Kinabalu National Park in Sabah protects Borneo's highest peak and one of the world's most biodiverse landscapes — a UNESCO World Heritage Site where granite summit trails pitcher plants cloud forest and extraordinary wildlife come together in a single extraordinary destination.
Malaysia: Borneo – Danum Valley
Malaysia: Borneo – Danum Valley
Leaving Sukau behind us, we were on our way overland to the Danum Valley, and we’d been forewarned it was going to be a proper long day out. Up at the crack of dawn for a 6 am breakfast, we then took a short boat ride across the river with our guide Andis, who had looked after us brilliantly throughout our time on the Kinabatangan. Waiting on the far bank was Yus’ cousin Andy, who was going to drive us south to Lahad Datu — the regional capital of the Tawau Division and the main commercial hub for this part of Sabah — where we’d be handed over to another vehicle for the final push into the forest.
The first stretch of road out of Sukau cuts straight through the heart of palm oil country, mile after mile of eerily neat plantation, the same plant repeated to the horizon in every direction. Palm oil has been cultivated in Sabah since the 1960s, and today Malaysia is one of the world’s two largest producers of the stuff, alongside Indonesia. It is a deeply contested industry — spectacularly profitable on one hand, responsible for the destruction of vast swathes of Borneo’s ancient lowland rainforest on the other. The contrast between the sterile monoculture stretching out on either side of the road and what we were heading towards in the Danum Valley could not have been more stark. About an hour in, the Sukau road joins the main Sandakan to Lahad Datu highway, which is heavily worked by enormous lorries hauling palm oil fruits from the surrounding estates to processing mills further along the coast. The sheer weight and frequency of these vehicles takes a dramatic toll on the road surface — potholes the size of small craters, many of which have clearly been waiting for repair for quite some time, judging by their depth and the heroic attempts drivers make to steer around them.
Eventually we rolled into Lahad Datu and found the offices of the tour company that manages the two lodges within the Danum Valley Conservation Area. Our bags were unloaded, and it was time for a rather sad farewell to Andy and Andis, both of whom had been excellent company and genuinely helpful throughout our time in this part of Sabah.
🚐 Into the Forest — A Van, a Rock, and a Stuck Driver
After a quick briefing at the tour operator’s office, we loaded ourselves and our luggage into a tourist van that would carry us the remaining distance into the rainforest. It was going to be a long, bumpy, and occasionally eventful ride. Joining us for the journey were Lena and Christian, a young couple from Denmark. Lena, it had to be said, was feeling a bit rough — sore throat, the works — and to Karen’s considerable annoyance, she had decided that wearing a mask in a small, enclosed van was apparently optional. We quietly put ours on and said nothing. We are British, after all.
For the first twenty minutes or so the road was perfectly fine — smooth tarmac, easy going — and then we turned off onto the gravel track that leads into the Danum Valley Conservation Area. This road stretches for around 80 kilometres through the forest interior, and it is not, shall we say, a motorway. Up and down it goes, bends everywhere, potholed throughout its length in a way that made the roads we’d driven across large parts of Africa feel comparatively well maintained. We’d done our share of rough tracks before, so it didn’t bother us particularly, but Lena was clearly suffering. Then came the moment of genuine drama. At one point along this track, we had to cross a small stream — because the bridge that had previously spanned it had, at some point, simply collapsed and nobody had got round to replacing it. The van’s driver, clearly used to improvising, steered us in. Unfortunately, the van was not a high-clearance vehicle and had no four-wheel drive, and sure enough, we came to an abrupt stop, perched on a rock in the middle of the stream. The driver climbed out, took his shoes and socks off with impressive calm, waded about in the stream, found a suitable rock, wedged it under the wheel, and we were moving again within a few minutes. You do not get that kind of service on the M25. After roughly three and a quarter hours in total — the last chunk of which felt rather longer — we arrived at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge.
🌿 The Danum Valley Conservation Area — Ancient Forest, Extraordinary Science
Before we sat down for lunch we had a short briefing from Nicholas, who was going to be our guide for all the activities during our stay. Nicholas was one of those guides who clearly loves his subject deeply, and his knowledge of the forest around us turned out to be encyclopaedic.
The Danum Valley Conservation Area was established in 1981 by the Sabah Foundation (Yayasan Sabah), a statutory body set up by the Sabah government in 1966 with a mandate to generate revenue from the state’s forests while reinvesting in the welfare of its people. The Conservation Area sits within a much larger Yayasan Sabah Forest Management Unit of around 972,000 hectares, but the 438 square kilometres of the Conservation Area itself is set aside entirely for research, education and low-impact tourism — no logging, no agriculture, no permanent human settlement. Access is tightly controlled, and visitor numbers at any one time are kept deliberately small, which is a large part of why the forest here remains in such extraordinary condition.
