Precious Living

After a very filling tea, we left for a boat cruise cum crab catching excursion. The view is incredible. We came upon a family of river otters splishing and splashing as though the river is a giant water slide and a bath tub.

What fun! Wish I could join them…

We observed them for quite a while using a pair of binoculars. Their playfulness is sooo inviting.

A few minutes away from the otters, we discovered a lone Proboscis Monkey.

It is a tough life being a male Proboscis Monkey. According to Mr. Tay, one male have to serve 15 to 20 demanding females. If he fails to please all of them, they will kick him out and take in some other Proboscis.

We discovered this one all alone. He didn’t even care that we were so near him. Suicidal perhaps, poor thing.

Later, we would discover a few Proboscis communities. We even saw cute little swinging Proboscis babies. These communities are a lot more wary of strangers though, they fled when they discovered we were watching.

By the way, there are wild crocodiles in the river, and it so happens that on the day we were there, this was in the local newspaper:

Please don’t tell Nic’s parents. I don’t want to be considered a bad influence.

Next, we went crab fishing. On the way, we passed by some competition.

According to Mr. Tay, fishermen here would go fishing for a day, sell the catch for RM80, then rest for two days.

There is more than enough crabs to go around, so we don’t have to worry about competition. Meanwhile, we passed by a small river village.

The lifestyle is simple here, but unlike in Vietnam or Cambodia, they could choose to work harder and earn more for their children’s future. I guess priorities are different here.

Meanwhile, our shy Philippino boat man who looks Sabahan and speaks Sabahan demonstrated how to catch crabs.

It is only a small net, but there is a huge fish carcass hanging in the middle.

This is how we’re supposed to cast the net.

Nic had a go at it, then I had a go. Between the three of us and about twenty nets, we caught one big mud crab.

According to Mr. Tay, we only caught one crab because it is the wrong time and tide for crab fishing. Thankfully, we didn’t have to rely on our own catch to have provide food for  the dinner table later.

Interestingly, we noticed Mr. Tay discussing business deals for his Kota Kinabalu based architecture company on his Celcom phone. That must be the strangest place to be conducting business. Nic too did some work using Maxis GPRS but only after we got back to our dormitory.

The river cruise ended just as the sun was about to set. When we got back, we were surprised by a enormous trays of steaming hot Chili Crab and Ginger Steamed Big Headed Prawns. There were also vegetables and rice et cetera but who cares.

The crabs and prawns would have been enough to feed twelve people but there were only three of us to lick the trays clean!