We were up early our first full day at Sukau Rainforest Lodge, ready for a photo safari on the Kinabatangan.

Almost immediately, we spotted a macaque. They’re all over the place here and relatively fearless. They can be a nuisance, and we were encouraged, should we come across any on the boardwalk, to avoid contact. But they do photograph well.

Our guide, Yunis, got word that elephants had been sighted downriver, so we raced there and jockeyed for position among the boats already nudged up on the riverbank. Like we saw in South Africa, elephants here really beat up the surrounding bush.

We returned to the lodge for lunch, looking for birds along the way, and spotting a Blue-Eared Kingfisher and a Black Hornbill, perched (bottom left) and in flight. That double-bill on hornbills helps them resonate and broadcast their distinctive honking call.

Before lunch, Yunis took us on a boardwalk tour around the lodge. After watching the currently-resident orangutan for a while (check off number four of the Big 5), we found a millipede that stole the show since we were able to make contact with it.

Here’s a view of one of the many boardwalks at the lodge. This one leads to our bungalow (left) from the dock (right). All the buildings are elevated on pilings and connected by boardwalks.

After lunch, we went back out in the boat to see what else we could find. Edging up a small canal toward an oxbow lake, we spotted an Oriental Pied Hornbill (top right) and an Oriental Darter (bottom right), similar to our Anhinga or Cormorant.

On the way back to the main channel, we stumbled upon a tribe of proboscis monkeys making their way along the shore beside us. Suddenly, it started raining monkeys as they climbed up into the canopy and jumped over the stream in front of us!

Here’s a sequence I clipped from a video I took of the biggest proboscis making his leap. It was crazy!

We were laughing about the monkey rainstorm all the way back to the lodge.

Good job, Yunis.