Borneo Rainforest Lodge, Danum Valley, Malaysia - Day 4

We were up at 5am so that we could get to the canopy walk to watch the sunrise. This really meant watching the day start and burn off the mist, and see the rainforest slowly appear.

It had rained heavily overnight so it was particularly muggy.

Once again it was just the two of us overlooking the rainforest from the canopy walk. It was really cool to see the mist burn off.

We walked back slowly along tr road back to the lodge, on the lookout for a final view of wildlife. Unfortunately, aside from a small squirrel, we didn't see anything.

We had breakfast, served a la carte rather than buffet because there were only 8 guests this morning. The pancakes were excellent.

Relaxed back in our room and packed up to leave. I had to check for leeches in our shoes - as our guide had explained, you stick your hand in the shoe. If there's a leech it will go for your hand; and then you flick it off before it attaches. Lucky for me there weren't any leeches in our shoes.

Had a big lunch, and then we were off, headed for the junction where we'd connect with a prearranged taxi to take us to Semporna.

It takes about 90 minutes to actually exit the conservation area. Just as we had resigned ourselves to the limited wildlife we had seen on our treks, suddenly our driver stopped the vehicle and pointed out a mother orang utan carrying a baby, high up in a tree.

We got out our binoculars and cameras, and watched the orang utans for a few minutes.

I joked that the next stop was the elephants. However we just saw recent elephant droppings, but no elephant. Oh well. We did see an eagle at the side of the road, about 15 feet away.

We changed to the taxi at the junction, as then it was a two hour drive to the Seafest Hotel in Semporna.

We arrived at 6pm, and quickly checked in and then walked over to the dive centre to sort out logistics for our dive excursion the next morning.

Walked ten minutes into the town centre for dinner. It was a bit of a shock seeing so many tourists after being in Danum Valley for four days.

We avoided the tourist-filled restaurants and instead found a local kopi. At first they gave us an english menu but we didn't recognize any of their translations so asked for the malay menu instead. It was mmm good. Finished off with a
teh tarik, which is a pulled tea with condensed milk.

ps I've posted pics from today's dive excursion. I'll write about it tomorrow