13-14 Dec Gomantong caves & Kinabatangan river

Gomantang caves are world famous for their swiflets "birds' nests" which are collected mainly for the chinese market. But, what is less known is that the cave also hosts bats that produce mountains of guano which in turn feed millions of cockroaches; they are all over like a thick, brown, moving carpet. We also spotted giant centipedes which are poisonous. The "don't touch anything" warning was rather un-necessary!!!!

We had two trips on the Kinabatangan river at dusk and at dawn and stayed overnight in a "jungle resort" around Bilit. On the river we spotted many different kind of birds: hornbills, egrets, herons, kingfishers, etc.; a snake, monkeys of all types, including two orang utangs. Unfortunately, we only saw the footprints of the Borneo pigmy elephants...

We had to win a pretty hard argument to get seats on the bus for Semporna as the company had overbook and no-one spoke English... a surrealistic conversation. On our way there we saw numerous trucs carrying palm fruit for the oil manafacturer and a dull landscape covered in palm plantations all the way to the coast.