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lizard of Tawau Hills Park

Tawau Hills Park (Taman Bukit Tawau)

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Last time I blogged that Tawau is an ecology desert and its ecotourism is over. Actually Tawau still has the last remaining natural heritage, Tawau Hills Park (Taman Bukit Tawau). After a few days of exploring this park, it turns out to be one of my favourite sites, and I will go there every week if I live in Tawau, which is so near to the park. Gazetted as a State Park in 1979 and 24KM away from Tawau town, Tawau Hills Park is an important water catchment area consists of five major rivers, i.e. Tawau River, Merotai River, Kinabutan River, Mantri River and Balung River. The park covers an area of 27,972 ha (about 280 sq. KM).


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Last month I took an express long-distance bus from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau, which was an 8-hour journey (one way ticket costs RM45, about USD12). Taking a flight will only take 45 minutes. But sum up all the fees such as flight ticket, baggage charge, airport tax and transport from airport to Tawau town, it will cost over RM100 one way, too much for a poor traveller like me. From Tawau town, you need to get a taxi to the park, which costs RM30 one way, and there is no bus going there. The taxi driver may offer RM50 to pick you up for returning to Tawau. FYI, you can book such transport for RM30 at the counter of the park. Don’t waste your money.


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By the time I reached Tawau Hills Park, it was about 5PM. I saw many long-tailed macaque monkeys were moving from the nearby oil palm plantation to the park. The park became their playground and they were free to loiter around. They screamed, they f**ked, they fought, they chased one another, and they swam in the river. For unknown reason, I hate long-tailed macaque, probably it bite me before.


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The photo above looks like a happy monkey enjoying soaking in the cool water. In fact, it was screaming and beg for forgiveness from alpha male, after he lost the fight and escaped into the water.


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My late grandfather was used to keep a pig-tailed macaque as pet in his house in countryside. Though also wild, pig-tailed macaque is friendlier than long-tailed macaque. Villagers seldom keep long-tailed monkey as pet as they are more aggressive and tend to bite people. If you are lucky, you will see red-leaf monkey (maroon langurs) in the park. Further inside the jungle, you would see other primates such as Borneon gibbon, grey-leaf monkey and slow loris. Rangers say they spot orangutan very deep inside the hill forest. The rare white leaf-fronted monkey is only found here (too bad I didn’t see any, though a sighting was reported during my stay).


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Ok, enough with the monkey, just to let you know you can see them in morning and evening. I was staying in a 4-bed room in a chalet in the park. It was only RM20 a bed/night for a room with 4 beds, 2 small tables and a fan. The toilet and bathroom are at the end of the walkway outside. That time was not peak season, so I could have the whole room, and even the whole chalet! At night you could see many small animals such as frogs and lizards around the area, which is what I like.


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During my 4-day stay in Tawau Hills Park, I tried the trails to Sulphur Springs (3.2 KM) and Bukit Gelas Waterfall (2.5 KM). Each trail took only 1 hour+ of walking. Since I walked slowly and looked for photography subjects, I took more than 6 hours to go back and forth (it would take longer if it didn’t rain in the afternoon). Due to prolong drought caused by El Nino, the trails were dry and leech-free. As this park is a water catchment area, the trails could be flooded by rivers during heavy rain. The Park HQ even has siren to warn swimmers, if the upstream station detects any flash flood.


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Tawau Hills Park is a mix of primary lowland and hill dipterocarp rainforests, 60% of them is virgin forest and the remaining is secondary forest. Along the trails, you will see many giant commercial timbers such as seraya, selangan, keruing and belian. Some trees have huge buttress roots. I was told that if you were lost in a jungle, just hit the buttress with a wood, and the rescuer can hear you 1KM away. This is more effective than shouting for help. The trails are along the rivers, so it is quite refreshing.


