Days 13 to 15.. wending my way home

 

Coming home

I love travelling, seeing new places, experiencing new cultures, meeting people with lives so different from my own... but here's the thing....

I love coming home too.

Day 13 marked the beginning of wending my way back home. Since my flight back to Kuala Lumpur was from Tawau, I had to first make my way back there...

Another 5 hour bus ride.

Admittedly I hadn't planned it the best way as I had travelled halfway to Tawau to go to Kinabatangan yesterday but that's how it is with travelling sometimes... you only find out the best way to do things once you get to your destination. Usually I leave wiggle room but as this trip was short it was easier to book the hotels and plan so I didn't waste time.

So another early start and Sam, the taxi driver that had picked me up from the bus a few days ago, arrived at the Sepilok B and B at 0630. He had already checked out the bus times for me and I had plenty of time to get the 0730 bus...

Arriving at the bus station counter at 0657, I heard a call for the Tawau bus and realised that it was going at 0700 instead and just made it.

The bus was an old one and the air con was on full blast, only all the shut off for that were broken meaning I quickly became extremely cold... it was  29 degrees outside and I was shivering...

I thought I was going to have to wait till I got home to be this cold!

The bus journey was like many bus journeys in foreign countries, slow but with interesting scenery. We passed the usual palm plantations and old style houses on stilts.

One thing I love about these journeys is the stops... they usually stop at a roadside cafe and they are always interesting places, with different foods to try.

A slight problem. though. As I was standing around, waiting for the bus to depart, I put my hands in my pockets and... oops... found my Sepilok room key which I clearly forgotten to drop off at reception before leaving. Almost at the same moment, I received a text from them asking where I put the key... double oops. I texted back my apologies and said I would try and post it. At the time I had no idea whether Boeneo even had a postal system! 

I arrived in Tawau and basically planned to make it easy due to the 2nd early start tomorrow.

I went out and found a nice local place to get food and that was it for the day...

Roll on to another early start only this was going to be one very very long day.

I got to the airport early and endured another bumpy flight. Fortunately the landing in KL was better than the one I had had in Tawau. I endured what seemed like an endless walk through the terminal to the KLIA train into the city centre. My hotel was right next to KL Sentral station and the journey, though expensive by Malaysian train standards, was very speedy and before long was standing in familiar territory outside the station, on a ridiculously hot day.

The difficulty with kl is that walking anywhere is problematic, particularly from the station, where there are absolutely no pavements on any of the roads. Fortunately I remembered that there was a shopping centre I could walk through which would take me into Brickfields, where my hotel was situated. It was only 5 minutes away and I arrived there nice and early... but I had stuff to do!

I had booked this herping trip with a guy who is well renowned for snake hunting. I was being picked up at 1745 from my hotel and I hadn't eaten all day. I had a quick look around Brickfields, which I hadn't really explored previously and then found an Indian restaurant with good reviews right next door to my hotel.

I was aware that I may not get to eat again until the plane home tomorrow, due to the fact that I wouldn't get back from the herping trip until at least 0200 and then had to leave for the airport at 0500 and catch a couple of hours sleep somewhere.

Because of this I probably over ordered considering I wasn't hungry, but before long butter paneer, rice and garlic naan was placed in the table in front of me. Overfull and at an incredibly cheap price, I rushed back to the hotel for a quick nap.

1730 saw me back outside again, waiting for Kurt to turn up. He arrived promptly, with another guy who had also booked on the night search. It was a 2 hour drive to the area we were going to search and it was the wrong time to be driving in KL. The traffic! Worse than Reading's IDR on a weekday (but only just!). It was wall to wall and crawling.

We eventually got through the worst of it and swapped stories. The funniest thing was that Kurt for many years was afraid of snakes. But then he decided not to give in to, as he put it, 'an illogical fear'  and started going out with others looking for snakes. Now he owns a company running guided herping tours and what that man doesn't know about snakes, lizards and amphibians could be put on a postage stamp.

Eventually we reached our destination and started up the slope into the forest area. The initial bit was clay type substrate and a bit slippery but we soon progressed onto leafier drier trails.

Torchlight beams lit up the vegetation... each of us trying to pick out the odd bit out in a series of odd bits. The path went steadily upwards and we slowly progressed. There were stream crossings (didn't need dry feet or shoes for the flight  home 😭) and tricky rocky parts to negotiate but this all just added to the adventure.

