Kinabatangan River in Borneo (Sabah)
Part of the Borneo (Sabah) travel guide — see every topic in All Borneo (Sabah) Guides.
The Kinabatangan runs about 560 kilometres across eastern Sabah and its lower reaches hold what is, paradoxically, some of the best wildlife viewing in Asia: the forest either side has been reduced to a narrow strip between oil palm plantations, which concentrates animals along the riverbank where they can be seen from a boat. Proboscis monkeys, orangutans, pygmy elephants, hornbills, crocodiles and macaques are all regularly sighted on morning and evening cruises.
What you see
Proboscis monkeys — endemic to Borneo, with the extraordinary pendulous nose of the males — are close to guaranteed, gathering in riverside trees at dusk. Long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques, silvered langurs, and eight species of hornbill including the rhinoceros and helmeted hornbill. Orangutans are seen regularly though not daily. Bornean pygmy elephants move through in herds and are a matter of luck and timing. Estuarine crocodiles, monitor lizards, kingfishers, storm's storks and oriental darters fill in the rest.
How a trip works
Lodges cluster around Sukau and Bilit, two to three hours by road from Sandakan or four to five from Kota Kinabalu. A standard package is two nights and three days, including transfers, full board and four or five boat cruises — dawn, late afternoon and after dark — plus a jungle walk and often a visit to the Gomantong caves. Prices run 600–2,000 ringgit per person for two nights depending on the lodge. Small quiet boats with an electric motor see far more than large fast ones.
The oxbow lakes and the caves
Most itineraries include a paddle or cruise into one of the oxbow lakes, cut-off meanders that are quieter and richer than the main channel, with better birding and a good chance of otters. The Gomantong caves, an hour away, hold enormous colonies of swiftlets whose nests are harvested for bird's nest soup under licence, and millions of bats that stream out at dusk while bat hawks hunt them. The cave floor is a moving carpet of cockroaches, which is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds and worth seeing anyway.
The conservation context
The reason the wildlife is so visible is the reason it is in trouble. Lowland forest along the Kinabatangan has been extensively converted to oil palm, leaving a fragmented corridor in which animals are compressed against the river. The Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary protects part of it, and NGOs have worked for years to reconnect fragments and build canopy bridges for primates. Elephant-human conflict is a live problem. Visiting supports the lodges and guides who make the case for keeping the forest; it is also a look at what fragmentation does.
Kinabatangan River at a glance
| The river | ~560 km — Sabah's longest |
|---|---|
| Near-guaranteed | Proboscis monkeys, macaques, hornbills, crocodiles |
| Possible | Orangutans, pygmy elephants, otters |
| Standard trip | 2 nights from Sukau or Bilit; RM 600–2,000 per person |
| Also included | Oxbow lakes; Gomantong caves and the bat exodus |
| Why so visible | Forest reduced to a corridor between oil palm |