Kinabatangan River Tour: a MUST DO in Borneo!
The Kinabatangan River is the second longest river in Malaysia. It is home to lush, green rainforests and incredible wildlife native to Borneo and South East Asia.
The Kinabatangan River has an ecosystem that is thriving with rainforest vegetation and remarkable wildlife. This makes it an incredibly popular location for tour operators and river lodges. In a world that is threatened by mass deforestation and wildlife extinction, these Kinabatangan river tours give travellers the limiting opportunity to witness threatened and endangered species in their natural habitat.
Continue reading for our full breakdown of the Kinabatangan River Tour in Borneo!
How do I get there?
The most popular way to get to the Kinabatangan River is to fly to Sandakan Airport. Alternatively, you can book a bus from Kota Kinabalu (Sabah’s capital city) to Sandakan which takes around 7 hours.
Most tour operators and river lodges will have transport to the river included in their Kinabatangan River Tour package, collecting you from Sandakan city or Sandakan airport.
Which tour should I book?
Your tour experience will depend massively on which tour you opt for. There are several different lodges you can book with. We booked with Borneo Nature Lodge via River Junkie.
Each lodge will offer different tour packages, meaning you can choose a package that suits your budget and time availability. We booked onto the 3 day 2 night Kinabatangan River Tour so we could really immerse ourselves in jungle life!
What should I take with me?
The number one item that you must bring is bug spray. We strongly recommend bringing bug spray with a high percentage of DEET.
For the jungle walks and night walks, you will need long trousers (baggy is best… Holly wore leggings and the mosquitoes managed to bite through them!), long socks and trainers. Some people also opted to wear long-sleeved t-shirts to further avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.
Luckily, our lodge offered Wellington boots to rent for the jungle walks, so trainers weren’t an essential. These boots helped protect us from leeches and other creepy crawlies on the floor!
As the rainforest weather can be very hot and wet, it is recommended to also bring a lightweight raincoat, suncream, a sun hat and a reusable water bottle – the Borneo Nature Lodge had a refillable water bottle station.
To get a great view of the wildlife, you may also want to take some binoculars or a long lens camera. These aren’t essential but they will definitely enhance your wildlife spotting experience!
What should I expect?
On our 3D2N Kinabatangan River Tour, we experienced river tours, night walks and a jungle walk. See below the breakdown of what we did each day:
Day 1 – 1 river tour, 1 night walk
Day 2 – 2 river tours, 1 jungle walk, 1 night walk
Day 3 – 1 river tour
Food was included on the days we stayed at the Borneo Nature Lodge. Breakfast consisted of noodles, toast and cooked breakfast options, whilst lunch and dinner was a range of Southeast Asian dishes, all in buffet style. They also had tea and coffee facilities which were accessible all day long.
Accommodation will vary from lodge to lodge. Borneo Nature Lodge offered private lodges with attached bathrooms and dorm rooms with shared bathroom facilities. When booking you should keep in mind that the accommodation is located in the rainforest, so they have limited facilities (e.g. no hot showers, no access to shops or ATMs. Limited air-con).
What will I see?
On our Kinabatangan River tour with Borneo Nature Lodge, we saw some amazing wildlife such as proboscis monkeys, macaques, crocodiles, kingfishers, hornbills, eagles, lizards and an orangutan! We even saw a langur and proboscis mixed species baby monkey! Our guide was fantastic at spotting the animals and telling us all about them.
The area also has two herds of pygmy elephants and sometimes (if you’re very lucky) you can see them on this tour! Although we didn’t see the elephants on our tour, we saw evidence of their presence including their footprints and flattened areas of grass!
Finally…
To truly immerse yourself in Borneo’s wildlife, we totally recommend booking a Kinabatangan River tour to anyone visiting Sabah! Wondering what else you can do in the area? Check out our guide to Sepilok animal sanctuaries blog post and seven things to do in Sandakan!