And what a forest it is. This is lowland dipterocarp rainforest — named after the family of trees, Dipterocarpaceae, that dominates the canopy — and it is considered one of the most complex and biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Geological and pollen records suggest this forest has existed in essentially continuous form for somewhere in the region of 130 million years, predating the dinosaurs’ extinction and surviving ice ages, volcanic events, and sea level changes that reshaped most of the planet’s surface. The tallest trees in this forest are genuinely astonishing: the largest recorded specimen within the Conservation Area stands at 100.8 metres — taller than the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral — and in 2016 researchers confirmed the presence of at least 30 trees exceeding 90 metres in height, making this one of the tallest tropical forests ever documented. The wildlife list is equally formidable: Bornean pygmy elephants, Sunda clouded leopards, Bornean orangutans, proboscis monkeys, slow lorises, banteng (a species of wild cattle), bearded pigs, sun bears, Malay civets, and hundreds of bird species, many of them endemic to Borneo and found nowhere else on earth.
Once the briefing was done, we went through to the dining room, which looked out directly over the river and the wall of forest beyond it. The food was a generous buffet, and the range and quality of the vegetarian options was genuinely exceptional — one of the best meals we’d had in a very long time, if we’re being straightforward about it. The staff were superb.
Our room had been booked by Sheng, our tour organiser back in Kota Kinabalu, and he had clearly decided we deserved a treat. It was enormous: two queen-sized beds, a large balcony equipped with a plunge pool also accessible directly from the shower, and a floor-to-ceiling glass panel running the entire width of the balcony that looked straight out into the rainforest. Completely private. Brilliant.
After settling in, we gathered for a briefing on the full activity programme from AJ, the head guide, and were introduced properly to our little group: Lena and Christian from Denmark, whom we’d already been rattling around with in the van, plus Mark and Jen, a British couple from Salisbury, and Anna, a young solo traveller from the Netherlands. All good company, as it turned out.
We kitted ourselves out in leech socks — essential, deeply unglamorous, and in my case something of a challenge to put on, as they were clearly designed for someone with noticeably smaller feet than mine — and set off on our first walk into the forest. Bornean leeches are a fact of life throughout the Danum Valley. They are everywhere, they are patient, and they are very good at what they do. The leech socks are not optional.
The trail itself was reasonably flat and not particularly strenuous, the main challenge being the heat and the humidity, which combined to have us dripping with sweat within about fifteen minutes of leaving the lodge. We’d been walking for around half an hour when we were brought to an abrupt stop by something considerably more impressive than any of us had expected on our very first outing: a Bornean pygmy elephant, right there on the trail ahead, calmly and unhurriedly munching its way through the undergrowth.
The Bornean pygmy elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) is the smallest subspecies of Asian elephant, standing around 2.5 metres at the shoulder — smaller and, some would argue, considerably more endearing than its mainland counterparts, with notably larger ears, a longer tail, and a rounder face. The population in Sabah numbers somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 individuals, making them genuinely endangered, and their origins have been the subject of scientific debate. Genetic studies published in 2003 suggested they were likely isolated from the mainland Asian elephant population around 18,000 years ago, during the last glacial maximum when lower sea levels connected Borneo to the Asian mainland. Getting any closer to this particular specimen would have been a risky business — a charging elephant, even a pygmy one, is not something to invite — so we stayed well back and peered through the dense vegetation at a waving trunk and tail. It showed absolutely no interest in moving on, so after a considerable wait we had to retrace our steps. You don’t argue with an elephant.
Dinner that evening was every bit as good as lunch had been, and was enlivened by the arrival of a truly massive moth — wingspan easily the width of a dinner plate — that settled on the wall of the dining room and stayed there throughout the meal, plus a couple of rhinoceros beetles (Dynastes sp.) that clambered about on the table with the particular confident clumsiness of insects that know nothing is going to eat them. Excellent dinner guests.
Night Drive — Civets, Squirrels and Things in the Dark
The seven of us piled into two electric buggies — quiet enough not to disturb the forest — and headed out into the darkness. Night drives in tropical rainforests are a particular pleasure: with the daylight activity switched off, a completely different cast of characters takes the stage. Within a minute of leaving the lodge, one of the guides spotted a civet in the vegetation at the road’s edge — a clear, well-lit sighting before it slipped back into the undergrowth. Civets are cat-like carnivores, more closely related to mongooses than to cats despite appearances, and have been part of Borneo’s forest fauna for millions of years.