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Wildlife you would see here are leopard cats, wild boar, giant tree squirrel, clouded leopard, forest tortoise, giant river toad, etc. Sighting is not guaranteed. Sadly, I didn’t see any of the above. The first bird you will notice is the noisy hornbill. Out of 8 species of hornbills in Sabah, you can find six of them here (black, bushy-crested, helmeted, rhinocerous, white-crowned and wreathed hornbills). Three rare species of pheasants (crested-fireback, great argus, Malayan peacock pheasants) also live in this park. I saw the very beautiful Asian Paradise Flycatcher that has an extremely long tail like paradise bird. At first I thought it was a “flying towel”. When my camera struggled to auto-focus it via the leaves and tree branches, it flied away, sigh…


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In the park, there are three main peaks in the form of extinct volcanoes, namely, Mt. Magdalena (1,310M), Mt. Lucia (1,189M) and Mt. Maria (1,067M). It takes 2 days to conquer the highest peak, Mt. Magdalena. The trail is 17 KM long and you will spend a night in Mt. Lucia Hostel (at 10.55 KM). After 1,000 M above sea level, you will enter mossy forest, a totally different vegetation from lowland forest. It is far more challenging than climbing Mt. Kinabalu. If this is too adventurous for you, you may try the 1.9 KM trail to Bombalai Hill (530M), which is a a remain of an ancient crater. The rugged volcanic landscape of the park is abundant with volcano rocks ranging in age from Middle Miocene to Quaternary. I save Mt. Magdalena for the future.


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Most part of the trail is next to a river. It is an ideal spot for nude swimming, coz I didn’t see anyone tried jungle trekking. The water is unpolluted and is piped to the households in Tawau and Semporna. Ever wonder why the rivers here still flow in dry season? The rainforest serves as a water retention system for the rain water. The forest ground can hold the water and slowly releasing it to the stream, even after month of drought. If the trees in this park are sold by greedy politicians to lumbering companies, the rivers here will be polluted by eroded soil and run dry. Most Sabahans underestimate the importance of rainforest. That’s why whenever there is any serious flood and landslide, the politicians can get away easily by saying these are the Act of God and has nothing to do with the forest clearance that is approved by them. Crocker Range Park and Maliau Basin are under threat now. So, just protect our forest and stop blaming God / Allah.


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Pay attention to the small stream and you would find something interesting, like the green sucker fish below. Before that, I thought all sucker fishes were dark in color.


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The water volume of Gelas Waterfall was so small during dry season. I lost my mood to photograph it when I also saw two big logs lean on the waterfall, spoiling the whole view. Anyway, my photo album has a few nice close-up of the waterfall. It is very tempting to jump into the clean and cold water under this waterfall. But be warned that there were many cases of drowning here, especially students. Their bodies couldn’t be found until they floated on top. No survivor can live to tell how they were dragged into the water. Don’t swim there alone. As a matter of fact, all waterfall is a beautiful dead trap.


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You would find the butterfly below sipping water in the river bank of Gelas Waterfall. They moved so fast and I only managed to get one shot. It looks like a Green Dragontail butterfly (lamproptera meges virescens).


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Frankly speaking, I felt very strong presence of spirits in the remaining 400 M to Gelas Waterfall. One of my photo even shows something like a ghost orb. Well, it could be reflection of dust or moist. After I heard the tragedy stories from my aunty later, then I confirmed there were probably unseen entity lingering nearby the waterfall area. I always had such goose-bump experience in certain jungle trails, but I don’t quite bother as I can’t see “them”.


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The thing bothers me the most is a flying blood sucker called Deer Fly. Its bite is worse than leech as the wound can stay itchy for week. The itch is under the skin, scratching also can’t help much. I encounter deer fly in almost every jungle trekking. They can follow you a long way, land on your exposed skin to look for opportunity to suck blood. I kept sweeping them away with hand but they never wanted to give up. If I sweated heavily, the smell would overexcite them and even attracted more deer flies, and I ended up having 3 or more of them following me. The only way to stop them is to kill them. I just waited for them to land on my face or hand, then hit them by palm. I don’t want to kill anything in the wild but I have no choice..


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Besides tall trees, you will be amazed by the rich variety of fungi, lichens, shrubs and undergrowth vegetation. Despite my visit in dry month, I saw many types of fungus and mushroom in different sizes, shapes and colours. I think this park really can open a Fungus + Mushroom Garden, no kidding. Previous scientific field trips found that Tawau Hills Park has over 150 species of orchid, include the rare elephant-ear orchid. Most of the forest is yet to be explored, and the researchers believe many new plant species are waited to be discovered and given a name.


