Borneo Rainforest Lodge, Danum Valley, Malaysia - Day 2

I had set my alarm for 6:30, but the white noise of the rainforest (crickets, cicadas, river, frogs etc) is so loud that I didn't hear it. Fortunately Heather was already awake and woke me up.

We had a big buffet breakfast with lots of fresh fruit, and then got ready for our trek at 8:30am - sun screen, bug repellant, leech socks.

Today's trek was to the viewpoint 100m high overlooking the lodge. We walked the 3km at a casual pace, stopping to look for wildlife. We saw some birds but no orangutans. The viewpoint was nice, even better with the breeze. There's very little sun at the base of the rainforest because the canopy is so thick but the humidity makes it very warm.

On the way back down we stopped at a small waterfall called Jacuzzi Pool. The water contains those fish that are in some spas that nibble at your dead skin, which costs a lot of money in expensive spas. Here it's free, but having the fish nibble at my feet was a little freaky. (My feet did feel nice after though). I jumped in fully for a few seconds at then got out before the fish came over.

Back at the hotel we had a big lunch, and then had a couple hours to relax. I managed to connect to the wifi but it was flaky and the only time I was able to connect.

We had another trek late afternoon. Saw lots of evidence of the large animals but no actual sightings. Heather and I headed to the Canopy Walk after the trek as we had some time before dinner. The canopy is one of the few walks that they allow guests to do without a guide. It was really cool - we were the only people on the canopy walk, all alone with the rainforest. Heather spotted a group of about 7 red-leafed monkeys about 20 feet from the path, the closest we had seen to that point.

Dinner was great, and then we headed out for a night walk. The night walk is all about the small creatures - insects, frogs, snakes. In addition to all the dayside gear I was also wearing an mosquito net over my head (I forget what they're called), and so the all the flying bugs didn't bother me. We saw a snake slowly slithering up on a couple frogs. We watched for 10 minutes but unlike tv it doesn't fast-forward to the end, so we gave up watching and continued on.

It was a long day, and we fell asleep pretty quickly.