Exploring Sabah (Borneo) rainforest with a curious toddler

2D1N trip to Sukau/ Kinabatangan River/ Myne Kinabatangan Resort 

3 years ago, when I was conceived with Josh, I already knew school holidays will never be the same. It'll not be spending a couple of nights in nice luxury hotels and shopping away in air-conditioned malls. There will be lots of sun-kissed tan, mozzie bites, and cuts from trekking through the jungle. We have agreed that we want to raise child who knows what it's like to live in the wilderness, and that money don't just appear in their bank account, food don't just appear on supermarket shelves.  The child will have to work hard for it. The days has come much earlier than expected, and yes it was an indeed enriching experience making a trip to Sukau, the very luscious rainforest surrounding the amazing Kinabtangan river, with our 31month old toddler J. 

Sukau is about 2 hours drive from Sandakan. We have chosen to stay at Myne Kinabatangan Resort as it offers a reasonable rate for locals. Its price includes lunch, tea break, dinner, breakfast, guided jungle trekking, river cruise on the Kinabatangan river and lodging. 

View of our triple room chalet, facing the river. 

His first time on a this

This sort of 'sunbed' reminds me a lot of my childhood, as we used to have one of this in our estate house. I grew up in the palm oil plantation estates, where it was a norm to spot frogs in our bathroom, or snake in our garden.

Surreal view of the river outside our chalet in the morning. 

The river cruise on Kinabatangan river 

He was no stranger when comes to boating or river cruising. Compared to those we had chasing after dolphins in Bali, the river cruise on Kinabatangan river is definitely a luxurious one. There is proper seating and we still get to stretch our legs after a few hours cruise on the boat. We paid extra to go longer miles to persue the wild pygmy elephants, yet we have cruised (sped) for about 1.5 hours and seen no signs of the elephants, and it's been drizzling for about an hour, so we had to tell the boatman to call off the elephant chase. It was sad to not be able to see elephants in wild, but at least, we managed to see the elephants' dunk while doing jungle trekking the next day. Despite the fact that we couldn't catch glimpse of the elephants, we still saw lots of the primates on way back. We spotted many hornbills flying across, oh! He finally saw a real rainbow. There were proboscis monkey having sumptuous meals feasting on the mangrove leaves. There were also wild long-tailed macaques taking it easy resting high up on the tree branches. 

Proboscis monkey 

 Ask the little fella, and he will tell you, proboscis monkeys has big flat nose and big round tummy!

Long-tailed macaques

Just clouds. 

Jungle trekking and bugs and birds watching

I think my favorite part of this trip is the real bugs "learning" and "observation". So far, J had only come across 'caterpillar' in the form of pictorials and clip arts. He had done many activities related to Eric Carle's 'A very hungry caterpillar' yet he had not seen a real one. I am so glad that the hubby managed to spot this cute and fluffy green caterpillar resting away on a green leaf, it's exactly the scene from Eric Carle's book! 

There were many beetles, and let me emphasize this again with another MANY!, in the resort compound. I have never seen soooo many beetles (yes, third time emphasis) in my life. Coincidentally, for this trip, I have prepared for Josh to make a 'ladybird' craft and ladybird is a type of beetle.

Spot the real beetle. 

Here he is, observing the 'real' one closely. 

A minor fraction of the many beetles seen in the resort. 

More beetles! 

Lots of these colorful butterflies were seen in the jungle. 

Yes, you gotta hike to see more! 

.. and spider too! ... 

Bird watching tower 

View of Kinabatangan river from top of the bird watching tower. 

A mini canopy bridge in the jungle, not for those fear of height. 

Finally after about 45 minutes trekking in the jungle, we have arrived at the Merbau tree. Apparently, this tree (which is still alive at time of visiting) has been around for 100 years. There was a small entrance (about J's height as you can see from the following photo) and the tree can fit about 10 little kids in it at one time. It was dark, yet cooling in the tree. There were bats in the tree, again, it's J's first time seeing real bats. It was believed that the tree was a hiding place for the villagers to hide their daughters during the Japanese occupation era. 

Smack right outside the resort, just by the river, there is a very beautiful cottonwood tree that grows cotton! When the fruits (cotton fruit) ripen, it will turn yellow/ brown and will fall. And it can be opened easily, revealing the soft and fluffy cottons, used to stuff pillows or any other related purposes.   

Gua Gomantong 

After checked out from Myne Resort, we also made a trip to Gua Gomantong, which was situated somewhere along our way back, about 30minutes drive from Sukau. Again, it was another eye opening experience for J. The cave stank! Swiftlets, bats and cockroaches swamped the cave. We were also fortunate enough to see the way the workers risk their safety climbing those hanging stairs to get to the top of the caves to collect the bird nests. 

Two orang utan spotted in the wild as we left the cave. 

To know more about Myne Resort, please click here. 

