Uncle Tan’s Jungle Lodge, Borneo, Malaysia

Sunrise over the Kinabatangan River Basin

Cruising down the Kinabatangan River in Borneo, Malaysia, watching the sunrise is a magical experience.  There are no thoughts about emails, traffic jams, or paying your bills, it is all about being in the moment.  It is so serene!  The only sounds you hear are the calls of birds and monkeys just starting their days.  Occasionally, you hear the motor of another boat, sometimes bearing families heading to town, but mostly it’s just you, the sunrise, and a breeze ruffling your hair.

This was my first morning at Uncle Tan’s Jungle Lodge.  Wake up call was about 5 am.  Sounds pretty brutal, but I was so excited to get out on the river to start looking for animals that I didn’t mind one bit!

I strongly recommend that you make the time to at least do a three day two night trip to a jungle lodge.  It really is the most amazing experience.  There are several companies that run jungle lodges; anything from very high end to the basics with mattresses on the floors.  I’ve been lucky enough to do both in various countries and have enjoyed every experience.  This time I chose to go the basic route as I had read great things about Uncle Tan’s.  I will warn you, it is all about the mindset.  If you go expecting a really basic lodge and go with an open mind, I think you will have a fantastic time.  If you are expecting the Hilton or even a Holiday Inn you will be sorely disappointed!

Main eating, drinking, and chilling bungalow

Tip: If you want to add a little luxury to basic accommodations, bring a Sun Shower.  Great little invention that you fill with water, lay out in the sun to heat up, and then after your jungle walks you have a nice warm shower to look forward to!

I ended up spending three days and two nights at the lodge.  Just the perfect amount of time as far as I was concerned.  Too much longer and I think I would’ve really started to miss the conveniences in life that I’ve come to take for granted such as showers and bathrooms that you don’t have to wear a headlamp to find!  One other thing about jungle lodges is that part of how good your experience is will depend on your guide, of course, and your group.  My group was fantastic – 8 of us in total, but 3 people who were there for just one night.  The group was great and we all got along really well.  During the boat rides they break you into smaller groups, but some of the afternoon and evening hikes were done as a group of 8.

To get to the lodge we drove for about an hour and a half, and then traveled about another hour on a boat.  We got lucky that there was a bit of cloud cover so we didn’t cook on the boat.  The place was really cool with wooden bungalows linked by wooden platforms.  The place apparently floods every year and this year the water was high enough so that it covered most of the roofs.  One of the brilliant things they did was to have the kitchen and one of the other buildings on big barrels so that they would float when the floods came.  So while the rest of the camp was under water they still had a base camp!

Bedroom

The place was really basic, but still was fantastic.  The bungalows were on a shared basis with 4 to 6 people per room, they didn’t have any windows or doors either!  They had mattresses on the ground with mosquito net over the top.  Sounds much worse than it really was.  I actually slept amazing, with all of the wonderful jungle noises to lull me to sleep.  The food was fantastic, and they actually prepared me special gluten free meals the entire time!  Enough about the accommodations onto the fun stuff!

Each day they take you out on morning and evening boat rides, and jungle walks.  The first evening boat ride I was so tired from the 15 hour time change that I kept dozing off – I was sure I was going to end up in the river as crocodile meat!  We saw tons of animals – quite diverse.

Hornbill

I saw hornbills, kingfishers, civet cats, flying foxes (which are actually bats, quite the disappointment, as I thought I was going to see a flying fox!), skinks, cockroaches, spiders, flying lizard (that really is what you think!), and tons of monkeys (macaques, silver leafed monkeys, etc)  I know there were more things that we saw, but I’m drawing a blank.

King Fisher

Civet Cat

So the big question is – did I see orangutans in the wild?

Orangutan

There seems to be a big debate about whether you should try and see the orangutans in the wild or in the rehabilitation center.  My opinion is you must do both.  Searching for them for three days in the jungle was exciting and frustrating all at the same time.  We didn’t see them in the wild into our last morning there.  Our guide took us out an extra boat trip because he knew how desperately we wanted to see them.  We had struck out on every other trip until then.  But, oh when I did finally see them, I was in heaven!  We actually ended up spotting them a few times that morning, and it was exhilarating! Going to the rehabilitation center where you are basically guaranteed to see them, and so up close that you could touch them, was priceless.  Seeing an orange ball of hair up in the tree along the river while rewarding, because you’ve searched for three days, was nothing like seeing them up close!  Again, you must do both.  Both experiences were priceless and I would trade either of them!

Well, I was very happy to return to a room with a real shower and bed, but my jungle experience was amazing and I would do it basic again in a heart beat.

Want to read more about my experiences, read:

Hanging with the Orangutans in Borneo

What’s your favorite jungle lodge experience?

Note: Just wanted to let you know that I’m not affiliated with or paid by Uncle Tan’s in any way.  I just had a fantastic time there and wanted to share my experiences!