Leeches and elephant dung

Path into the jungle

I didn't really want to go into the leech infested jungle again, but my Kanabatangan river tour included a morning walk through the jungle. So I went, wearing full protective uniform: long pants, long sleeves, shirt tucked into pants, long socks pulled over pant legs, tons of bug spray all over me, borrowed rubber boots.

Ready to face the leeches, snakes and poisonous plants

Our guide didn't speak much English but the owner of our homestay filled us in: watch out for the leeches (as if I didn't know already), don't touch anything because there may be snakes behind trees or poisonous plants that would give us rashes. He also assured us that our guide is the best, he knows his way around the jungle and was sure to get us back safely. Hm, that's good to know. I'm glad he didn't send us into the jungle with a guide who didn't know his way.

There aren't any photographs from this jungle walk. I thought it best to keep my arms close to me so that I wouldn't touch any leeches or snakes or poisonous plants and I didn't want to expose my skin to the elements in order to take out my camera. Besides, there wasn't much that merited camera attention anyway. The highlights of this walk were:

1. A giant leech climbing up a tree. I'm not kidding. It was huge. Our guide saw it and pointed it out. I'm glad he did so that I could duck out of the way, otherwise I'm sure the leech would have jumped on my face.


2. Elephant dung. They told us that a native species of pygmy elephants live on Borneo and that there have been cases where the elephants trampled tourists. Whenever elephants are known to be in the area, the jungle walks are canceled. So what was elephant dung doing there and why were we walking in the jungle? I rather didn't think about it.


3. Abandoned orangutan nests. We saw many of these nests up in the trees indicating that orangutans come to sleep quite close to the village. I was hoping we wouldn't really meet any orangutans face to face in the jungle.


4. Probably a wild boar. It was far away, we heard its sound and our guide pointed it out, there was something running away.


5. Millipedes. I've seen many of these in southeast Asia by now and I know that they aren't really dangerous.


6. An eagle and an hammerbill. The birds were up high in the trees.
   


7. Probably a macaque monkey as there was something jumping in a tree.

And that's it. I didn't catch any leeches (yay!) and came back out of the jungle alive and well.