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There are some big fungus that I’ve ever seen. Fungus decompose dead trees and recycle the carbonic substances, so they are very important for the forest. The humid and dim rainforest is suitable for their growth.


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One fungi also looks like hair.


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Everytime I went to Tawau Hills Park, I saw different lizard. This time I spotted a comb-crested agamid. Later I spotted a gliding lizard. It thought it did a very good job to blend into the tree, so I could go very near for more close-up photos.


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Just slow down and observe the surrounding, you will see some interesting bugs in the park. Even cricket can be so pretty. Is it a “tiger cricket” below?


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When threaten, pill millipede can roll its body into ball. This time I waited and saw how long it would stay rolled. It opened up bit by bit, kept watchful eyes outside, and started moving after 20 minutes.


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The photo below is a feather bug. I passed by a tree and saw a few “bird feathers” on the trunk. A closely look revealed that it’s a bug. A few of them even mimic the movement of feather in the wind. Amazing bug…


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The funniest bug of all is the ant-snatching assassin bug (Acanthaspis sp). It collects dust, sand and soil particles, plant parts and even empty ant corpses, and stick those stuffs on their abdomen. Such heavy “backpack” is a camouflage to confuse their predators. Can you see it in the photo below? I spotted 3 of them in the park.


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Most animals come out at night, so I joined the night walk (costs RM30) guided by a ranger. We toured around between the forest and a nearby oil palm plantation, also the Bombalai trail for two hours. I hoped to see the king cobra and big ular sawa snake that the ranger told me. Too bad I did not see any, but I spotted Malayan civets, fat porcupine and firefly.

The time between 6:30pm to 11pm is the best time to look for anurans (frogs & toads), especially after rain. There are 64 species of anurans in Tawau Hills Park, 31 species are endemic to Borneo and 3 are endemic to Sabah (research by Mr. Kueh Boon Hee, University Malaysia Sabah). That means for every frog/toad that you see here, more than 50% chance it is found in Borneo only!


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Basically that’s all about my trip. Luckily the weather was good. Now I can’t wait to have another trip to climb Mt. Magdalena. Do expect me to blog about Tawau Hills Park in the future. This park has sulphur springs, lowland rainforest, montane forest, mountains, waterfalls, volcano remain, etc. The tour operators should create a package and promote it.


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Most Sabah travel agents are still lacking some creativities as they only know to demand more quota to climb Mt. Kinabalu and dive in Sipadan, as if there is nowhere else is worth to visit in Sabah. They only wait for others to develop and promote a new tourism product, when it becomes famous, only then they try to offer the same package, trying to get an easy share of the profit. They should learn more about Blue Ocean Strategy, so we can have both monkey and gold.

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Photos taken in Tawau, Sabah Malaysia

Proboscis Monkey, the playboy of Borneo

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I had seen proboscis monkeys in Klias Wetland, Kinabatangan and Lokkawi Wildlife Park. The Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary in Sandakan is one of the best spots to see them. During the feeding time at 11:30am and 4:30pm, you can a few families (about 30) of them come for the food.


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BTW, you also can see many Silver Leaf Monkeys around that area. The people here also call them “Beckham” monkey (probably Beckham looks like them). Proboscis Monkey has nicknames such as “Long-Nosed Monkey” and the “Dutch Man” (Monyet Belanda). The male has bigger nose than the female, and they use their big and long noses as a sex tool to… to… to attract the female. I wonder how do they kiss huh.


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Like many other primates, the proboscis monkey family is formed by a few wives and a dominant alpha male. Proboscis monkey is one of the biggest monkeys in the world. Besides their big noses, another thing that makes them very unique is their digestive system. The stomach of Proboscis monkey contains the special bacteria that can digest the cellulose and detoxify the harmful chemicals in the leaves. Proboscis monkey can’t eat banana. Anything with sugar will make the bacteria works very fast, causing fermentation that produces too much gas in their stomach, which can make them very sick. In serious case, the excessive gas will pressure the organs surrounding the stomach, the consequence can be fatal. So the park feeds them with bean, cucumber and sugar-free pancake. In the wild, they eat young mangrove leaves, which can be toxic to other species.