We pressed on into the night, picking up a handful of other sightings along the way, before stopping at the boundary of the primary rainforest. On the return leg, Nicholas spotted movement high in the canopy: a flying squirrel — specifically, one of Borneo’s several species of Petaurista — positioning itself on a branch. We all whispered encouragement at the thing to jump, which, to universal delight, it duly did, launching itself into the darkness and gliding away between the trees on the membrane of skin that connects its wrists to its ankles. Mark and Jen missed it entirely, having chosen precisely that moment to swap binoculars between them. This became, understandably, something of a running joke for the rest of our stay.
Back at the lodge, as we waited to collect our water bottles for the night, a fellow guest pointed at something on the floor. A katydid — a type of bush cricket from the family Tettigoniidae, related to grasshoppers — had wandered in from the forest and was making its way across the furniture with considerable confidence. This was not a small insect. Eight-plus inches long, with antennae a good deal longer than that, and a body three inches or so in height. We took rather a lot of photographs with our hands in frame to give some sense of scale, because otherwise nobody back home was going to believe us.
An excellent first day.
🥾 Day Two: Morning — The Climb, Coffin Cliff, and a Cold Pool
The second day’s first activity kicked off immediately after breakfast. We were doing a two-and-a-half kilometre hike up to a viewing platform on a hill several hundred metres above the lodge — visible from the dining room as we ate, which gave us ample time to contemplate what was ahead of us. Leech socks on again, trekking poles retrieved, and off we went.
The trail crossed a suspension bridge over the river and then began to climb. Initially the going was straightforward enough — well-marked, the forest dense and beautiful around us, enormous trees rising fifty metres and more above our heads, the air absolutely filled with the sound of unseen birds and insects calling from every direction. The forest floor was crossed by a network of huge root systems from the surrounding trees, which demanded constant attention underfoot, and while the path was mercifully not too muddy — it hadn’t rained heavily in the preceding days — there were some shadier sections where the canopy was so thick the ground never fully dried out.
The higher we climbed, the steeper it got. In the upper sections we were using tree roots as steps. It was, to be direct about it, hard going — made considerably harder by the humidity, which ensured we were absolutely soaked through with sweat (a pleasant image, I’m sure you’ll agree). About two-thirds of the way up, we took a short detour to a place called Coffin Cliff.
Against the base of a limestone cliff face, accessible via a short wooden platform, were the remains of a human skeleton and an ironwood coffin. Both had once been placed in a niche within the cliff itself — suspended up the rock face — but decades of erosion had eventually brought the coffin down, exposing its contents. Dendrochronological analysis and the known decay rates of ironwood (Eusideroxylon zwageri, one of the world’s densest and most durable timbers) suggest the coffin is approximately 250 years old, placing its construction in the mid-eighteenth century. The Danum Valley area was home to the Orang Sungai — literally “River People” — an indigenous group who practised a form of animism, and the placing of the dead in elevated positions within cliff faces and caves was a practice deeply embedded in the spiritual traditions of many communities across Southeast Asia. The principle was consistent across cultures: the higher the niche, the greater the status of the deceased. Warriors and chiefs got the best spots, up near the top. The folklore surrounding this particular set of remains is that the individual was a warrior of some standing, placed up on the cliff in order to watch over and protect the village that would have existed along the river below — roughly where the Borneo Rainforest Lodge now stands. Similar traditions of cliff burial can be found across the region: the Toraja people of Sulawesi, the Igorot of the Philippines, communities in Yunnan province in southern China, and in parts of Kalimantan. We’d seen something broadly analogous in Madagascar, where some coastal and highland groups practice secondary burial and the periodic exhumation and re-wrapping of ancestors in a ceremony called famadihana — a tradition whose origins may themselves trace back to ancient connections with maritime Southeast Asia.
After this pause, we carried on to the top. The steepest section was not long, mercifully. And then, hot and thoroughly winded, we were up. The morning mist had lifted, and the views were wonderful — the river far below, and mile upon mile of unbroken rainforest stretching away in every direction. Stunning doesn’t quite cover it, but it’ll do.
The descent was not noticeably easier — slipping was a more pressing concern going down than up — but partway back we were rewarded with one of the more unexpected sightings of the entire trip: a small group of Bornean gibbons (Hylobates muelleri), also known as Mueller’s Bornean gibbons. Gibbons are notoriously reclusive and genuinely difficult to spot; they move through the high canopy at considerable speed and rarely linger. These ones, however, seemed rather relaxed about our presence, and we spent a good ten minutes watching them before they eventually decided they had somewhere better to be.
