We really didn't know what to expect of The Danum Valley Field Centre and even after spending 3 days there we are still a bit confused about the place! We really wanted to go to Danum Valley as it is meant to be the best place in Borneo to see wild animals. Unfortunately the tourist 'Rainforest Lodge' in the valley would have blown about a months budget so we had been trying to get into the research centre which sometimes allows tourists. The field centre is primarily for scientists, researchers and students and there had been some email exchanges for the past few weeks trying to persuade them to let us go- eventually they said yes as we said we had a keen interest in sustainable architecture and wanted to see how their centre impacted on the jungle environment.
After leaving Lahad Datu town it's a 2.5 hour drive right through the jungle to the centre. Luckily we had a research assistant in the van with us that told us all about the jungle, the centre, and showed us which areas had been logged previously and were now secondary rainforest. He explained that a lot of the work the centre does is to compare the primary and secondary rainforest so that we might know what the future holds in terms of these habitats. He was also a keen botanist and gave us some palm fruits and another strange thing a bit like a lychee as well as some ginger stems picked from the rainforest whilst telling us what we could and couldn't eat if we happened to get lost in the rainforest. As we drove deeper into the forest we began to see some of the wildlife including 2 amazing Asian Paradise Flycatchers with long white flowing tail feathers.
When we arrived at the centre and checked into the dorm rooms we were a bit surprised to find that the 96 bed facilities had only 2 other residents; a couple from Costa Rica. Later when we went to have our dinner at the canteen we found that we were the only people eating there though there were still 3 members of staff. These three chefs seemed to have battering and deep frying down to a tee as pretty much everything we ate there was yellow!
We were told that the scientists are currently away and do not return until march, so the permanent staff are still on site waiting for them and doing some maintenance work. This made sense though we still thought that 3 chefs for two people was probably a tad excessive!
That night we went on a night drive with the Costa Ricans, the moon was out so we didn't see lots of animals but we did get to see a wild mouse deer which is quite rare (and also probably one of the cutest animals in the world at only 12 inches tall). The next day we tried to trek to a ancient burial site; about 30 minutes in (and after spotting some red leaf monkeys) true to its name it began to rain in the rainforest. We were soaked to the bone within about 10 seconds and we soon got a taste of the jungles most infamous resident- the leech. Or rather they had a taste of us. It's the first time we have come across them and we weren't too impressed!
Nevertheless we persevered and returned to the centre where the Ranger showed us where he had spotted a slow loris the night before and suggested we should check back later. On the way we spotted a few orangutans including a mother and her baby sheltering from the rain on a tree. We returned after the rain had stopped to watch the Orangutan and after about 15 minutes were really lucky to see her climb down to the ground and wander into the jungle; she was only a few meters away and it was an amazing experience, something we will remember forever.
We spent the rest of our time on various treks where we saw plenty of deer, maquaces, Orangutan, bearded pigs and all sorts of birds. We didn't ever really get to understand the policy on tourists as the facility is clearly there but underused, we suspect maybe that scientists don't want too many people trudging through the jungle upsetting the balance. We were also a bit surprised to see that the centre did not have much of a sustainability policy- a diesel generator was used and the staff seemed to prefer to drive around the centre rather than walk. It was a really unique and amazing place to visit and was great to be seeing the wild animals by ourselves.