Here are some of the crafts and works I have been doing with J on days leading up to this trip: 

Making proboscis monkey puppet 

Hornbill coloring activity with cotton bud

Elmer the elephant craft (coloring with pom pom)

Flying with a little one: suriving my plane trips travelling with a toddler

The little fella is turning 19mo in a few day's time. And yes, we're travelling, again. We just got back from Seoul about two weeks back and we're leaving for Bali in a day's time. There's a long weekend coming up, due to Harvest Festival (Pesta Keamatan) and my in-laws has decided to treat all of us a short getaway to Bali. Even though we are still flying with an active toddler boy, I'm no more nervous about the trip nor the flight. I used to get nervous about it planning about his food/ snack intake, pre-booking his bassinet, pre-scheduling his nap time etc etc. Maybe I get used or get immune to it. Tips I wanna let very parent know, no, you won't be able to foresee nor plan anything when travelling with a toddler. He slept the entire journey flying from KK to Bali (amazingly!!), and stayed awake the entire journey coming back. Despite your best efforts, there is only so much you can do. You just gotta let yourself know, it'll eventually pass and the plane will land, and you won't be seeing any of the other passengers ever again. Hopefully. Hahaaa

 

At 19mo, the little fella has done quite a number of overseas travelling and handful of long-haul travels. He isn't the perfect little traveler everyone think he is, but he's still our fun and cheeky munchkin who loves greeting every strangers he sees with a shy grin. We have no fear bringing him along for trips cos he has no fear for strangers nor new environment. In fact, he actually gets excited about them and he gets occupied by the new things he sees, which is great for us. He's quite an observing baby. He loves shouting out 'airpane' 'airpane' 'airpane' when he sees one, or anything that resembles or sounds like one.

 

Babywearing him on trips help tremendously!! Seriously, my i-angel hipseat carrier is Godsend, especially when travelling in cities that are not so baby-friendly, like Bangkok or Seoul, eg small alley with uneven ground or underground station with just stairs but not lift (can't imagine what it's like lugging along a stroller in these cities), or going to places where we'll be doing island hopping or dolphin watching (in Bali). When babywearing, I went through custom at ease without needing to move him a bit (which is good if he's napping) and it allowed me to have both hands free to carry his diaper bags and our passports (great for solo travelers).

 

 

Babywearing in Seoul

 

I own an I-angel hipseat carrier that allows for front facing or rear facing (facing towards me) or back carry too. I have done a 3-part reviews on it here, please refer for the links http://a-nutritionist-mom.blogspot.com/2013/09/babywearing-and-travelling-to-kundasang.html. Just Health is now one of the authorized retailer of I-angel hipseat carrier. You may email me for further info.

 

Prior to your trips, call up your flight agency (Malaysia Airlines for my case) and pre-book a bassinet for your toddler (only available for under two year old) and you'll be assigned a seat on the front roll, cos the bassinet can only be installed there. Try calling up as soon as you have booked your ticket, certain flights only allow one bassinet. Bassinets are only provided on flights that's over 2hours flying duration, and are only installed after the plane has taken off (the seatbelt sign is off) and will be removed before the plane starts to descend.

 

By experience, most of budget airlines (for eg Air Asia) doesn't provide bassinet for domestic route even though with over 2hours flying duration. But they do provide bassinet for international routes with Air Asia X. There is no need to call up early for bassinet, but you'll have to purchase yourself a seat that has the 'bassinet' or 'baby' sign when selecting your seats.

At 18mo, he's already a lil' too big for the bassinet.

 

If it's a long haul flight, try choosing one that flies at midnight so that he'll be sleeping most of the journey. We flew from KL to Seoul at 1am, he slept from about 1:30 till about 7am and was up just before the air crew was preparing for landing and was asking to uninstall the bassinet.

 

Now, these are the tips or activities you can do with your toddler to occupy the time spent on flights, that's if he has no intention or whatsoever to nap:

 

• Pack plenty of dry snacks like puffs, cereals, crackers, dried fruits. Try avoid bringing wet and sloppy food eg yogurt or cakes. It'll be messy.

• Bring books and crayons for reading and/ or drawing. I also buy books from bookshops at the airport so he has something new to explore on returning flights. I don't spend on toys, but I spend on books for the little fella. I buy books from different travelling destination, so I can remind him of the places we've travelled to when he grow up. Tip: (1) Put away the in-flight magazine if you know that your little one will tear off the pages. (2) Only offer him one crayon at a time, and retrieve it and store it in your bag when he's done. You don't want to be picking up crayons from the floor all the time.

 

 

• Read or sing along. Hahaa.. this may be annoying to the sleepy passenger seated next to you. But think about it, this is surely much better than a crying toddler. Here's a photo of the little fella being in love in his new book bought at Bali airport and pronouncing everything he knows in the book.
• Download some short clips or videos onto your phone. This is always my last resort, especially when the little fella is too tired to concentrate on the books or food. This calms him down or even soothes him to sleep. His favorite is pocoyo and pororo.
• Feed him milk or water especially during taking off and landing to relieve the building air pressure that may cause discomfort. I ask for or purchase bottled water and let him drink from a straw. He somehow likes it and would drink a lot. Drinking sufficient water is very important especially on long-haul flights. It helps to avoid dehydration which may cause a cranky little one.

• Pack along a new toy or soft toy that's light and handy. Here's a M&M handy fan which I bought at the airport and it managed to keep him occupied for quite a long time. I would be hiding this so I can bring it along during our next trip.

• Stickers! and.. more stickers!! These are life saviors. He was amused by them and learning at the same time.

 

 

• A used lip balm, which you're not using anymore. My baby found it interesting to open it and dap it on his arm, on his cheek and then put the lid back on and repeated the entire thing a few rounds before he got bored with it.
• Keep him in comfortable attire. The air in the cabin gets cooler and drier. So bring along an extra jacket or a little blanket which can keep him warm.
• Eucalyptus essential oil. This is my must-bring for any travelling. It comes in a 10ml bottle so it's okay to be packed into the cabin bag. I dot a few drops to be applied on his chest, neck and nose so it keeps the airway moist and this also keeps the bugs at bay.

 

 

Last but not least, 'travelling light' does not happen when travelling with a little one. Don't even attempt to. 

Do let me know if there are any tricks that have worked for your little ones. Happy Travelling!