For diet of wild proboscis monkey, 66% are young leaves, 26% are fruit and 8% are flowers, a total of 188 plant species from 127 genera, 55 families. They also eat termites.

After the meal, they will become horny and have some “fun.” By looking at the expression of the female monkey below, you can tell that she is really enjoying.


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But the baby monkey didn’t seem to understand what its parents were doing. It grabbed the big nose of its dad, attempting to stop the party. lol..


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Another thing that amazes me is the “lipstick” between the legs of fully grown male proboscis monkey. It is red hot and pointing at 12’O clock, always in ready mode to serve his wives. Basically, the male is having a lifestyle and penis that every man on earth dreams of. Proboscis monkey is endemic to Borneo, currently there are only 6,000 proboscis monkey left in Sabah, less than 1,000 in Sarawak, less than 300 in Brunei and about 5,000 (need further study) in Kalimantan.


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There were some lonely male proboscis monkeys, which don’t have any wife, tried to share the food with other groups. They usually ended up being chased away by the alpha male of other groups. According to the guards, those bachelor proboscis monkeys would form a “gay group“. They don’t really do those gay stuffs. They just group together temporarily for food and protection. One day, they may challenge the alpha male in other group, win the fight, take over all his wives and start his own family.


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FYI, based on the observation by Dr. Ikki Matsuda, the following is how proboscis monkey spends its time:
Resting: 76.4% (wow! what a life)
Feeding: 19.5%
Moving: 3.5%

Don’t forget to check out the high quality photos of proboscis monkey in my photo gallery.

Photos taken in Labuk Bay, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Cute Orang-Utan

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Proudly presented to you, the Orang Utan show, at 10am and 3pm daily in Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctaury of Sabah Borneo. The feeding platform is more like a performance stage of orangutan now. Nearly hundred of tourists waiting anxiously for the appearance of Borneo’s superstar, the orang utan. As a “warm-up” opening, the pig-tailed macaques showed up on the platform first. The red and swollen sexy butt of a female macaque caused a hot discussion among the curious crowd.


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Then a male orangutan arrived. When everyone was so excited to see him, he started playing with his little bird in front of the public, as if the people were transparent. “His bird bird was so small…”, some commended. Ok, I will let you decide if this is cute.


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Soon a few younger orangutan came and the feeding started. The last time I saw this was in year 2005. I took some photos with my lousy compact camera. I blogged and shared the photos online. The photos were not good (in fact a disaster), but surprisingly they are one of my most visited photo galleries. I always wanted to come back to take better photos of them, for this 2nd orangutan blog.


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The “show” was a big success. The tourists were pleased with what they saw, though the only thing orangutan did was eat, eat, eat. Haha… if I do a show like this, audiences will throw stones at me. Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary is not a zoo. The orang-utan here was “semi-wild.” Most of them were orphans rescued by the Wildlife Department. Baby orang-utan cannot survive without parents, so they are taught survival skill in this centre. They are released to the wild when they grow up. The sanctuary provides regular feeding, as an alternative food source, for those who haven’t learn to live totally independent in forest. Once they can live on their own, they may not return for feeding anymore.


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Putting orangutan in zoo is not a good option for conservation efforts, as that will change their natural behaviour. The international and local environmental bodies have been pressuring our government and oil palm industry to stop large scale clearing of rainforest, the habitat of orangutan. Having the conservation policy is not enough, if it is not enforced efficiently. Let’s hope and work for a better future for the “Men of Forest” (orang utan).


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The orangutan is a highly intelligent animal. They can memorise different types of fruits, their locations and fruiting seasons. More amazingly, they can pass on this knowledge to their offspring. Like the photos below, the ranger tried to show the orangutan how to break the sugarcane, and they picked up the skill and seemed to know what they were doing.


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There were only 4 or 5 orangutan showed up, though I thought it should be more. Probably some of them were transferred to
Lokkawi Wildlife Park in Lokkawi and Rasa Ria Nature Reserve in Tuaran? Bet they would miss the free banana, sugar-cane and milk in Sepilok.


