More Forest Creatures

The forests of Malaysia are all cut up and turned into Oil Palm Plantations. Miles and miles of palm trees that produce these fruits that are turned into oil for cooking and cleaning products. Have you ever used Palmolive soap? Palm-ol-ive is made from this. The forests that remain are the homes to the many animals that once roamed all over Asia including Elephants and Tigers. We didn't see either of these but we did see giant Elephant poop along the road which indicates that they are around. We did see some interesting animals including this Asian Bearded Pig. She's a real lady - you can tell by the high heels.

Mrs. Asian Bearded Pig

The most common animals that we saw were monkeys. We saw 5 species of monkeys throughout the trip. The first were Short-tailed Macaques - a whole troop of them crossing the dirt road including this Mom and youngster.

Short-tailed Macaques

The most common monkey was the Long-tailed Macaque. We saw lots of them along the road and also in Singapore. These photos were taken on Palau Ubin which is a future post but you get to see the difference in tail length if I show the comparison here. Look at the length of that tail - not to mention the size of those testicles. Geez!

Long-tailed Macaque

We heard other monkeys in the forest and were fortunate enough to get a close view of one species of Leaf Monkey. This guy reminds me of Michael Jackson in his later years. This is a big monkey but not as scary looking as the Macaques.

Leaf Monkey

The star of the monkey show had to be the White-handed Gibbons. You could hear them from a mile away howling.  We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw this guy hanging out by the road.

White-handed Gibbon

His howling gave him away. He continued for 5 minutes while we sat in the car staring back at him.

Howling

Di took this video on my iPhone while I was snapping the photos above. You can hear him howling and see him swinging through the treetops just like a monkey!

That was a special encounter for sure. We found a bat cave too. The local people build shrines in the woods. This one is built to thank whatever god for winning lottery numbers (not kidding). There are winning lottery numbers written on the cave.

Bat Cave

 There are also bats in this cave. Lesser Sheath-tailed Bats to be specific.

Lesser Sheath-tailed Bats

Butterflies abound in Malaysia too. This is some type of Wood Nymph that floated effortlessly.

And another common butterfly that was pretty colorful.

And sadly, this giant moth that we found dead in the woods.

More about our adventures in Singapore coming soon. Its nice to have a working computer again.

Ever Have One of Those Days or Two?

You know the kind where you are all set to fly to Singapore for business but when you show up to the airport, they don't let you board the plane?  Yup. How does that even happen? This trip has been planned for a few months. I was asked to give a presentation to nonprofits in Singapore. I roped Di and Barbara into going along to see Southeast Asia. When will we ever get that chance again?

We showed up to the airport on time for our flight. Di and Barbara scanned their passports in the machine and printed their tickets. I scanned my passport in the machine and got a message to see the attendant. I was informed that I was not allowed to board the plane because my passport expired in September - less than 6 months away. What? It's still valid, I'll be back in a week, but I can't go?

Long story even longer - Di and Barbara checked my big suitcase and went to Singapore while I took a taxi to New York city's federal building to get a rush job passport. I spent the entire day in the cold, rainy city standing in lines and looking for warm, dry places to kill time like some homeless person. People were looking at me funny with no coat, no umbrella, carrying bags around. . . It cost me $95 for the cab, $170 for the passport, $150 for a hotel and 24 hours of waiting for the next plane to Singapore. Ayyy.

I can't say enough nice things about the United Airlines staff. They pointed me in the right direction and rebooked me on the next available flight. Tada - I made it.

Finally

I got to the hotel at 12:30 AM Sunday morning. Things got significantly better the next day when we headed to Malaysia with our bird guide "Con" at 5 AM despite the lack of sleep.

Singapore is a country, a city, and an island all in one. It is pretty small area but it is totally covered by a very large city with millions of residents and virtually no open space. Very modern buildings all around. Check out this amazing building that has a boat on top of it. Di and Barbara went to the top while I was still dealing with the passport thing.

Boat Building

It has very few places to go birding so we decided to go across the channel to Malaysia for 2 days.Going to Malaysia from Singapore is like going to from Philly to Cherry Hill except that you have to bring your passport. We were going out of the city on Monday morning while hundreds of Malaysian people were inbound on their way to work. Can you imagine walking across the Ben Franklin Bridge every day with a passport to work?

Crossing the bridge

So, off we went to the Panti Forest (yes, the pun was not lost on us). The Panti Forest is like a jungle with a gravel road through it. We birded from the road most of the time but we occasionally walked into the forest on a path. Guess what I found? Leeches.

Eeww, Gross

Di found one too. She was so freaked out by the thought of getting one that she didn't follow us into the forest a few times. But like other creepy things, once you get one, they aren't as bad as you imagined.

Leech!

The two of us are like leech magnets. One of those little buggers made it all the way up my leg and lodged itself behind my knee. The weird thing about leeches is that they don't carry disease which makes getting one a little easier to handle. The other thing is that if you pull them off, the wound bleeds forever.

Bleeding Wound

I'll get to the birds next.