Sandakan: Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp (3D/2NPackage)

Cruising on the Kinabatangan Searching for Wildlife

Coming back from Kenya I have developed an addiction to wildlife viewing – as Borneo was known for the rainforest and as such, its inhabitants such as the orangutan, proboscis monkey and pygmy elephants I decided to take a trip to Sandakan to view these animals on a river safari. I found Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp (website and details of the package available in the link below) and the 3D/2N package on Tripadvisor – and found it to be fitting to what I want – basically its value for money at RM 390 for 3D2N, it has wildlife viewing, and there are NO leeches as the highlights of the camp consists of river safaris.

I register at the counter and was invited to partake in lunch. It was a so-so affair in terms of lunch – just white rice and selection of dishes to accompany it (mainly seafood and vegetables, perhaps some poultry). The crowd was mainly foreign tourists – just as I expected. I already knew that eco-tourism is not big with Malaysians. Certainly no Malaysians I knew ever camped 3D in Sandakan for orangutan viewing.

After a quickie briefing at 2pm, we carefully wrapped our bags in black plastic bags – as we were going to take a boat upriver for about 40 minutes, whether it was raining or not. The boats were not roofed, so it was vital to keep our belongings dry, especially vital for me as my laptop was in my bag. The journey took about 1.5 hours by land and we arrived at the Bukit Garam jeti for our boat ride.

I was particularly kiasu - as I had on leech socks, raincoat and a life jacket. I wasnt used to the fact that we had to carry our luggage into the boat though. The boat went pretty fast on the river, although there was not much animals that we could see exccept for monkeys (2 species of them) . I enjoyed the boat ride very much and was glad it did not rain – although I had the raincoat just in case. After 40 minutes we arrived at the wildlife camp. We were served coffee/tea and some snacks and shown to our huts.

The huts contain plain mattresses with mosquito nets. However, they had no pillows – nevertheless at least it was on a raised platform where we will be safe from leeches, insects, snacks and the like. Food were stored in a bin to prevent animal coming in and taking our food.

The unfortunate part was that I went during the raining season and it rained during all of our activities, and there werent' many animals visible. The some that we saw was - owls, different species of monkeys, proboscis monkey, a python, birds, hornbills and monitor lizards. While I wouldnt recommend this trip for orangutan/pygmy elephant viewing during the rainy season, the jungle environment was quite a nice change from city life.

Attraction details:

http://www.uncletan.com/

Itinerary:

http://www.uncletan.com/wildlifetour.html#package