Danum valley is demanding

After a day in Lahad Datu, where we managed to wash away most of the smell of the river, we got into the mini bus with four others. This bus would bring us, over 2.5 hours of jumping and jarring roads, to the Danum valley forest.

The field centre here is run by a foundation and it manages these 400+ km² of primary lowland forest. These forests are home to umpteen specialist birds, several big mammals and plenty of giant trees.

Kiran and I came here with some niche interests in mind. I hired a private bird guide and gave him our wish list. Daryl chuckled but not dismissively. We went out on the side trails looking for pittas, which are jewels of the forest floor, but oh so shy! He tells us that this is the wrong time of the year, and there has been no rain. "No leeches, no happy pitta" he explained. With Kiran's wildlife luck still strong, we spotted a blue-headed pitta on the first walk. The first they'd seen in a month and a half. I barely get to see the pitta in full for a photo.

In another walk, an absolute unit of a male orangutan held the stage. This was our 11th wild Orangutan, so Kiran wanted to move on to hunting for pittas, while other groups rushed and gushed at the leaves overhead.

The primary dipterocarp forest is thick and dark and twisted. There are brief breaks in the dense canopy whether the giant old-growth trees stand tall. We hear the sounds of birds all around us, but we can hardly ever spot them. This is deep in twitchers territory, like the iron ranges last year.

Daryl has been a naturalist here for 17 years. His eyes are tuned to the movement of every leaf, his ears to every tweet that comes from the woods. He is a fount of knowledge about the plants and animals that live here, and also about the politics and history of what made these forests so expensive to visit.

On the last day, we set out to even deeper woods to get one of the two pittas we wanted to see. Half an hour in we hear the bird calling back. We get on it's trail using sounds. It draws us deeper into the woods, and after almost an hour of skulking through the vines and the branches, it pops briefly into view: a black crowned pitta! Three seconds later it's gone!

The next morning we woke up to go view the sunrise. As we stood there in the dimness of the first light, I tried to decide whether I loved or hated Danum valley. It showed us some incredible sights - bringing our count to 15 wild Orangutans - but not the ones that we wanted to see. Danum valley is demanding, is all I could conclude.Read more