The river is an oasis for wildlife and from the water there appears to be untouched rainforest. Sadly the palm oil plantations are only a few hundred metres from the river in some places . The contrast between the jungle and the sterile plantations could not be more stark. On a positive note there is a burgeoning ecotourism industry of small scale low impact developments.

Like us most of the tourists come to try to get a glimpse of the pygmy elephants which still survive in small numbers along the bank. They were too far upstream for us to see this time and nor did we see any Orangutan that are numerous enough for everyone else to glimpse except us it seems. However, we did see lots of the amusing proboscis monkeys, some large monitor lizards, 2 crocodiles (one dead, one alive), sea eagles, kingfishers, storks, egrets, hornbills of various sorts, and masses of macaque monkeys long tailed and pig tailed which are more handsome. Best of all as we left the river we saw a pod of the increasingly rare Irrawaddy dolphin.

Pig tailed macaque with good hairdo.

And another.

     Dead (and very smelly) croc

 

Long tailed macaques getting ready for bed.

Mum and child pigtail macaque eating palm oil fruit plucked from the river.

A favourite food of proboscis monkeys .....

and the water hyacinth that fringes some of the river banks.