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My second trip-report on this forum will be about my trip to Malaysia. I went there for 4 weeks and visited beautiful national parks on Borneo and I visited Pulau Tioman. It is a lot of work to proces and edit all the photos and write a report. My report will be in smaller parts on my website, but I will give you a little bit more.

I just finished my first part about Mount Kinabalu and Crocker Range. You can find it here:
http://ronaldzimmerman.nl/malaysia-mt-k ... ker-range/

Now time for some highlights

Mount Kinabalu
A great experience with beautiful species. A very beautiful national park with a lot of primary rainforest and montane species.
Some highlights:

Kinabalu Crested Dragon (Hypsicalotes kinabaluensis)


Speckle-bellied Keelback Snake (Rhabdophis chrysargos)


Can someone ID this gecko?


Crocker Range
Don't go there. You can not walk into the primary rainforest. Skip this national park. I did see this beautiful frog!

Dring’s Slender Litter Frog (Leptolalax dringi)




Gunung Mulu National Park
Very touristic but a great experience! Primary rainforest was beautiful. I also recommend the 'Garden Of Eden Walk'. It is a walk through caves, 3 million bats, crawling though guano (yes it smells), walking through the river and a beautiful waterfall! I also saw a Brown-tailed Racer (Gonyosoma oxycephalum) near the waterfall! The nightwalk (and doing nightwalks yourself) are also worth for slow loris More about this later. I have a photo of the easy to spot adult Bornean Keeled Green Pit Viper (Tropidolaemus subannulatus)



Bako National Park
A great spot for monkeys like the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), but also for herping. We saw some saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) and other beauties. More about this later.

Kubah National Park
This park is not very famous. There is only a small text about it in the Lonely Planet. It is a small national park, but it is a park with primary rainforest. For frog-lovers this should be your number one spot! On Borneo everything was hard to find and you had to work hard to find things. In Kubah it was the same during daytime, but at nighttime it was a different world. So many frogs! It was like a job to see and photograph all species that were easy available! I needed more days! The only disadvantage are the accommodations, because we became spoiled with the restaurants at the national parks (I love the food). At Kubah you have to cook your own meals (so go to the supermarket first).
Harlequin tree frog (Rhacophorus pardalis), Wallace Flying Frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus) and Bornean Horned Frog (Megophrys nasuta) are my absolute highlights together with this photo:

Dark-eared Tree Frog (Polypedates macrotis)


More photos later..

Pulau Tioman
I was here mainly to relax and for snorkeling, but also the the Water Monitor (Varanus salvator). I saw more great species during night walks, but also a Oriental Vine Snake (Ahaetulla prasina). I tried the more creative approach in this photo. My mother and girlfriend call it a 'sperm cell snake'.

Oriental Vine Snake (Ahaetulla prasina)


I will continue to update this topic with blog updates, photos and my complete list of species (still working on that one) of this trip.

You can also follow me on Facebook if you like:
https://www.facebook.com/ronaldzimmermanphotography

Hello Ronald,

I was there numerous times, really nice places to be! Your shots are great, better than mine...
Thanks a lot for sharing, it remembers me very good times.
Happy to read that you liked.

Regards
Fred

Hi there,

I am literally just about to post some pics from Malaysia - although I haven't got around to writing about it yet. I will no doubt ask you about Bako and Kubah in due course!

Neil

Nice one. However, the Tropidolaemus wagleri ia a T. subannulatus.

Thanks for the kind words!

Martti Niskanen wrote:Nice one. However, the Tropidolaemus wagleri ia a T. subannulatus.

Thanks! So Borneo is always T. subannulatus or is there some kind of key available?

Ronald Zimmerman wrote:Thanks! So Borneo is always T. subannulatus or is there some kind of key available?

Yup, always subannulatus to my knowledge, but apparently the species is likely to be split further.

http://www.thomas-jaekel.homepage.t-onl ... tropid.pdf

Great! I'm planning to venture into SE Asia myself next year, so this couldn't come at a better time. Really excited to see more!

Martti Niskanen wrote:

Ronald Zimmerman wrote:Thanks! So Borneo is always T. subannulatus or is there some kind of key available?

Yup, always subannulatus to my knowledge, but apparently the species is likely to be split further.

http://www.thomas-jaekel.homepage.t-onl ... tropid.pdf

Thank you! Very interesting! Now I can add the right name to my report.

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Great! I'm planning to venture into SE Asia myself next year, so this couldn't come at a better time. Really excited to see more!

Yeah I found experiences of other people very valuable. Malaysia is a very comfortable country to visit..

Ronald Zimmerman wrote:Yeah I found experiences of other people very valuable. Malaysia is a very comfortable country to visit..

A great country for herping as it's easy to get around and the infrastructure is good. The great, variable food is a bonus. I'd just hope the short-sighted government would stop the extensive habitat destruction for oil palm farms.

May I ask which part of Tioman you stayed at? When I was there a few years ago, I stayed at Ayer Batang beach (ABC). A nice bit of beach with good access to the Tekek-Juara trail.

Martti Niskanen wrote:

Ronald Zimmerman wrote:Yeah I found experiences of other people very valuable. Malaysia is a very comfortable country to visit..

A great country for herping as it's easy to get around and the infrastructure is good. The great, variable food is a bonus. I'd just hope the short-sighted government would stop the extensive habitat destruction for oil palm farms.

May I ask which part of Tioman you stayed at? When I was there a few years ago, I stayed at Ayer Batang beach (ABC). A nice bit of beach with good access to the Tekek-Juara trail.

Agree! The people of Malaysia are also very helpful, kind and easy to communicate with (in English).

Paya Beach.. There was a trail, but it was not brilliant. Still we did find some nice herps and mammals.