19 August 2006 - Garama River Lodge

At breakfast this morning I met a young couple from Sydney. After speaking with them a little they invited me to join them in a tour they were doing later in the day to Garama River Lodge. Garama offer tours into the wetlands around the lodge where Proboscis Monkeys and other smaller monkeys live.

Rather than sitting around the resort all morning I decided to take another life changing foray into KK in the hope of picking up a local drum or guitar, only to find the mall I wanted to enter was closed. I wasn’t sure of what time it would open & so wandered around the city centre, heading towards the waterfront where food markets (pasars) were in full swing and boats were coming and going. While walking in front of some shops on the waterfront I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of an Australian restaurant that will soon open. There wasn’t any indication of what would be on offer to give the Malaysian people an impression of what Australian food is like. Hopefully they’ll offer things like Morton Bay Bugs, Crayfish and Marron… I guess time will tell.

Leaving KK with a new pair of sandals and some t-shirts I headed back to Langkah for a quick swim & lunch before the tour bus arrived at 2pm. Despite concerns about the coach and whether it would be air conditioned, the coach was in good shape and very comfortable. Just as well as the drive to the lodge took two hours over some fairly rough roads. I got the giggles as I completely left the seat on a few occasions.

We arrived at our destination and were lead on a ten to fifteen minute walk along a raised platform through a wooded swamp. At the end of the walk was the lodge proper, a group of four Balinese styled pergolas which had roofs of woven reeds. All of the pergolas were completely open, except for the one containing the toilets (tandas). We were seated under one of the pergolas and offered tea, coffee and some finger food while waiting for the boats to arrive.

Not too long later the boats, long thin flat bottomed with outboards, arrived and we were split up so there were about ten people in each boat. I was placed in a boat with a Japanese family & we were off. It couldn’t have been a good day for the Proboscis Monkey as we couldn’t find many at all. We did spot a troupe, or a harem considering the troupe consisted of one male and LOTS of females! This particular group was situated in a tree that was about 300m from the riverbank and with the sun behind them all we could see were the profiles.

Further on we encountered a couple of other varieties of monkey, a monitor lizard, water buffalo and a small crocodile. And then… as we were heading back we encountered a small group of Proboscis Monkeys closer to the riverbank. Despite the lush growth we managed to watch the monkeys for a little while before heading back towards the Lodge. As it was late in the day we were dropped off at a jetty for a 20 minute walk back towards the base where there was a light dinner waiting for us.

We were about to head back to the coach but the tour guide came over & told us to walk back to the end of the jetty where had earlier entered the boats & across the river the trees were lit up like Christmas trees thanks to a large swarm of Fireflies. It was beautiful!

Tired but happy we headed back to the coach for the trip back to Langkah.