If you want to see the best of Borneo this trip's for you. Beautiful country, great food, lovely friendly people and oh boy did we see wildlife! So many highlights. The incredible proboscis monkeys were hilarious and so much fun to watch, silver leaf langurs including a mum and baby, red leaf langurs, long tailed and pig tailed macaques, pit vipers, monitor lizards, orang utans (of course) in Sepilok and also in the wild (very special moments), Bornean sun bears at their rescue centre (definitely worth a visit), mouse deer, Northern Bornean gibbon family in the wild (utterly brilliant to watch), Bornean colugo (flying lemur - which isn't a lemur), red giant flying squirrel which we watched flying with a beautiful sunset backdrop - really special, slow loris, leopard cat - what a find! - sambar deer, loads of frogs, lizards, the most amazing insects ever, a huge 3m long salt water crocodile, baby salt water crocodile, flying lizard, bats galore in the most amazing caves at Mulu and Gomantong which also has the swiftlet nests and of course the bat exodus from Deer cave at sundown, had the most amazing experience watching Borneo pygmy elephants swimming in convoy across a river, young ones too with trunks up, heard them trumpeting and watched two mums with young ones feeding right at the water's edge - so special. Then there's the birds! Hornbills galore, eagles, hawks, Buffy fish owls, sunbirds, kingfishers, broadbills, storks, egrets, flycatchers, bee eaters, flowerpeckers, bulbuls, kites, sandpipers, herons, doves, mynas and more. The bird watchers were very happy. Night walks and the night drive were a revelation, so much comes out at night from scorpions to stick insects. Not scary at all just fascinating. Boat trips were excellent, saw so many birds and monkeys in the trees.
Loved staying in the longhouse, an experience not to be missed. The Borneo Rainforest Lodge in the Danum Valley was exquisite, 5* in every way; the rooms, the food, the attentive staff, the massage, the local guides, the drivers who also spotted wildlife and the red leaf monkeys in the forest having their breakfast at the same time as us.
