Day 325- Borneo, Malaysia

KINABATANGAN RIVER (22/11/09)

Dawn on the Kinabatangan. We got up early and were straight on the boat.

Thick mist still hung in the jungle but as the sun came over the horizon it quickly burned it away.

Just as the sun started shining we spotted this Gold-Ringed Cat Snake. It was the first wild venomous snake of our entire trip which was very exciting (for Adam). It is rear-fanged, however, which means that it poses very little threat to humans.

Blue sky! It seemed like quite a while since we had seen such a thing.

Yes it's another monkey, but one we hadn't seen before- A Silver Langur.

As we navigated down a narrow channel we spotted a large family of Otters- at least 15 of them. They were extremely quick and disappeared in an instant although we managed a couple of snaps before they did.

We came out of the channel into a large Ox-Bow lake on which grew many types of lily and fresh water plants.

Amongst the water plants Macaques searched for seeds, fruit and anything else remotely edible.

As we got closer in the boat this large male, probably the leader of the troop, came out of the upper branches and gave us a warning not to get any closer.

The attractive purple flowers of Water Hyacinths.

Back on the main river we spotted another troop of Proboscis Monkeys making their way along the river bank.

The alpha male of the troop. This huge male was so certain of his dominance that he let us get quite close to him. In this picture you can clearly see his enormous nose which is used to attract females and as a resonating device to amplify his territorial calls. The nose can reach up to seven inches in length and Liz says for some reason it reminds her of her brother-in-law.