Of everywhere we’ve been, Borneo is one of our three favourites, alongside the Maldives and Thailand. In March 2025 we spent two weeks in Sabah, the Malaysian side of the island: orangutans at Sepilok, three nights on the Kinabatangan River looking for wildlife from a boat, two nights deep in the Danum Valley rainforest, then five quiet days on Gaya Island to finish.
This guide starts with the part that matters most if you’re wondering whether you could do it too.
Can we manage this?
The flight out. Heathrow at 21:10 with British Airways, 13¼ hours to Singapore, then a 70-minute Malaysia Airlines hop to Kuala Lumpur that evening. We slept in KL and flew on to Sandakan in Borneo the next morning (2 hours 50). Allow two days to reach the jungle.
Flight home. Kota Kinabalu to KL, a night in KL, then KL to Singapore and the BA overnight flight, 14 hours 20, landing at Heathrow at 05:35.
Getting around. Mostly boats and short drives. The one hard journey is into Danum Valley: about three hours from Lahad Datu, the last 90 minutes on potholed logging tracks. Our travel company’s own note said “Prepare for a bumpy ride”, and you do the same road out again.
Walking. Sepilok and the Kinabatangan are gentle: boardwalks, viewing platforms and a lot of sitting in a boat. Danum Valley is where it gets physical. Most trails there are fine, but the Coffin Cliff trek is steep, with rope rails. On Gaya Island the villas are on a steep hillside, up to ten minutes and plenty of steps from the restaurants.
Heat. Hot and humid throughout. At Borneo Rainforest Lodge most rooms have fans, not air-conditioning. Our Abai chalet on the river had air-con, but only a few do, so ask for one when you book.
Early starts. The best wildlife is at dawn and dusk, so expect 6am boat trips and night walks. You can skip any of them.
Pace. Busy for the first week, with two or three short outings a day, then nothing at all booked for the last five days.
The trip at a glance
| Dates (2025) | Where | We stayed | Nights | Meals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2–3 Mar | Kuala Lumpur | Airport stopover (our own booking) | 1 | – |
| 3–5 Mar | Sepilok | My Nature Resort, rainforest chalet | 2 | All meals |
| 5–8 Mar | Kinabatangan River | Abai Jungle Lodge, air-con chalet | 3 | All meals |
| 8–10 Mar | Danum Valley | Borneo Rainforest Lodge, Deluxe chalet | 2 | All meals and guiding |
| 10–15 Mar | Gaya Island | Gaya Island Resort, Canopy Villa | 5 | All meals, a drink a day |
| 15–16 Mar | Kuala Lumpur | Our own booking | 1 | – |
We booked the Borneo part with Audley Travel and arranged the long-haul flights and the two KL nights ourselves.
Sepilok: orangutans and sun bears (2 nights)
From Sandakan airport it’s a 30-minute drive to Sepilok. It’s the last cash machine before the jungle, so draw out money for tips and drinks here. Buy some snacks at the airport too, as there’s nothing to buy between meals once you’re in the rainforest.
We stayed at My Nature Resort, wooden chalets with a balcony facing the rainforest and a long boardwalk behind. Hornbills fly over the rooms.
The next morning we went to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre for the feeding platform, then next door to the Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre. You can’t take bags, food or drink into the orangutan centre; there are free lockers at the gate. There’s a small camera fee at feeding time. Your ticket lasts all day, so you can go back alone for the 3pm feed when the morning groups have gone. The Rainforest Discovery Centre, five minutes away, has a canopy walkway 25 metres up if you have a spare afternoon.
The Kinabatangan River: wildlife from a boat (3 nights)
A car to the Sandakan jetty, then about an hour and a half by boat upriver to Abai Jungle Lodge, watching the banks the whole way. This is the easiest wildlife watching of the trip: you sit in a small boat with a guide and the animals come down to the river.
Over three days we had a sunset cruise that finished among trees full of fireflies, a dawn trip up a side channel to an oxbow lake with coffee on the water, more river cruises in the afternoons, a short night walk on the lodge boardwalk, and a walk through Abai village across the river.
We saw all of Borneo’s so-called Big Five: orangutans, pygmy elephants, proboscis monkeys, rhinoceros hornbills and saltwater crocodiles, along with red leaf monkeys, black leaf monkeys, various kingfishers and other monkeys. All of them were in their natural habitat, which is the difference between the river and the feeding platform at Sepilok.
Abai is simple but clean. Hot water can come and go, the jungle is loud at night (bring earplugs), and the card machine isn’t always working, so carry some cash for drinks and the staff tip box.
Danum Valley and Coffin Cliff (2 nights)
Danum Valley is primary rainforest that has never been logged, and Borneo Rainforest Lodge sits on its own beside the Danum River. Getting there takes most of a day: a boat back down the Kinabatangan, two hours by road to Lahad Datu, then the lodge’s own transfer, the last stretch on bumpy logging tracks.
Everything here is guided and included, in groups of up to 12. There’s a canopy walkway 26 metres above the forest floor, a night drive with a spotlight, night walks, and on hot afternoons you can float down the river on an inflatable tyre. The rooms have fans rather than air-conditioning, wifi is patchy, and the gift shop sells leech socks. Same-day laundry is about RM50 a bag.
The climb to Coffin Cliff
The big walk here is the trek up to Coffin Cliff, a lookout above the valley with an ancient Kadazandusun burial site near the top. Our travel company called it “tough in places” and allowed two to three hours.
It took us about an hour and a half. It was hot and it was muddy, and the steep parts have ropes to haul yourself up. We made it, and right at the very end Alison slipped and landed on her bottom. She wasn’t hurt, and it’s still the story we tell most about the whole trip.
Could you do it? If you can manage a steep, slippery hill walk in heat and humidity, holding a rope on the hardest bits, yes. Wear proper walking shoes with grip, take plenty of water, and talk to your guide the night before. If it’s not for you, the canopy walkway and the gentler trails still give you the rainforest.
Gaya Island: five days of doing nothing (5 nights)
From Danum it’s the bumpy road back to Lahad Datu, a 55-minute flight to Kota Kinabalu, a short drive to the jetty and the resort’s own speedboat across to Gaya Island. We had nothing booked at all for these five days.
We stayed in a Canopy Villa at Gaya Island Resort. Booking through Audley, our stay included all meals across the resort’s restaurants, an evening drink each day, a massage for the two of us, and one snorkelling trip and one mangrove kayak tour each. There’s a house reef to snorkel from the beach and a PADI dive centre that picks up from the pier for the marine park.
The villas are spread up a steep forested hillside, and the walk to the restaurants can take ten minutes with a lot of steps. If stairs are a problem, ask for a villa near the bottom when you book.
What to pack for Borneo
- Walking shoes or boots with real grip for the trails, plus sandals for the boats.
- Light long sleeves and long trousers for dawn and night trips (mosquitoes), and a rain jacket.
- Leech socks, or buy them at the Danum lodge shop.
- Binoculars. Most of the wildlife is up in the trees or across the river.
- A head torch for night walks, a dry bag for the boats, earplugs for the jungle lodges.
- Cash in Malaysian ringgit for tips and drinks, drawn in Sandakan.
- Swimwear for the river tubing and Gaya Island.
Trip dates 1–17 March 2025. Times and inclusions are from our booking and may have changed since.
