Orangutangs and Borneo Jungle
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2007
1
11
150
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Sepilok, Malaysia
Saturday, July 14, 2007
After dropping our things, we headed down the road to the "Sepilok Orangutan rehab center" these guys do a great job at saving orphaned orangutans, rehabilitating them and introducing them back into the jungle. We were there for the afternoon feeding time, and headed into the park and waited near the feeding platform (with the 50 or so other tourists) and all sat staring into the jungle hoping to catch a glimpse of an orangutan. Like clockwork, a mum and here baby appeared and started messing around, hanging upside down and playing. It was amazing to watch, they are soo strong and agile and have very human like idiosyncrasies. Once the food, bananas and sugar cane, came out some more showed up and put on a great show.
Next day we were off on our Uncle Tan's wildlife jungle adventure. After we signed our waivers and papers that said many times that this place was not the Hilton, we were boarding the boats on the way to the camp which would be our home for the next 2 nights. We were really happy to have packed light, as we saw some other people lugging suitcases and huge backpacks onto the boats. Matt is still baffled at what they have in there.
So, we go pelting down the river, and then the driver all of a sudden stops (some people in the boat are thinking elephant or croc), no no, it's a bird in a tree a long way away...ohhh..I hope it gets better than this. Down at the camp we found our little hut and got to know the 2 other couples we would be sharing it with. 15 mins later down the bumpy, muddy trail came the people with suitcases.
Our 3 day/ 2 night trip consisted of a night cruise, morning cruise, jungle walk, afternoon cruise, night walk and lastly a morning walk. We saw monkeys, birds, monitor lizards, frogs, and the highlight a BIG CROC. Our morning cruise was just about over, and we really hadn't seen much then the driver spots this croc. He got us quite close in the boat, a bit too close if you ask me, and the croc just sat there posing. It eventually moved and dove into the water which caused a bit of excitement on the boat, needless to say we were happy to get out of there. And on the night walk, which nic chickened out of (cause it was really dark), matt go to see a scorpion and a tarantula after the crazy guide was putting his hand into the rotting wood and burrows. Later, the guide recounted some of his many stories about getting stung/bitten by things in the jungle - crazy. Us and some of the kids we a bit disappointed to here we were just a couple of weeks of the chance to see some elephants, that would have been cool. And even though we searched in vain and blew kisses (in an attempt to attract the orangutans) on our morning walk we didn't see an orangutan :(
All in all we had a great time, met some lovely people, especially Jason and Vicky :), and ate some pretty decent food, (check out the pics we got an impromptu cooking class too), considering we were in the middle of the jungle with no running fresh water and only electricity between 7pm and 12pm. After 2 nights without a proper shower (the water was muddy)...we were dieing for one, I have no idea how people go for much longer than that, and got back in the boats to the starting point to head to Semporna for our diving adventure.
