Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By Nitin Gairola
It was a full moon night in Borneo and we were wide awake and eagerly waiting at the pier for our long wooden boat to pick us up for the night safari on the Kinabatangan River. When the boat arrived, we took our seats and Richa & I chose the front of the boat to ensure we got some unobstructed views. But in the end that really didn’t matter much since the wildlife could be towards the side or back of the boat as well. We had around 12 people that night and were on our way on the murky river.
I had made sure I carried my Canon R-series mirrorless camera and also my Vivo X300 Pro mobile (which I use as a camera only, as there is another mobile phone for normal things that one does with a phone when it is coupled with data). These two gadgets ensured I had both the long-range telephoto lens of the Canon mirrorless camera (around 150 – 600 mm) for up close images of wildlife and also the relatively wider-range (24 to 240 mm) of the Vivo X300 Pro, which uses a camera co-engineered by Zeiss. Make no mistake, 240 mm is quite a decent tele-photo too given that it’s what is known as the ‘10x’ zoom in everyday parlance. The best part is that the images of the Vivo X300 Pro don’t break at this zoom range and neither at night. To add to it, the Vivo range lends incredible flexibility to quickly switch from the tele/photo zoom to a wide angle at 24 mm, in case you want a perspective shot or in case wildlife has come to you (which may not end too pleasantly for you if it’s the wrong kind of wildlife). Vivo X300 Pro is possibly the best camera phone out there and that’s why I picked it up after a lot of research last December and have taken it on a lot of my world travels in the past 9-10 months.
The first animal we spotted was a bright kingfisher that was sitting on a branch jutting out from the bank of the river. You may say it was a bank branch (terrible joke I know but I led myself into it). The kingfisher was surprising still and close enough to be captured sharply via the 10x mobile zoom and for some reason Vijay Mallya’s magnum opus came to my mind, but I was miles away from a cold one.
Back to the wild – At night the jungle does indeed come alive. While, just like humans the primates go to sleep, the nocturnal birds are still up & about and the crocodiles are really in their element. And we know that well, since we saw quite a few pair of eyes pop out of the muddy waters. There were a lot of massive saltwater crocodiles about and apparently somewhere in the river there was the biggest resident croc as well, whose name I am forgetting. We were to see that monster croc the next day but that night we even saw baby crocs. I was a bit concerned being too close to them since crocodile mothers can be fiercely protective, which is generally a bit unusual for reptiles.
From there we turned right into a narrow waterway and suddenly the jungle started making its own sound. It was a very eerie and continuous sound of katydids or bush crickets, besides other night critters of the jungle and the haunting song of the night stayed with us for a while. It was really quite spooky and yet serene and comforting. And to add to the moment, a while later we saw a lot of big bats flying overhead and hanging from the dense rainforest trees. We knew why Christopher Nolan named his Batman Trilogy – ‘The Dark Knight’.
And the dark night brought us more horrors as we saw a mid-sized crocodile drag something that was more than a mouthful. I could not make out what exactly it was but it had legs and its intestines were spread on the river bank. Its grey head was bobbing out too and the rest of the body (save the legs and head) was fitting within the wide jaws of the predator. It was most probably a monkey but in the dark it was hard to be sure.
I had frankly not expected to see so much of wildlife at night but our guide, Ayieml, was quite the expert with his ability to catch even the slightest of movements or the faintest of sounds. He delivered his parting shot that night when he drew our attention to a rather large fish owl that was sitting atop the rail of a wooden platform. The fish owl had just one eye and it appeared quite menacing but I am sure it was a darling deep down (except for the fish).
And so, our first night safari in Borneo was interesting to say the least and we were now looking forward to the daytime action. After getting some deep sleep, we were to wake up early next morning and go down the river in order to witness other forms of exotic wildlife. These would be primarily primates (long-nosed ones), the colourful birds and some surprises along the way as well. The jungle is always full of them.
(Nitin Gairola is an extreme world traveller who has been to every major desert & forest eco-region on Earth and to around 150 countries as well. He is unofficially known as the ‘most travelled Indian’ and this multi-decade exploration program to witness the entire world is named ‘Borderless Planet’. Nitin is a published travel writer & poet too. Join him @ www.instagram.com/MostTravelledIndian/)