It was a slow start with very little being found. We were ever hopeful however and bit by bit small creatures began to appear. A stick insect was the first thing to appear in the light... the a few small frogs. Most of these I had already seen in Tawau or Sepilok but I did get some good pictures. Of course we were all hoping for bigger things but we're all aware that you can't just conjour animals out of the dark.

Then a nice big huntsman spider appear... though according to Kurt, this was a small version, the females can be up to 3 times bigger!

We saw quite a few sleeping lizards, looking so cute spread stick thin onto small branches, sometimes with one eye open as if telling us off for disturbing their rest.

We had by now been going for a couple of  hours and the mind had started thinking that perhaps this was one of those nights, when Kurt shouted the word snake.

Stretched out was a beautiful striped snake with yellow and red stripes. He was flicking his tongue and did not seem the least bit bothered by our presence, even when we got in a bit closer to take some better pictures. It was a non venemous striped bronze back... lovely little thing! Eventually it got tired of our attentions and began skillfully climbing up a vine to get above our eye line so we moved on. 

After that, the night seemed to improve. Kurt kept dashing off to the sides of the trail and soon we got a shout... horned frog!. 

These are quite unusual creatures.. frogs with horn like shapes protruding above the head. They are also the same colour as the rotting leaves on the forest floor, making them incredibly difficult to spot. We went over and managed to get some nice shots whilst not startling him too much. 

Then came my personal favourite. A shout from Kurt again (guess who was spotting everything)... he shone his flashlight towards a small tree and pointed out not 1, not 2, but 5 fairly large frogs... all perched in a cute pose as if waiting for us to come and shoot their cover photo. 

Now these frogs were the ones I had climbed up the hill in Tawau to find in a pond at the top, but had been thwarted because of fallen trees.... the flying frog. There are actually 2 types and we did end up seeing both types this evening. 

They also make a hell of a racket. 

We started to make our way slowly back to the car. Kurt had gone off trail and a shout shortly went up.... snake! 

He pointed his beam up high and I couldn't see it at first but then my eyes focused in a branch and saw a large long snake, the white underneath beaming in the torchlight. It was quite high up o we manouvered for a better photo angle... 

Some kind of rat snake, about 5ft long, chunky and in good health. 

With a better look Kurt said it was a white bellied rat Snake and we stood there for a while, getting photos of it's cute little face and long body..

The way back. continued and we almost made it to the car. The mosquitos were worse down here and I think I had another 100 bites added to my already covered legs.

Then, on the side of the trail Kurt focused his beam and there sitting in it was a cute fluffy slow Loris. I spotted movement off to the side... another.... and another!

3 in. all and unlike last time I. managed to get a picture (slightly blurred) of it's big eyes.

It had been a good night and although we hadn't spotted the Waglers pit viper or a krait or coral snake, we had found a lot... 2 new species of snake for my list and some other interesting fauna.

My thoughts turned to home. It was going to be a long way and a bit of a trek to get back.

By the time I got back to my hotel, it was 0230 and I was being picked up by my taxi at 0500. Yikes. Follow 1.5 hours sleep with a 14 hour plane journey. But it is what it is

I was looking forward to getting home, seeing Maverick and Skittles, my cats and all the rest of my menagerie.

This would be my last big holiday for a while and I certainly had made the most of it.

The list of animals that I had seen was a long one, and that was just the ones I could put a name too. Not on the list were lots of types of frogs, spiders and interesting insects that I glimpse as I trudge along the trails.

Goodbye Malaysia, till next time!

List of animals I saw

Weathered hornbill

Helmeted hornbill

Rhinoceros hornbill

one other hornbill? bushy crested hornbill

Red leaf monkey

long tail macaque

pig tailed macaque

gibbon

grey langur

proboscis monkey

orangutan

great angle head lizard

skinks

water monitor

spiney turtle

keeled water snake

borneo kneeled pit viper

common mock viper

painted mock viper

dog eared or snail eating snake 

malayan saddle back dwarf snake

wolf snake

striped kukri snake

jasper cat snake

striped dwarf tree snake

blunt nose snake

striped bronzeback

white bellied rat snake

tarsia

slow loris

binturong

palm civet

banded civet

malayan civet

flying squirrel

mouse deer

peacock

pygmy elephant

black squirrel

stick insects x5 or 6 different types

hammerhead worm

tarantula

forest ant

fire ant

pill millipede

x3 or 4 different millipedes

huntsman spider

centipede

leech

lantern bugs

violin beetle

scorpions

golden orb weaver

white lipped frog

spotted string? frog

norhaity flying frog

Wallace flying frog

horned frog

lesser toad

kingfishers x3 different ones

purple heron