Last day!

Ahh I can't believe it's time to say goodbye! We have had a great time and a really top notch group this year (truly). I'm writing this from the Shangri-La Hotel in Kota Kinabalu. 

Yesterday we had a great day in Kinabalu Park and Poring Hot Springs. Saw lots and lots of plant and animal life; Kinabalu really is stunning. We also lucked out and saw a Rafflesia in bloom! What good luck we've had on this trip! We had some excellent food and tried out a variety of the local tropical fruits, such as dragon fruit, lychee, and mangosteen. Yum! 

We spent this morning driving back from Kundasang but then took a boat straight to Sapi Island from the Kota Kinabalu jetty to go snorkel and zip line!! Some of us saw monitor lizards and the elusive oriental pied hornbill!

Tonight we will have our last dinner and "paper plate awards" before everyone flies out tomorrow. Note: no instructor will be on the flight back with (most of) the students. Please check the status of the flights online and look out for texts, emails, or calls in case there is a delay in one of the multiple legs back to the States. 

Thanks for following the blog! I apologize for the lack of pictures these past few days, but I know the students took more than enough to show off! :) 

Nora

Made it to Kundasang/Kinabalu!

We have safely made it to the Mile 36 Lodge in Kundasang nestled right outside Kinabalu National Park. On our way from Kota Kinabalu we saw a rafflesia in bloom!!! What luck!! Some of us went for a dip in Poring Hot Springs and a nearby waterfall before dinner (and ice cream) at a local restaurant. The weather doesn't look too good for today (rain, rain, rain), but we'll take our chances and explore this amazing Garden of Eden and all of its pristine forest and endemic species. 

Last Day in Kuching

Today we visited the Fairy (pics below) and Wind Caves. Both were epic sights and rife with wildlife: bats, swiftlets, crickets, spiders, and geckos.

For dinner we went to downtown Kuching. Some of us went to Top Spot, a local favorite for family-style seafood (see pic below), and some went to a snazzy downtown bistro. Afterwards, we did some overdue souvenir shopping along the Sarawak River.

Tomorrow we fly from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah (still in Malaysia). There we'll make our way to the Mile 36 Lodge in Kundasang. The hotel is near Kinabalu Park, one of the first national parks of Malaysia and the country's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most importantly, Kinabalu Park is home to 4 climate zones (we'll be mostly in the lowland dipterocarp forest) with many endemic species of birds, mammals, plants, and even earthworms and leeches!

We'll stay at the Mile 46 Lodge for 2 nights (12 & 13). We will leave Kundasang early on the 14th to go snorkeling in Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park and spend our last night of the program at the Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Kota Kinabalu. I can't believe it's almost over! 

Dolphins and Durian

Today we did a boat tour of the Salak River, which feeds into the South China Sea. It's a wonderful mangrove ecosystem and the students really applied their knowledge from lecture. There, we were fortunate enough to see a pod of Irrawaddy dolphins feeding amongst the local fisherman. These dolphins look a bit like beluga whales but are grey and measure only 1.5-2 meters long (how cute!). We also saw juvenile and adult female saltwater crocodiles. They are real man-killers in Sarawak so all limbs remained within the boat! 

Note: not my photo

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to studying and a lecture on ant-plant co-evolution. For dinner, we went to a local Chinese-Malay open food court and finally tried the famed durian fruit! Alfred Russel Wallace dubbed it the king of fruits but almost all of the students hated it! Some comments:

"It smells like rotting trash in sewage!"

"Ugh it's like fruit that rotted in a gym locker!"

"What on earth....?!?"

"I will never get this stench off of me!"

"It's delicious!" (only me and Meredith) 

Oh well...at least everyone gave it a try. Or as the students say, YOBO (You Only Borneo Once)

The students have their midterm tomorrow morning then we'll go explore the Wind and Fairy Caves before ending our stay in Kuching with some souvenir shopping, dinner, and strolling along the Sarawak River waterfront. 

Bako National Park

We had a great day at Bako National Park! We saw various types of mangrove trees and forest types, mudskippers, bearded pigs, fiddler crabs, red-crowned barbets (and a lot of other birds!), long-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys!!!, orchids, and a whole host of carnivorous plants (pitcher plants!!!). We got a bit wet from a passing storm, but ate some local Malaysian food and had some interesting lectures (mangrove ecosystems and leeches!) to make up for it. Tomorrow we visit more mangroves and hopefully try to spot some Irawaddy dolphins before everyone starts studying for the midterm in 2 days! 

Back from Batang Ai!

We got back into Kuching after 3 days, 2 nights in the forests of Batang Ai. Our Diethelm Travel guide was a man named Selvan who had once lived with various communities of the Iban tribe for 2 years and 3 months and has been leading tours to the forest for over 25 years. He's fluent in the Iban language and customs so we all learned a great deal from him. Our first day we took a 20 minute longboat ride across the reservoir to the Iban longhouse where we presented gifts of tea, sunflower seeds, and biscuits and were welcomed by the chief and the 37 families that share the same longhouse. We had a simple, but delicious home-cooked meal and watched some of the younger Iban dance in traditional costumes to music played by the elders. We slept under mosquito nets in the longhouse. I didn't bring my camera, but here's an Internet photo of the exact same longhouse we stayed at:

The next day we awoke to the chickens, cats, and dogs at what was likely the crack of dawn. But, considering that we were sleeping in the equivalent of the family room, it was time to get up anyway! After breakfast, we trekked for 6 hours uphill, downhill, and through crop fields, secondary forest, and streams to a tributary where we met the Iban who had taken boats. There, they set up camp and we enjoyed dinner before the sun fully set. By 8pm, everyone but the Iban were asleep! This morning, we had a nice breakfast cooked by the Iban and the students carried out their first tree species diversity assignment.  Hopefully, the students will collect enough data to analyze and present at next year's UURAF. Some of us had excellent bird sightings and many of us saw awesome invertebrates, like the lantern bug. Sadly, no leeches :(

We are now back in the 56 Hotel in Kuching. We had dinner at a local multi-ethnic eatery and a postprandial lecture. I'm pretty sure many students went off to 7-Eleven around the corner for some ice cream and extra snacks. Off to Bako National Park tomorrow!

On our way to (Malaysia) Borneo

Currently at the airport in Jakarta waiting for our flight to Kuching on the island of Borneo! We land in Kuching around 2pm local time and will be staying at the 56 Hotel tonight. Tomorrow morning we begin a 3 day, 2 night adventure into Batang Ai National Park where we will camp in the jungle and do a home stay with the local Iban people. We will then stay at the 56 Hotel in Kuching from August 8-12 (4 nights). 

From here on out we will be on Borneo in the country of Malaysia (there's an Indonesian side of the island and Brunei but we won't be going there). 

After a full day of birds, bats, caves, lectures, and travel, we spent last night at the FM7 hotel in Jakarta, which certainly had its own style (see the fantastic horse lamp below) and luxuries (hot tub, sauna, and pool).