Further down, we reached what the guides call the jungle jacuzzi — a mountain stream tumbling over rocks into a natural pool, surrounded by forest. We’d all been told to bring swimming things. After a sweaty climb, a cool dip sounded absolutely magnificent. There was, however, a complication. The pool had residents. Fish. Fish who have developed a strong interest in human skin and who nibble with considerably more enthusiasm than the delicate tickling you get in those fish spa places in shopping centres back home. These fish meant business. Their bites felt — and I say this without exaggeration — rather like being jabbed with a pin. Repeatedly. We’d done fish spas before, we’d swum in a similar pool in Laos, but these were in a different league. The technique, we discovered, was to keep moving — swimming put them off. Standing still was inadvisable. Getting out of the water was the worst bit, as they gathered for a farewell nibble. I went in, lasted a respectable amount of time, and came out with my dignity broadly intact. Karen waded in up to the ankles, took one look at the fish, and decided that was quite enough of that, thank you.
The last twenty minutes back to the lodge were uneventful, save for the moment when I misjudged a low-hanging branch and walked directly into it. It didn’t feel like much of a collision at the time. The resulting quantity of blood from the cut on my forehead suggested otherwise. Onwards.
We left the lodge at 3 pm for the afternoon’s activities, setting off along the forest road. About ten minutes in, we found a small cluster of people already stopped at the roadside, peering into the vegetation. The cause of the commotion was a large male Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), parked in the undergrowth having what appeared to be an early evening snack before making his night nest.
Male Bornean orangutans are large, largely solitary animals. A fully developed flanged male — one who has reached full sexual maturity and developed the distinctive cheek flanges of fatty tissue on either side of his face — can weigh up to 90 kilograms and has an arm span of around 2.2 metres. They are generally not aggressive towards humans unprovoked, but this was a dominant male, clearly used to his own authority in this patch of forest, and approaching too close would have been asking for trouble. So we held our distance and attempted to get a good view through twenty metres of dense undergrowth, which was not particularly easy.
Eventually, he tired of his current dining spot and decided to relocate. He moved slowly towards the road, and we all held our breath hoping he would cross out into the open. He was in absolutely no hurry. Then one of the guides moved a little closer — whereupon the orangutan promptly came out onto the road and went after the guide with genuine intent. The guide legged it at considerable speed. An orangutan on the ground, it has to be said, is not built for pursuit — they are far more at home in the canopy — so the chase was not prolonged, but it was extremely entertaining for those of us watching from a safe distance. For the next few minutes the orangutan walked down the road away from us, we followed at a respectful distance, and then he melted back into the trees and was gone.
From there we continued down to the canopy walkway — a 300-metre-long suspension structure sitting 27 metres above the forest floor, connecting a series of platforms built around the upper trunks of the largest trees. Canopy walkways are one of the most effective ways of accessing the upper storeys of a rainforest, where a substantial proportion of the biodiversity — birds, insects, smaller mammals, epiphytic plants — lives out its entire existence, largely invisible from the ground.
I should mention at this point that I have a thing about suspension bridges that swing. Heights are fine. Swinging is less fine. These particular walkways were reassuringly solid, with only the very minimum of movement, and I managed them without incident. The sun was dropping by now, and the quality of the late afternoon light through the canopy was genuinely beautiful. From the final platform we watched a troop of red-leaf monkeys (Presbytis rubicunda) — also known as maroon langurs — making their way up into the high canopy for the night, their russet fur catching the last of the light. Very pleasing indeed.
🕷️ Night Walk — Spiders, Scorpions, and Dame Judi Dench
Back at the lodge for a quick clean-up, and then out again for the final activity of the day: an hour-long night walk through the rainforest along the nature trail boardwalk with Nicholas. Night walks in tropical forest are one of those experiences that are consistently surprising regardless of how many you do, and Danum Valley did not disappoint. We didn’t, to my mild disappointment, see a tarantula — though the forest certainly has them — but there were scorpions going about their evening business, various small spiders, and a good assortment of nocturnal insects.
