orangutan and other creatures and were not disappointed! Because it was unusually rainy and the river therefore was unusually high and fast moving, we did not see the crocodile which prefer calmer waters. Well, we just have to go back and that is what Pit wants to do anyway but this time with Frunty and Papa too.

Andy's highlight of the trip was seeing the monitor lizard on Mamutik beach off of the coast of west Sabah near KK. Perdie enjoyed the serenading camp leaders at Uncle Tan's as they sang to us at dinner and gave us a great send off the morning we left the camp. Leo loved seeing the proboscis monkeys jumping from tree to tree "in the wild", and Pit thought it was hilarious that he fell bum first off a board walk into the mud! He also really liked the rainforest hike and was so proud of himself for doing it and getting all muddy. Mud seemed to be his thing along with the monkeys of course and he could not stop talking about the common brown civet we saw eating fruit in a tree one late afternoon. Magic.

My highlight? I loved watching the kids discover nature. Being out of the "concrete jungle", surrounded by green really renewed my soul and probably theirs too. My favourite monkey now is defnitely the proboscis monkey with its big floppy nose and padded belly. My dream was to go to Borneo and see the orangutan and support their cause and have left loving the proboscis moneky too and looking forward to going back soon!

If you have not yet been to Borneo, get cracking! It is being developed quickly but hopefully its charms will remain protected.