Proboscis Monkeys & Fireflies
We weren’t exactly jumping out of bed this morning!! We were pretty tired from yesterday and both of us had headaches when we got up. Not hangovers. Think we didn’t drink enough water yesterday!! After our morning breakfast we spent some time in our room and called both of our Moms. We caught a Grab over to the Imago Mall and had a salad at the Souled Out restaurant. We both ordered a chicken caesar salad – one arrived and after asking the waitress several times the second one finally showed up! We ate here the other day and had a similar experience – Gary was done his meal and we sat waiting for Linda’s to arrive for ages. We finally had to beg the waitress to go see what was happening! The irony is it was only a sandwich so not like it was difficult to make. They did give us 10% off our meal because of the delay so we decided we’d give them a second chance. Obviously a poor decision! While the food is good the service isn’t so we won’t be back which is kind of a shame as the facilities and outdoor seating area is very nice. The staff are nice but their English may be the problem with understanding our order. Many places here repeat the total order before leaving the table, these guys don’t.
We caught a Grab back to the hotel and got our stuff ready for the afternoon tour. Albert picked us up a 2 pm. This afternoon we are off to the Klias River to see the mangrove wetlands, Proboscis monkeys and fireflies. It was over a 2 hour drive to get there. When we arrived the tour company had coffee and tea, fried bananas, fried sweet potatoes and small Pandan cakes for us to enjoy. Actually the fried sweet potatoes were almost better than the bananas! There were several other tour groups that arrived and once everyone was there they handed out life jackets and we headed down to the boat. We headed down the river to find the monkeys. The first monkeys we sighted were the Proboscis monkeys.
Proboscis monkeys are endemic to the jungles of Borneo, never straying far from the island’s rivers, coastal mangroves, and swamps. They are distinctive with their large noses, reddish brown colour and long tail! They are a highly arboreal species and will venture onto land only occasionally to search for food. They live in organized harem groups consisting of a dominant male and two to seven females and their offspring. The various groups often congregate near water at night to sleep. Proboscis monkeys are the primate world’s most prolific swimmers, frequently leaping from tree limbs and hitting the water with a comical belly flop. They’ve evolved webbed feet and hands to help them outpace the crocodiles that are some of their main predators. Proboscis monkeys survive mainly on a diet of leaves, seeds, and unripe fruits but will occasionally consume insects as well. Over the last 40 years, Proboscis monkey populations have plummeted due to threatened habitat. They are currently protected from hunting or capture in Borneo.
A little further down the river we found some Silvered Leaf Monkeys. They are a medium-sized monkey with a long tail. It has grey-tipped, dark brown or black fur, giving it a uniform silvery appearance. Unlike some related species, there are no paler markings on the face or body, except for a patch of whitish hair on the groin of females. A crest of fur runs along the top of the head, and the hair on the cheeks is long, often obscuring the ears. The hands and feet are hairless, with dark coloured skin, and have opposable thumbs and toes. They were quite a bit smaller than the Proboscis monkeys we saw.
We continued down the river and found a larger harem of Proboscis monkeys that we watched for some time. They are very shy and many hide in the dense treetops. Getting pictures is next to impossible without a really good camera with a zoom lens. We just enjoyed watching them and making the memory! Even a zoom lens on the camera would make for difficult photography when you have 20 people rocking the boat. People rented binoculars and ended up setting them aside because of the unpredictable movement of the boat. Our video and pictures were not that great. Watch the video and you get a good idea of the mangrove trees that grow in the river which is tidal. The high water mark is seen on the branches and leaves in some places. We were told “back in the olden days” that the locals drank the river water when the river was flowing out to the sea. It’s normally muddy due to the heavy rain but nowadays they don’t drink raw river water.
After watching all the monkeys we headed back to shore where a nice buffet meal was waiting for us. There was rice, curried chicken, chicken rendang, green beans, cooked cabbage, soup, watermelon and bananas. We were just finishing up eating when it started to thunder and lightening. They got everyone organized and back out to the boat. Then it was back down the river to the darkest parts where we got to watch the fire flies in the treetops. We have never seen so many fire flies! It looked like mini lights strung throughout the tree tops and they synchronized their flickering! It was such a cool experience. Again you can’t capture it on our phones or GoPro. It continued to thunder and lightening and started to spit a bit of rain so after a bit we headed back to shore. We started for home in the Albert’s truck and the sky opened up once again. We drove about half the way back to KK in torrential rain. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive back so it was well after 9 pm when Albert dropped us off. We logged well over 500 km on our 3 days of touring with Albert for a price that would barely cover the cost of fuel in Canada. We really enjoyed the tours with Albert. He is fluent in English and is such a knowledgeable guy and so happy to share about his country and culture. Besides that, his Dad lives in Vancouver!
One of the funniest things he told us is that men should be so lucky as to be reincarnated as a male Proboscis monkey – they live in a harem, have a permanent hard-on and mate with many females, however the mating is only maybe 6 seconds long so life isn’t perfect! We hit the bed totally exhausted again! No monkey business!