At one point the boardwalk makes a sharp 90-degree turn at an enormous tree with spectacular buttress roots — Karen made absolutely certain I saw this corner coming, which I appreciated — and at the base of the tree, a short set of steps led down to a viewing platform. Nicholas explained that these steps had been specifically constructed for Dame Judi Dench, who visited the Danum Valley while filming a wildlife documentary series for the BBC. We had seen a clip of the episode on a screen at the tour office in Lahad Datu: Dame Judi, then in her late eighties, had been hoisted up in a harness to the very top of the tree to conduct an interview with a researcher many tens of metres above the ground. A game old girl indeed.
The walk concluded at the frog pond — a purpose-built pool and surrounding vegetation designed to attract and support amphibians — where several species of frog were in full voice and easy to observe in the torchlight. In the shelter beside the pond, tucked up in the roof space, were a large huntsman spider (Heteropoda sp.) and an impressively sized caterpillar that we sincerely hoped was on its way to becoming something spectacular. After the day we’d had, it felt like a fittingly quiet end to an absolutely cracking two days in one of the most remarkable places we’ve ever visited.
Best time to visit the Danum Valley
The Best Time to Visit Sabah, Malaysia (Borneo)
Sabah sits on the northern tip of Borneo and straddles two distinct weather systems, which means the question of when to visit is less straightforward than for many other Malaysian destinations. Unlike Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah generally escapes the worst of the South China Sea monsoon that batters the east coast of the peninsula between November and March, and it enjoys a longer, more reliable dry season than much of the region. That said, rain can arrive at any time of year in a tropical rainforest state, and conditions vary considerably between the interior, the west coast and the dive islands off the eastern shore.
🌞 March to October — Dry Season
This is Sabah’s headline season, stretching for the better part of seven months and covering the optimal windows for almost every activity the state is known for. Skies over Kota Kinabalu are mostly clear, humidity is lower than at other times of year, and the seas around the Semporna Archipelago are calm and well suited to diving and snorkelling. Sipadan Island — consistently rated among the world’s top dive sites — is accessible throughout this period, though the daily permit quota of 120 divers means bookings need to be made months ahead. Mount Kinabalu is best climbed from March to September, when cloud cover is thinnest. April to June brings whale shark aggregations around the Celebes Sea, and Sabah’s own Harvest Festival (Pesta Kaamatan) in May is a lively, culturally rich occasion worth timing a trip around.
What to pack: Lightweight, breathable clothing; a thin fleece or warm layer for the Kinabalu summit night (temperatures can drop to 2–5°C near the top); reef-safe sunscreen; a rash vest and snorkel for the islands; and an early-morning layer for boat departures at the Semporna jetty.
🌤️ February and November — Shoulder Seasons
The weeks either side of the wet season offer a useful middle ground. Weather is transitional — more cloud and the odd afternoon shower, but sustained all-day rain is still relatively uncommon. Danum Valley Conservation Area is particularly rewarding in these months, when wildlife activity is high and the lodges are quieter. The Kinabatangan River, where proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants and long-tailed macaques gather along the riverbanks, is similarly good for a wildlife cruise outside the peak months. Accommodation rates ease off noticeably, and some higher-end jungle lodges offer shoulder-season promotions.
What to pack: Lightweight clothes plus a compact, packable waterproof jacket; insect repellent; quick-dry trousers for jungle walks; and a small dry bag to protect cameras and phones on river cruises.
🌧️ November to February — Wet Season
Sabah’s wet season is a relative term in a state that receives rain year-round, but from November through February the downpours become heavier and more frequent. The east coast dive islands bear the brunt of rougher sea conditions, and some Semporna operators reduce their schedules during the worst weeks of December and January. Prices drop to their lowest point of the year, lodges operate at a fraction of their peak capacity, and the rainforest is at its most dramatic — swollen waterfalls, mist drifting through the canopy and rivers running full and fast. Wildlife on the Kinabatangan actually congregates more predictably along the river’s edges when the interior forest floods, making wet-season wildlife cruises unexpectedly productive for orangutan, elephant and crocodile sightings.
What to pack: A proper waterproof jacket or lightweight poncho; quick-dry clothing throughout; waterproof footwear or sandals with grip for muddy trails; a dry bag for river and boat trips; insect repellent; and a flexible attitude towards itineraries that depend on weather and sea conditions.
For most visitors, March to October represents the most dependable window — with April to June arguably the sweet spot: the dry season is established, whale sharks are in the area, Pesta Kaamatan adds cultural colour in May, and tourist numbers haven’t yet reached peak intensity. Travellers happy to accept the odd shower, and primarily interested in rainforest wildlife rather than diving or summit climbing, will find the shoulder months of February and November offer excellent value and a more intimate experience of the jungle lodges and river cruises that make Sabah one of Borneo’s most rewarding destinations.
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