River

If, after a strenuous Mt Kinabalu climb, you'd like nothing more than an easy trip, you're in for a boat ride.

Our family were simply too frazzled to go for more walks after return from the summit. All because of aches and pains, we chose to take a break and wait for the recovery of our jelly-like thigh muscles. Luckily, there is something magical about river cruising in Borneo. On the last day of our trip, I picked a late-afternoon wildlife cruise down the mangrove, reminiscent of the novel Where the Crawdads Sing.  

Like Kya, we came close to fireflies along the river, but didn't go into that much detail about the female fireflies drawing in males of another species by dishonest flash light signals. As twilight set in, a romantic firefly light show is wild and poetic enough to wow nature lovers. The long, soft-bodied nocturnal fireflies, known as kelip-kelip, produce a greenish-yellow light along the mangrove waterways. The way hundreds of kelip-kelip display their light show is remarkably reminiscent of Christmas-tree lights.

Besides watching kingfishers and fireflies, another highlight of the waterways is the chance to meet the proboscis monkeys. These big-bellied (and even bigger nose) monkeys live only on Borneo. They now rival orangutans as the most popular primates to see in Borneo. Sadly, both are threatened by modern-day poaching, logging and habitat destruction.