Danum Valley Field Centre — Hotel in Borneo

I've been thinking about this for some time before reviewing. We were at the field studies centre in July for a '3 days 2 nights' package. It cost 'quite a lot of money' for this - not as much as the luxury resort nearby, but still a fair hit to the wallet for Borneo. I'll say straight away that the location gets 5 stars. The forest here is majestic, just over the river from the centre is a large tract of primary rainforest, ie, unlogged, intact. The forest around the centre itself is secondary - it has been logged, at least selectively, previously. This doesn't mean there is no wildlife around the centre and in fact we saw a lot. It isn't easy to see animals in the primary forest and they seem to like the area around the centre. We saw a few wild orang utan within a few hundred metres of the centre, quite close up, including the large male pictured. We also saw Bintong (bear cats), flying squirrels, leaf monkeys, gibbons, snakes, macaques, Rhinoceros hornbills (and other hornbills) and various lizards, spiders and insects. You have to be quite lucky to see the elephants here, but we were woken on our last night here by the sound of them trumpeting in the forest. This was good enough for us as we had already seen them in Kinabatangan. It has to be said that they didn't seem that keen to take us far into the primary forest. We did cross over for a couple of hours (and this was enough to be honest). There were a few researchers there and perhaps the idea was to let them get on with their work unbothered by us tourists.

It was dry when we were there and in fact we rarely saw rain during our two weeks in Borneo in July. It was very hot and humid (90% plus) though - around 36 -38°C most days, with blue skies. As a result we didn't have an issue with leeches at all - I had one on my trousers and my wife found one in her shoe after crossing the river. The river was so low that we walked across it and had a swim in a pool.

Food - 'meh'. Adequate, really.

Accommodation - we paid for a luxury bungalow and it was nice and cool, with a balcony and view of the forest. Hot at night as the electricity went off at 11.

Guide - super nice guy, but wouldn't say he was a great guide. Got the impression he was learning his craft from the other guides. No name, no pack drill, as they say. He was a good guy. It was more a case of me asking questions, rather than him offering up a commentary though.

I gave the centre 3 stars, not the location. Why only 3 stars?

I am aware that this place is miles from anywhere with shops and everything has to be brought in (two hours by AWD), but we paid quite a lot of money and the food could have been better.

The centre itself is a little tired in places and could do with some love. I'm not talking about spending a lot of money, but it just seemed uncared for.

There are researchers here doing valuable work (we were showed the labs briefly) and it is a shame that nobody was made available to do a little presentation about what kind of work was being done and the wildlife that is special to the area. Slideshow and talk kind of thing, as an alternative to going on a night walk, for example. People who visit here are mostly genuinely interested and passionate about nature and conservation but not necessarily fit enough for full days and nights walking in the tropical heat.

In summary, very glad we went and the place is beautiful. Don't go if you are a bucket list animal checklist ticker - you may be unlucky. Make sure you visit Sepilok whilst in Borneo, if you are desperate to see orang utans. We were lucky and saw them in more than one place. Don't moan about the facilities - this isn't the Hilton and you'll spoil it for others.

Message to the owners\trustees - give the place some love and inject some thought into it. You could definitely improve the experience without spending a lot of money. The PhD students would get brownie points for giving talks to visitors,...

Myself and my husband visited danum valley field centre as keen nature lovers, and were not disappointed. ||Our guide, Donny, was incredible - he is born and raised in the area, not to mention being an ex research assistant. What he doesn’t know above the local plants and animals isn’t worth knowing!||We saw a helmeted hornbill, pied hornbills, civets, red leaf monkeys and north Borneo gibbons to name just a few. A particularly memorable moment experience was going into the jungle at night, turning off our torches and experiencing the true blackness. Donny then held up something akin to a glow stick, explaining that this was actually a phosphorescent fungi root. Simply amazing.||The orangutans were being quite shy and he worked so so hard to find us some - we ended up seeing two groups of three, including a mum holding a tiny baby. It was so awe inspiring to see these amazing animals in the true wild.||The whole experience will be a highlight of our trip, and something we will remember forever. ||Some points to note:|- it’s the true wild and animals aren’t all squeezed into one area here like on the kinabatangan. You won’t be seeing animals everywhere, all the time (despite the sounds of the jungle telling you they are frustratingly close). Expect to have to work for your sightings… this makes it all the more worthwhile when you do find animals||- it’s hot, humid and some of the hikes are tough (eg to rhino falls). The paths can be hilly, slippy and involve clambering over things. You will get leeches. You will sweat (a lot). This is all part of the experience, but something to be aware of as one couple on our group left early due to difficulties undertaking the hikes ||- I would definitely advise booking directly rather than via a tour company. Although still expensive, the cost is much more reasonable and you get assigned one of the amazing local guides. You can message them on WhatsApp on +60 12-348 8437||- yes, it’s expensive. Yes, the tourism seems to come second to the research. Our fees help keep this place wild and conserve it and that’s fine by me. I would pay it again in a heartbeat for the experience of the true Borneo wild||- There are a few mentions on here of the food not being great / a stampede for food, but myself and my (very fussy) husband actually thought the food was fine - it’s no fancy restaurant but better than others we have had in Sabah||- The accommodation is basic and we found cockroaches in our room. Of course the stay would be better if this was improved but the beds were quite comfy and we were happy to put up with the rooms. ||- while we were there it was pretty quiet with not many guests. Just as we were leaving loads more people arrived, which did lead to some of the frictions at dinner time and disruption of the quiet vibe described in other reviews. We felt lucky to have been there when it was quiet and it only for busy on our last night. Apparently it seems to come in fits and starts with no clear pattern and I guess it’s likely to be busier in high season||- talk to people! We met such amazing and interesting people here which really added to how much we enjoyed our stay||- personally I would recommend staying 4D3N for the best opportunity to get good sightings |||In summary, this is the perfect place for nature lovers who really want to get into the true wild and are happy with some of the discomfort that comes with that. If you’re hoping for luxury or animal sightings every step you take, it’s...

We were so excited to visit DVFC after hearing lots of positive things about the “crown jewel of Borneo”. Unfortunately, service and facilities did not live up to our expectations and negatively colored our experience overall. The forest itself looks really nice, the drive in is great for wildlife, and there is an extensive trail network, but unfortunately visitors are not allowed to explore trails without a guide, and our guide was terrible. We really wanted to see some Pittas, since DVFC is said to be a good place for them, but our guide had other plans. Despite our group being the larger one (5 of us vs. 2 others) and our pace being relatively slow, our guide took off down the trail, leaving us in the dust, and gave only the most cursory effort at trying to call in a Great Argus that was close by and responding. He also missed 90% of the animals that we spotted and wrongly identified 85% of them (e.g., totally ignored eyeshine that we spotted that turned out to be Small-toothed Palm Civet and misidentified it as an Island Palm Civet, said 2 frogs were the same species when they clearly weren’t, walked right by a cat snake that was on a leaf right next to the trail). There was also a lack of communication about our targets while we were on the hike. We were very disappointed because we had only 1 full day in DVFC and it was wasted by this guide. Future birdwatchers might consider booking their own private guide to avoid this sadness. Now to the facilities - I booked us in February and there was already only the hostel left. Hostel accommodations are not worth the price, which was 2-4x as much as nicer places that we stayed in Sepilok and Sukau. Group members reported that the men’s hostel reeked of piss and had a sink on the floor. My first shower in the women’s hostel was shared with a leech and my friend encountered a leech by the women’s toilet that same day, so the hostel is not for the squeamish. Both hostels also had rodent droppings everywhere. Staff did not seem to clean and only changed a few beds for new visitors. I noticed even some of the beds that had been made up had dirt and rodent droppings on them. Food is very expensive so we mostly did our own meals in the hostel kitchen, which was not very well equipped but we made it work. It was also fortunate that we packed in our own bottled water because there was only 1 water filter at the dining hall and it was excruciatingly slow. All that aside, the subpar accommodations would have been fine for us if they weren’t so expensive and we hadn’t had our birdwatching opportunities ruined by a poor guide. In future, I think we would want to apply to explore as researchers, since researchers are the only ones that have full access to the primary forest plots, can drive their own vehicles in, and don’t have to take guides. Finally, just to note, the sunrise and sunset optional drives are not mammalwatching cruises - they go to a canopy tower where you can watch the sunrise/sunset. This was not explained to us when we signed up for the sunrise drive, but I was not too disappointed since birdwatching at the canopy...