Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It's worth stopping by one of the convenience stores in Fajar Centre to stock up on a
couple of snacks before your trip into the Danum Valley.
Getting There & Away
Air
MASwings
( 1800-883000, outside Malaysia 03-7843 3000)
currently operates four
daily flights to Lahad Datu from KK. The airport is in the upper part of town near Fajar
Centre. You must take the first flight of the day (departing KK at 6:25am) if you don't
want a one-day layover in town before heading to the Danum Valley.
Bus
Express buses on the KK-Tawau route stop at the Shell station (Taman Fajr) near the
Danum Valley office in the upper part of town. Other buses and minivans leave from a va-
cant lot near Tabin Lodge in the lower part of town. There are frequent departures for
Sandakan (RM35, 2½ hours), Sukau (RM23, two hours), Semporna (RM25 to RM30, two
hours) and Tawau (RM25 to RM35, 2½ hours). Charter vehicles and 4WDs wait in an ad-
jacent lot; these guys are difficult to hire after sunset.
Danum Valley Conservation Area
Flowing like a series of dark, mossy ripples over some 440 sq km of central Sabah, the
Danum Valley is a humid, cackling, cawing mass of lowland dipterocarp arboreal
amazement. The forest here is thick - so thick that it has never been (to the best know-
ledge of anyone living) settled permanently. By humans, that is. Oh, there's life here of
another sort in abundance: orangutans, tarsiers, sambar deer, bearded pigs, flying squir-
rels, proboscis monkeys, gibbons and the pygmy elephant (to name a few), watered by
Sungai Segama and shaded by 70m-high old-growth canopy and 1093m-high Mt Danum.
This pristine rainforest is currently under the protection of
Yayasan Sabah
(Sabah
Foundation;
www.ysnet.org.my
)
, a semigovernmental organisation tasked with both pro-
tecting and utilising the forest resources of Sabah. They say that at any given time, there
are over a hundred scientists doing research in the Danum Valley. Tourists are less fre-
quent visitors, but they are here, and you should count yourself lucky if you join their
ranks. That said, to come here you either need a lot of cash or persistence, as the only two
