Under the dim light of a torch, a furry black animal with a long tail descends from a tall tropical tree quietly, like a ghost. Its bushy tail clings to the trunk and its eyes glimmer.

About 30 metres away, I sit watching the stealth animal that is the size of a large house cat through my binoculars.

The torch is turned off. In the complete darkness, I can hear only the buzzing of mosquitoes and other unknown insects. Minutes later the torch is turned on again. The creature I'm following has already moved onto a slope about 20 metres away from my bench.

Upon a closer look, I see it is much bigger than a cat and its tail is almost as long as its body. With thick black fur, it reminds me of a bear, or more correctly, a red panda.

Silently it strolls around, eating fruits that have fallen on the ground. The torch is off again.

When the animal finishes eating, it climbs into a tree and disappears into the jungle.

The animal is a bearcat. Neither a bear nor a cat, it is a type of civet and known as the Malay civet cat or the binturong. Living in the tropical forests of Palawan, Borneo, Myanmar and Viet Nam, the endangered animal lives in trees and hides in leaves in the daytime.

"It is a rare animal even in our reserve," says the person controlling the torch, a ranger of Nature Interpretation Centre of Shangri-La's Rasa Ria Resort.

It is my first experience of watching nocturnal animals at a luxury resort in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysia's second largest state on Borneo.

I hop into bed 20 minutes after the night watch and try to relive the thrill of my jungle experience again in a dream.

Birdwatching

I made a one-week trip to Sabah in East Malaysia early this month with 10 other Chinese journalists under an invitation from Tourism Malaysia and Hong Kong-based Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts.

Spending three nights total at Shangri-La's Rasa Ria Resort and Tanjung Aru Resort in Kota Kinabulu, we glimpsed Borneo's natural interests.

We saw white sandy beaches, crystal clear water, fine coral reefs, the highest mountain in Southeast Asia and the lush tropical forests with more than their fair share of unique wildlife, including the rare orangutan, one of the only four apes in the world.

Never before had I stayed at a seaside resort with so many options. The nocturnal watch is only one of activities you can experience at Rasa Ria's 64-acre nature reserve.

In the early morning of the next day, I went birdwatching along a trail of the resort. On the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, the resort faces the South China Sea and is cradled by a jungle headland.

According to a guide of the resort's nature reserve, the resort is the habitat for more than 60 bird species. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, resort guides lead guests for a two-hour birdwatching tour. As the tour requires 72 hours prior booking, I decided to make the trip by myself.

I walked mainly along the trail between the resort's golf course and mangrove swamp near the Mangkabong River.

Before breakfast, I saw over 30 different kinds of birds, including white-headed and white-bellied Brahminy kite, green collared kingfishers and black and white pied triller.

Back to the resort, I found a group of five wandering whistling ducks nestling in the garden of the Nature Interpretation Centre.

Although all of them are common birds in this part of the world, more than half of them were new to me.

'Men of the forest'

The real highlight of Rasa Ria is seeing the orangutans in the nature reserve, which is called "men of the forest."

Because the resort's commitment to conservation, Sabah's Wildlife Department works together with the resort to rehabilitate young orangutans, teaching them the skills necessary to return to the wild, such as how to climb trees and fend for themselves.

In the nature reserve, six young orangutans can be seen twice a day eating bananas.

After a wonderful breakfast at a gazebo of the resort's Coast Bar, we walked into the reserve to see the apes.

After five minutes' walk from the entrance of the reserve, we arrived at a platform in the jungle. On another platform 10 metres away, a ranger was feeding bananas to three young orangutans.

But these red-furry creatures seemed to have no interest in the 20 humans who had packed the platform and excitedly jostled for position and clicked buttons on their cameras.

One was laying besides the ranger and gave us a drowsy look. Another two played with each other, while hanging on a branch of a tree. Minutes later, a female left the branch, climbed along a rope to stretch her muscles and began to play to the crowd, performing acrobatics on the rope.

One minute she was swinging herself back and forth. Another minute she was in sore straits. She stared down her observers with playful aggression. Under the morning sunshine, her fur looked golden.

The atmosphere was truly intimate and intoxicating.

National park

While Rasa Ria is a bit out of the way, the Tanjung Aru Resort is only 10 minutes from the sprawling downtown of Kota Kinabalu and the Kota Kinabalu International Airport and minutes away by speedboat from the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park.

But similar to Rasa Ria, it is located in a beautiful setting, as the white sandy beach of the South China Sea fringes the peninsula, and the five tropical islands of the national park and the 4,101-metre-high Mount Kinabalu, Southeast Asia's highest peak, loom in the distance.

There again, we were spoiled with choices. We could arrange a fishing expedition, or a day of scuba diving at the resort's Marina water sports centre. But as it also offers hourly ferry services to the nearby Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, we decided to visit two of the park's five tropical islands for fish feeding, snorkelling and nature trail walks.

We left the hotel at in the morning and 10 minutes later a speedboat brought us to the pier of Pulau Manukan, the second largest island in the park.

On the plank pier, we fed tropical fish with bread from our local guide. Lured by the food, the colourful fish gathered in the clear water.

After the fish feeding, we left the island to Pulau Sapi, the most visited island in the park, which features some of the best snorkelling in town.

While most of my fellows were eager to go snorkelling, I decided to explore a natural trail by myself.

Along the trail encircling a hill, I was again in the jungle. Again I became the target of mosquitoes. Long pants and insect repellent could not prevent me from their attacks. But the itching was a small price to pay for excellent views of an oriental pied hornbill and a monitor lizard.

The hornbill, with its surreal ivory head and bill, perched quietly on a branch of a tree by the trail and left till I managed to take two photos.

The metre-long lizard, hiding in the bushes near the trail, reminded me of the dinosaurs in the blockbuster movie "Jurassic Park."

After the walk, I started snorkelling in the ocean.

The water was so clean, the coral reefs so close and the fish so diverse. Forgetting the time and scorching sunshine while being beguiled by the underwater world, my back burned.

Sunset at Tanjung Aru

During our stay in Sabah, we made a day excursion to Mount Kinabalu, the biggest tourist attraction in Sabah and the centrepiece of the vast 754 square kilometres Kinabalu National Park.

But it takes at least two and a half days for common travellers to climb Kinabalu.

In a short trip that we had to spend three hours on the road and only two hours left in the park, we could only visit a natural trail of less than one kilometre near the park's entrance. And it was a rainy day and the mountain summit was hidden behind the clouds.

The mountain didn't impress us as much as the beautiful tropical flowers seen in the forests.

We regretted failing to get a view of the whole mountain, but that was compensated soon at a cocktail party held on Sunset Bar of Tanjung Aru on the tip of the peninsula.

With a mango shake in the hand and sitting under coconut trees, I could see the Mount Kinabalu in all of its glory looming in the spectacular sunset.

The South China Sea and the five islands of Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park were tinged by the sunset.

Enjoying the cool breeze from the sea, I was aware that to capture the charm of Sabah's amazing nature I didn't really need to travel far.

(China Daily 06/17/2006 page9)