Here’s Grobblers take on Borneo with kids:. Yo suckers, listen up, since a very early age I’ve been fascinated with animals, particularly sea creatures and reptiles and especially during the last year, I’ve read up on every National Geographic book about the sea, everything in it, jungles and Rainforests and reptiles, so I consider myself an expert in reptiles and hunting for things. While my recent trip to Komodo with Dad was the best for snorkelling and sea creatures, Borneo was pretty good for animals.
Like Dad said, Lahad Datu is a poo town and not much to see here but once we got to Danum Valley it was pretty good. To be honest though, some of the walks weren’t that exciting. If you have a couple of you, or even if you have 4 of you, you’re going to have join up with others for the walks, which means you might have to listen to a bit of history or stuff about trees, which for us kids is not at exciting, but not too bad.
The best time to look for my two favourite things in the world, snakes and lizards, is at night. The room provides a torch but they’re not great, I reckon you should your Mum and Dad or buy you a good small strong torch so you can see things better at night. There’s some nice snakes and some really nice lizards on the walks, both during the day, but mainly at night and of course Gibbons and other animals like that.
You need to manage your expectations when coming here as it’s a Rainforest in true nature, so whilst it’s highly likely you’re going to see quite a few animals, bugs and insects, it’s not like a zoo and you can’t guarantee when or where or if you will see anything at all. I remember a story my Nana told me about some tourists who came to New Zealand to see Penguins and asked the tourism guys “what time do the penguins come”. This is nature folks, there’s no feeding times like a zoo and you need to keep lookout all the time to see things.
Dad bought me some waterproof and hiking pants, which you will need, and some hiking shoes with good grip. Normal kids shows you wear to school won’t do, you’ll be slipping all over the show. Also wear ice and light t-shirts, the Uniqlo ones are ideal, cheap and quick drying. Bring a pair of togs and some shorts, as when you’re just around the lodge, shorts are fine.
On the Kinabantangan River part of the trip we got to see a snake, crocodile, baby crocodile, hornbills, egrets, some nice colourful birds, Proboscis Monkey’s, and we did four river tours. Most of them are for a couple of hours and it can get a bit boring, but overall I enjoyed all of them but if you’re not into animals like me, you might be bored out of your mind. Also if you’re a young whipper snapper, say 5 or below, you’re probably going to get bored after 15-20 minutes as much of the tour is looking for animals.
The food at Bilit Rainforest Lodge was horrendous. Dad made me eat some terrible stuff, but to be fair, had I not I would have starved. Most of the few dishes in the buffet they serve up are spice, vegetables or just downright hideous. Make sure your Dad packs you plenty of snacks. Dad brung plenty for me on our trip but we had eaten them all before we arrived here. There’s a games room but it only has table tennis, connect four, and a shit putting mat with adult sized putters. We had a bit of a hit but unfortunately I am yet to channel inner Chinese and can’t play table tennis to save myself. Good fun whacking the ball trying to hit each other though.
