Our life: Sarawak December 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Sarawak December 2010

Dear friends,

It’s coming almost the end of 2010 and going towards 2011. Time really flies and before you realize another year is gone.

Hans just finalized the work for his Danum Valley book and we look forward to see it in print next year. One of the highlights this year was a helicopter flight over Danum Valley, a 438 sq. km area of pristine rain forest in Sabah, north Borneo. And it was awesome. This was because of a phenomenon that only occurs once every 4 to 12 years when most of the trees in the forest are flowering at the same time or shortly following one another.

It was breathtaking when we took of at 8 a.m. and rose above the morning mist. Patches of the highest trees stood out above the mist and the sun just began to brighten leaves and flowers. The flight took three hours. Hans kept taking pictures while standing on a skid of the heli, safely attached to a harness. I took video and pictures too.

It was lovely to see hornbills below us soaring over the forest canopy and over rivers. Outstanding reddish, purple and yellow crowns of flowering and fruiting trees contrasted with the endless variety of different greens of the leaves. When we hovered low, you could see the winged dipterocarp fruits in the tree crowns, something that we usually only see on the forest floor. It was a pity not seeing an Orang Utan or other monkey eating fruit while we flew. We realize that not many people have the opportunity to see this rare general flowering event and felt so blessed experiencing this.

We celebrated our Anniversary (37 years) at the Kinabatangan River (also in Sabah) during a nature photography trip. We stayed at Cede Prudente’s lodge at Sukau, a tiny village perched on a bank of the river. Cede is a well-known nature photographer and his lodge is totally prepared for birders and photographers. He provided us with a flat-bottomed, stable boat designed to place a tripod such that you can move freely around it while following wildlife with your telephoto lens. We saw lots of birds, including all 8 species of hornbills that occur in Borneo, but which sadly are hardly seen in Sarawak today. We were fortunate to see an Orang utan high up in a tree just making her nest for the night and just catching the last sunrays on her reddish fur.

It was impressive to see a huge crocodile, at least 4 or 5 meters long while it was basking in the sun on a riverbank. We carefully approached while taking pictures, until it decided to get up and slowly move into the water. Another very large crocodile had its nostrils and eyes just breaking the water surface. This time there where no Pygmy Elephants around but we had seen those on a previous trip.

To my own surprise I joined a group of ladies to Semban , a Bidayu village near the Indonesian border at 12 km from the Bengol Dam which is under construction. This village is unique in having the last remaining 7 ladies who wear brass rings around their arms and legs according to the old tradition. This custom is bound to die out soon since the ladies are now in their 70s or beyond and the younger ladies don’t wear these anymore. I underestimated the difficulty of this trip and it took me 7 hours to reach the place via a steep path that’s called ‘staircase to heaven’. The fun part was crossing 3 bamboo bridges and hoping not to go through and fall into the river. It was really tough but I was glad I did it since they are going to flood this valley and the lower villages will be gone forever, which is really sad. It took me 5 hours to get back but since I had stayed 2 nights I could recover before walking back and a day of enjoying the village life was a wonderful experience.

We also made a trip to Cambodia (back in January), mainly in Phnom Penn and Siem Reap with an interesting bus trip in between. We were happy to see the famous Angor Watt ruins. It was really hot to walk there but impressive too. Centuries-old fig trees were deeply rooted on fragments of buildings and heaps of rubble left of this ancient, once powerful civilization. This made us realize how easily man’s accomplishments can be overturned… The Killing fields museum and Killing fields themselves were depressing. It is outright shocking to see with your own eyes the testimony of what has happened during the gruesome Pol Pot regime. Today the Cambodian people are nice and friendly and we had a wonderful time there too.