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Really cuteness overwhelming.. In an hour, we could see so many facial expression. I had them all captured in the photos. Many tourists would not hesitate to hug and kiss them if allowed. Orangutans are adorable but it is illegal to keep this protected animal as pet.


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Please feel free to check out more photos. Remember these photos are copyrighted. You may only use them for non-commercial and non-profit purposes (e.g. personal blog, conservation awareness), as long as you don’t remove the copyright stamp. If you are an environmental organisation, you may contact me to sponsor the photos.

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Photos taken in Sepilok, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Revisit Lok Kawi Zoo

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My last visit to Lok Kawi Wildlife Park (Taman Hidupan Liar) was in Mar last year. That time there was no reptile house, sun bear, zebra, animal shows, etc. The place is getting more interesting now. Still, I haven’t seen everything coz of the rain at 3pm. Next time I will come back to check out their elephant ride at Children’s Zoo, and also the Botanical Garden.

We can see crocodiles, lizards, tortoises and snakes in the Reptile House. A few snake got weird names such as Banana Snake (Ular Pisang) and Dog-Toothed Cat Snake. The main attraction is the big long King Cobra. The funniest thing is the crocodile pond looks more like a wishing well. Probably every Malaysian think crocodiles only eat money, like our “Buaya” politicians.

Ah… finally I got a few upclose decent shots of Proboscis Monkeys. Unlike other monkeys, it is very hard to get good picture of Proboscis Monkey, as they are relatively more timid. I have seen them in my trip to Klias and Kinabatangan River, but they flee before I could have a closer look of them.

Last time they didn’t have any male Proboscis Monkey. Not only they got one now, they also two new baby Proboscis Monkeys born in the park.

However, to make the photos look like taken in the wild, I have to avoid the background with cage, fence, and man-make structures. To achieve this, I have to change the shooting angle, composition and depth of field setting. It can be difficult coz the hot weather would make the animals hide under the shaded area. I also need a lot of patient to wait for them to move to the good spot for photography.

Overall, I am quite happy with what I got. Last year a photography society organised a photography contest in this zoo. At that time, I was not confident so I didn’t join. Hopefully they will organise again this year.

This park will be my new favourite place for photo shooting. I also saw some interesting scenes along the way. I just shared them here. For example, the Orangutan below tried to chase away the baby otters during feeding time.


From their leaflet, they say they will build 1.4km forest walk, canopy walk, mountain biking track and the observation pavilion. I can’t wait to try them already. Please let me know if you find that they are completed.

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Photos taken in Lok Kawi Wildlife Park, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Sabah VIPs in Poverty

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(This actually an old post, but I add more new photos at bottom. The last photo will blow you away, haha…) They don’t give boring speech, and thousands of people from overseas want to meet them. They are the key contributors of our billion-dollar eco-tourism business but they would leave us forever… But those, who threaten their lives, live in big houses, drive luxury cars, and pollute the earth…

Yes, the VIPs that I talk about are our eco-tourism Superstars, i.e. Orang-Utan, Proboscis Monkey, Pygmy Elephants, and Sumtran Rhino (四大天王). With wildlife and nature as selling points, our eco-tourism promotion is so successful that even the fellows from Peninsular Malaysia think we live on tree. Our hotel occupation rate climbs to 95%. Our future seems bright.

They are our rice bowl, but many of them die of hunger or losing their homes. They are only 1 or 2 steps away from extinction. Just look at the table below and see what is really happening. Their combined population is even less than the population of Ranau town. If we don’t do anything, I doubt if the tourists can see them again in the wild years later.


Sources: IUCN Red List, CITES Appendix, WWF. For more intepretation detail on the conservation status, please refer to IUCN

Deforestation and oil palm plantation have long been recognised as one of the major threats. Research has shown that the conversion of forests into oil palm plantations leads to the complete loss of 80-90% of mammals, reptiles and birds.

In Support of “Malaysia Wildlife Conservation Awareness 08”:

Please blog about wildlife conservation to support this campaign.

Development is important but it should be carried out in a more sustainable manner, which lessen the impact to the environment. Frankly, I can’t tell you if I could see those superstars again after 10 years, but most of us would live long enough to see them disappear from the earth forever. Anyone knows the status of the oil palm encroahment at Kinabatangan? Please share with me the most recent photo if you have any.

Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp – Part 2 of 8

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Uncle Tan’s Neighbours

Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp is in the middle of a secondary forest. Everything is back to basic. I like the not-so-commercialised setting of their camp. As there is no power supply from 12 midnight until 6 PM, do not expect to watch TV or taking hot shower there. They will provide enough food to make you full, so you won’t eat the wildlife. All the guides are locals, they can converse well in English and are very good in spotting wildlife.


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Looking at the “scoreboard” below, Malaysian is not even in the Top 5 visitors. Most Sabahan may not know this camp, but it is one of the favourite Borneo destinations of backpackers, especially UK. Many are repeated visitors and know this place by words of mouth. I will come back next time, with a 300mm telephoto len!


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Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp is surrounded by dense forest. So… besides human visitors, you will see wild animals all the time. Some are just passing by, many are regular visitors. If you trek out of the immediate camp area, you can observe more wildlife such as Orang Utan. If you are lucky, you would see rhino. No worry, leech is not common around the camp area.


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In the first morning, someone broke into a hut and stole the food. They are the Macaque monkeys. After the trip to Tabin, I had learnt that bringing food to the wild could attract unwanted attention. These monkeys are smart but naughty. They know how to open the door, unzip the bag, and very interested in plastic bag… I followed one of the monkey groups to the wood nearby to take some photos. One of them sat on a tree branch just a few feet away from me, observing my every move.


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As the name implies, this camp was established by “Uncle Tan”. He passed away years ago. Now the “new” Uncle Tan is Eugene Tan, the son of Uncle Tan. He took a lot of excellent wildlife photos, so many that he doesn’t have the time to work on all of them. You can see some of his works in the camp and web site. During wet season (Nov – Apr), the camp area would turn into a “wetland” and become very muddy. Because of heavy logging in Kinabatangan area, flood would happen in rainy period.


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After I had my dinner in first night, I saw a big animal busy searching for food near the kitchen. “Wow! That’s really a big dog,” I thought. This was the first time I saw “Kum Kum”, a female bearded pig who visited the camp regularly, with her babies. According to Eugene, Kum Kum is the offspring of a bearded pig that they adopted years ago. Even though he was released to the wild, his 1st, 2nd generation always visited the camp. You can see them in the morning and evening. The visitors are so amazed by such “friendship” between the human and wildlife.


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Other visitors include Monitor Lizard, which is mistaken as crocodile sometimes. Pygmy Squirrel, the smallest squirrel of Borneo. I also noticed a number of Birdwing butterflies like to gather on a particular tree in the camp. I wish to take more pictures, but my batteries are all running low…


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Photos taken in Lower Kinabatangan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp – Part 1 of 8

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Where is the BEST place to spot Borneo wildlife? I would say it is the Lower Kinabatangan area, Sabah’s “Gift to the Earth”. Kinabatangan River, with a length of 560KM, is the longest river of Sabah and also the home of many wildlife such as Borneo pygmy elephants, proboscis monkeys, orang utans, hornbills and probably thousands of flora and fauna yet to be named. It is a paradise for nature lovers.


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Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp, situated in Lower Kinabatangan Flood Plains, provides budget and basic accommodation for those (especially backpackers) who love to experience the wilderness of Borneo. Officially, the Camp area is called “Danau Girang”, which means “Happy Lake” in local language. Many just call it Uncle Tan’s place. To get there, check out Uncle’s Tan web site for more info. In early Sep, I joined this 3-day-2-night trip with a group of press and environmental NGOs. We took a bus to Sandakan and stopped at Kampung Batu Putih, where we took a 1-hour boat ride to Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp.


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The cruise to the camp is in itself a afternoon river safari. We were impressed by number of long-nosed Proboscis monkeys, hornbills and birds that we spotted along the river. According to a birdwatcher on the same boat, some of the birds we saw are rare species. Hundreds of macaque monkeys were found gathering along the river bank, hmmm… having a picnic?


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Proboscis monkeys are so common here. They are very shy and timid. When our boat came nearer, they would run away or hide behind leaves and branches. The guide told us that Proboscis monkey cannot eat banana coz their digestion system is different. We also discovered a few young crocodiles resting on the muddy river bank.


