International Traveller

COUNTING YOUR BLESSINGS

Three sharp raps at my villa door startle me from my slumber. There’s every chance it is a cheeky macaque requesting a pre-dawn villa show-and-tell, but it’s more likely just a porter delivering the morning wake-up call I’d requested the night before. The clock has just ticked over to 5am, and it’s time to rise; the first of our early morning Kinabatangan River cruises is due to depart at first light.

In the morning’s blue glow, I slide into a seat beside a man visiting from Korea. He’s an avid birdwatcher, but I’ve come to Malaysian Borneo with a slightly different wildlife-spotting agenda. The goal is to tick the famed ‘big five’ off my travel bingo sheet - orangutans, pygmy elephants, saltwater crocodiles, proboscis monkeys and rhinoceros hornbills. And here, amid

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