Adventure Alternative Borneo Sdn Bhd - Kuching, Sarawak

Justin B.

I recently had the opportunity to do a 7-day, private tour through Adventure Alternative Borneo with Mike Gordon as my guide. Tom, Aisha, and the rest of the crew in the main office were great with their communication and helping me settle on an itinerary. I settled on a private tour consisting of Sepilok B&B, Sukau Greenview Lodge @ Kinabatangan River, and the "chaléts" at Deramakot Reserve.

The lodges at all 3 locations weren't luxurious (which I wasn't looking for), but were all clean, well maintained, and had a/c to help defeat the heat. The staff members were polite and professional and the food ranged from "pretty good" to "damn, that's delicious!" (Deramakot food was the best). One note about the river, there are power cuts throughout the day to conserve energy in the village, so your A/C and WiFi will be offline for several hours.

Sepilok B&B (ceiling fan photo): I had a little snafu with my guide reservation for the night walk at the Rainforest Discovery Center in Sepilok, but I called Aisha and she immediately resolved the situation with the local staff. This walk was off to a rough start with there being a lot of groups bunched up on the canopy waiting for the giant flying squirrels to emerge from their nest boxes at sunset, but it was amazing to have them gliding overhead and the rest of the walk with my guide after that was great as we spotted a pit viper, more flying squirrels, and the 2 goal animals: Slow Loris & Western Tarsier.

Sukau Greenview @ Kinabatangan River (green accent wall photo): I met my guide, Mike, at the River and immediately appreciated his "no bullshit" attitude. I let him know the wildlife I was most interested in seeing and emphasized that I'm a bird nerd. He's told me he's not a birding-focused guide, but he damn sure acted like one, spotting and identifying them as good as the several, exceptional birding guides I've had previously. The boat rides here were a mix of private (fantastic) and shared (some great, some less so). We saw nearly everything I had hoped for: pygmy elephants, orangutans, proboscis monkeys (tons of them), countless birds, several other primates, crocodiles (babies/juveniles), and even a colugo (aka flying lemur)!

Deramakot Reserve (blue pillows photo): This reserve is Mike's bread & butter, so it was just us and his driver Norman (who it's impossible not to like). He suggested that we avoid the early morning drives when everyone goes out and instead do a later start for our AM drive and spend the majority of our 4x4 time on the afternoon/night drives. I trusted his experience and was glad I did as we managed to avoid rain and our spotting was excellent. The only thing on my list we didn't see was a clouded leopard (which I knew was rare), but we were lucky enough to spot: otters, more orangutans including babies (he's never "not" seen them and damn near guaranteed it), marble cat (!!!), leopard cat, binturong and palm civets (hanging out together in the same tree night after night), slow loris, a reticulated python, a gibbon, so many new birds for my life list, and the biggest centipede Mike had ever seen (me too, obviously).

The road leading to Deramakot was getting bad after a couple days of rain, so Mike gave me the option to stay for my last night and risk getting stuck or leave and give ourselves more time to get me back to civilization. Not wanting to risk missing my flight the next afternoon, we headed out and Norman expertly navigated the muddy/flooded road. I spent the last night in his wife's guesthouse and was provided a transfer to the airport in the morning. I greatly appreciated the way Mike handled the whole situation, and deferring to me for the decision, as we came across a point in the road that was starting to flood and would have been a big problem the next morning.

Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better experience in Borneo. Mike (and Norman) were phenomenal and the whole AAB staff made the tour fantastic. I've taken several wildlife tours around the world and this one was definitely top notch. Highly recommended!

Iqbal F.

Was in town without plans due to unforeseen circumstances and Adventure Alternative managed to point us in the direction of boat operators at the very last minute. Super helpful and professional team especially Angela who was helpful over the phone and responded to emails incredibly fast. Highly recommend.

Zoe R.

AAB organized our stay at Sandakan, Deramakot Forest and Kinabatangang river and everything was perfect, they made everything very easy, communication with them was very fluid and they gave us advises for our itinerary. We had great holidays thanks to them!

Paul G.

We did a wetlands boat ride, a 10 km kayak trip and a 2 day overnight trip to Bako National Park to see the monkeys and animals and see the sights. The Adventures Alternative Tour Company was quick to organise our tour and arrived on time. The guide was pretty good with English but did little to add much to the first 2 experiences. On the overnighter, he was knowledgable and showed us things we would have missed but seemed somewhat disinterested with us, often walking ahead and taking his own photos without providing information to us unless he was continuously prompted. On the kayak trip he hopped in with the kayak guide and off they went having a grand old time, asking us to follow them without really engaging with the tourists (us). We did feed some fish and had a nice walk around the village of the kayak guide which was nice. Some of the itinerary items (stated in the company emails) we did not do. when we discussed the itinerary with our guide he would often come up with a reason not to do it, like, we don’t do the walk around the village anymore because “the dogs have rabies”, or “the mini cave can’t be access now”. Some of many random reasons. The 2 walks he had planned to take us on were both 600 metre walks which we were aghast at. We found the 3.5 hour walks ourselves and did those with the guide tagging along or often walking ahead. If I did this again I would have organise a grab taxi for all the tours. Once you are at the park it is fairly straight forward. Advantage of the tour is you don’t have to think too hard however when something is wrong it takes effort to fix it.

Carol A.

Booked our 3 night stay at Deramakot through AAB. Everything was fantastic!!
Adi was a brilliant guide!!

Daniela C.

Very knowledgeable staff and truly passionate about the beautiful Borneo.

Andy B.

Very helpful but need to book ahead

Awang F.