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The weather was good, and we arrived the jetty of Uncle Tan’s place at 5:10 PM. Once landed, we were led by their friendly staffs for a 10-minute walk on the jungle trail to the camp. Later what we saw in front of us was not chalets or lodges, but some wooden raised huts. I think they really mean it when they say they only provide very basic accommodation.


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Our “bedroom” has no window, no door, no fan. Haha… It looks more like a big chicken cage to me. What we got is a light mattress and mosquito net. Power supply is only available from 6PM to 12AM, mainly for lighting. It was warm and humid in the afternoon, but quite cooling at night. The first night I really couldn’t sleep well, as I heard all sort of noise such as animal’s cry, stuff crawling on the roof, something scratching the wall… But all my roomates slept soundly…


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Later there are more fun surprises awaiting me. You will hear more in my next blog. Since there are quite a lot of experience to be shared, I divide the blog into 9 parts. But all the photos are posted first. To speed up page loading, all the photos in my blog are in low quality, to see the high quality photos, please check out the photo gallery.

Photos taken in Lower Kinabatangan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Lok Kawi Zoo

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In the past, I always wonder why Borneo never has a zoo of its own, since we have been telling the world that we have rich variety of wild plant and animals. We also enjoy making the mouth of our tourists open wide, with the number of blah blah species we have in Borneo. Whatever, all this impressive facts sound more like a number. Nobody really knows what are the “content”. Many locals don’t even know what are pygmy elephants and proboscis monkeys. At last, we have a “Lokkawi Zoo” (The correct name is “Lok Kawi Wildlife Park”). It is a good start, though it is not only showing animals that are native to Sabah.


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If you said Lok Kawi, I would think you mean the road between KK International Airport and Kinarut. Later I figured out the Lok Kawi Zoo is actually next to the Old Penampang road. If you follow the road from KK to Dongongon town, just go straight after you passby Dongongon town, after nearly 10 minutes, you will see its signboard at your left side. About 18 km from KK, but very near to people live in Penampang. The zoo is open daily from 9.30am to 5.30pm.


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Probably it is newly open, the response is quite good. I went there on Monday and there were 30 to 50 cars parked there at any time. To see what are in their zoo, you may Check out the Trail Map I got with the ticket. The entrance fee is RM10 for Malaysia Adult, RM5 for children, RM20 (nearly USD6) for foreigner adult tourist, RM10 for foreigner children. The admission is free for Malaysia Senior Citizens (above 60).


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What they have? They have birds, deers, orang utan, proboscis monkeys, civets, elephants, ostrich, hornbills, tigers, otter, rhino, etc. They also have a Botanical garden, but I haven’t explored it. For serious visitors who want to learn something, it can be a full day trip. However, they don’t have restaurant or cafe shop in the park to provide lunch. Overall, the facilities and trail are well planned. For bigger animals such as tiger, they have an allocated open space, and the visitors can see them from a viewing shelter, which is equipped with fans and description board.


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They also have elephant ride (for children below 12 only) at 10.30am – 11.30am and 3.30pm – 4.30pm. Hope they will have tiger ride soon, hahaha… I personally think that morning is the best time to visit. Coz in the hot afternoon, most animals would become tired and sleepy, hiding in shaded area, no mood to move already. BTW, I recorded a video of orangutan playing and relaxing, Click Here to watch it.


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Sadly, the Reptile House (for snakes and lizards) is still under construction. Hope they will be completed soon. Overall, the park is well done, but I have a few suggestions:

1) Provide more shaded area for the animals
Goodness… I advise the people there take a walk in the forest and feel how cooling it is. Most area only provide a small tree or net covering roof. The excessive light still makes their surrounding very hot.

2) Animal Employee’s Right
Welfare for the animals again. The park should be closed for 1 day per week, so the animals can rest and release stress.

3) Offer Lunch and Food
With that number of traffic flow, it is probably not wise not to have a restaurant that provides food, something like stomach filler, not just light snap.

4) Provide better direction
Build more signboards next to the road. Good for promotion too.

Photos taken in Lok Kawi, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo