The best way to visit this awesome little park would be to stay overnight. Not having time to do this, we joined two others for a small group tour. Of course this makes the visit a little rushed, and means you see only quite a concentrated area of the park, and only the diurnal animals.

Nevertheless, it's a pleasant trip. The basic programme sees you driving to Bako village, transferring to the park via speedboat (which enables you to take in some of the cliff scenery), and going animal-spotting.







You don't have to move very far from the park headquarters to see a number of species. Even the shy ones with no food-stealing proclivities seem to enjoy hanging out in the trees nearby or on the beach.

During the day, the big five are:

-- Bearded pigs (the beards are like paintbrushes, and the snouts are extraordinarily long; the babies are cute and stripey, but daddy pig obviously doesn't see them that way, as he ate a couple recently)





-- Proboscis monkeys (some babies were born recently, but two got eaten by the bearded pigs; honestly, these pigs' eating habits are quite shocking...)





-- Silver leaf monkeys (they're shy and pretty; we spotted a troupe in the tree-tops, who later appeared again wandering along the beach)









-- Long-tailed macaques (the usual disreputable bunch, although in fairness this old girl is one-eyed, so I guess she has to take her chances where she can; but one has a reputation as a beer-addict, and none of them is to be trusted)



-- A pit viper (green and scary, though not as scary as the band who oversaw our cold drinks in Penang that time)



With the exception of the bearded pigs, we'd actually seen all those animals before. But that never matters. Every sighting of a wild animal is a privilege.

After lunch we tacked on a brief boat tour, so that we could take a look at some of the beaches and rock formations. It was pretty choppy by now, and we bounced and rolled quite impressively. Fun, though.







The 3 o'clock slot for the boat back to the village is usually over-subscribed by all accounts, so we left a little earlier.

As I said, longer would have been nicer, but short is better than nothing.