Proboscis Monkeys

My trip to see the proboscis monkeys was indeed an experience. I don't think I ever really thought I would see any and yet I saw two troups of about a dozen monkeys in each. Aside which I saw a pangolin curled up in a tree and a two foot monitor lizard. We caught the boat at the quay near the restaurant I had visited the night before. The word that comes to mind is a sciff, but am unsure if this describes the boat. It is very long and narrow, not much wider than a canoe and has a wooden canopy for protection from the sun and a huge outboard motor that can go fast, fast, fast! The young boy driving was possibly 18 years old, but they all look so young that he could have been a little older. He surely knew how to throw this boat around just like all the water taxis in the water taking people over to the water village which is the largest in the world. More of that later.
We sped along the river, past the mosques and the Sultan's Palace, still invisible from this side, hidden and private by a mass of trees. As we came towards the main mangrove I realised that the mangrove trees I had seen before were nothing compared to these trees. The roots reached out of the water 3 metres and more and the trees reached up into the forest canopy. The boat manoevred its way into small openings looking for monkeys. The roots stretched up and out towards us like hands. The young man knew where the pangolin slept and showed me him balancing precariously round a tree branch some 4 metres up. A strange creature, armour plated and only found in this area. A pangolin is a spiney anteater. It is always a priviledge to see an animal in its wild surroundings and particularly one that is not often seen by others. Many will not even have heard of a Pangolin. We heard the monkeys first, whistling to one another. They sounded like birds, possibly doves calling, but I was assured they were proboscis monkeys. We manoevered back in amongst the mangrove and looked up and there they were, in the tops of the trees eating the mangrove leaves. These leaves have very little nutrition and tends to give the monkeys pot bellies, particularly the older monkeys. The male of the species has the proboscis, a large nose. The bigger the nose, the bigger the belly, the more attractive they are to the flatter faced females. I was thrilled to see them and the second troup that we saw further along the river had a female with a baby on its belly. It was such a thrilling experience. An experience I shall have to remember because they were very difficult to photograph so high in the trees and they were very fast moving.