I woke up at 5:45am to catch a 6:15am cab to the airport. I've been really good about getting up a bit before my alarm goes off -- I guess I'm afraid of missing my flights. A quick 45 minute flight and we were in Sandakan, on the eastern side of Sabah, very close to the Philippines. We would use Sandakan as our home base to visit the orangutan sanctuary in Sepilok. My German friend Urte visited Borneo for 3 weeks in August, and they stayed in Sepilok at a fancy eco-resort. Tiffer and I decided to keep costs down by staying in Sandakan, a sleepy little town that pretty much shuts down by 9pm. We passed a shanty town with rickety houses on stilts and corrugated tin roofs and lots of people and children running about. It's always sad to see this in developing countries -- here we are flying in to see orangutans in a sanctuary, and there are many people who are barely making a living. But even a shanty town needs its mosques, and we saw not one but TWO of them just from the highway. After checking into our very sketchy hotel (but it has hot water and a/c), we dumped our stuff and headed out to the sanctuary.
The Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary rescues babies separated from their moms in the wild (usually because the mom gets killed or injured), as well as those found by local people and those confiscated by the government after being sold as pets. When you see these little guys, it's easy to see why people want to keep them as pets! Those round, soulful eyes look at you and your heart melts. They are very needy as babies, needing constant care just like a human baby. They need to be fed every 4 hours, held and hugged, and they get sweaters to sleep in. After getting medical attention and being socialized in separate cages, they go through many stages of independence, until they eventually go into the forest and live away from humans. Those who lost their moms have to learn how to forage for food, swing on branches/ropes, climb trees... all very difficult tasks for humans to demonstrate. So the orphaned Orang Utans develop more slowly than those who have moms. Rehabilitated female Orang Utans often come back to the feeding platforms where they once ate all their meals to "show off" their little babies -- awww, just like humans! A typical wild Orang Utan lives to about 35 years, and has 2-3 babies in their lifetime. Orang Utans in the sanctuary can live longer. The ladies can get along with others just fine, but the dominant males often need to be relocated because they get into territorial fights with other dominant males. We got to see a short DVD about the history of the sanctuary and the Orang Utan Appeal UK which funds the sanctuary, and they showed the release of one of the dominant males in another protected wildlife refuge far from Sepilok. They show you all this so you can get tears in your eyes and a pain in your heart that makes you want to adopt one of three little babies looking for a sponsor. The youngest was a 1.5 year old male, and I was tempted to "adopt" him for my little nephew Kai.
There are two feeding times at the platform, where we watch Orang Utans of various ages coming from deep in the forest to drink milk and eat bananas. Orang Utans are the largest apes in Asia, and the largest vegetarian apes in the world. A full grown female gets to be about 120 pounds, but a male is much larger and has an arm span of 2.5 meters (about 7.5 feet, I think). Tiffer said he would be an awesome basketball player if his arms were that long. I think he would look pretty funny like that.
The Orang Utans are much cuter when they are coming onto the platform, and when they are waiting. Some of them do somersaults and show off (or maybe this is their normal play behavior), they wrestle and play and are just absolutely adorable. The humans are pretty fun to watch too, with their SLR cameras and telescopic lenses fixed on the platform and shooting tons of pictures. Even at 10am, standing and watching the Orang Utans is a HOT affair, and I can feel sweat trickling down my neck and back. Tiffer's face was just dripping with sweat, and I made sure not to get too many pictures because I was NOT looking cute.
After 30 minutes, we decided that we were going to venture into the jungle for some trekking. We debated whether we should get some water first, but said nah, we'll be fine... famous last words.
Some of you heard me freaking out about these things called leech socks before I left. It basically looks like windbreaker sleeves for your legs, so that you prevent leeches from latching on and sucking your blood until you pick them off. Tiffer said he doesn't need them, that they would look silly and we could just pick them off. Leeches don't carry disease, and they don't hurt much, but their bite has anti-coagulants in them so you bleed bleed bleed for a long time. There are two kinds of leeches in these parts, one brown colored and the other striped (tiger leeches). The are teeny tiny -- about the size of half of a toothpick -- until they have had their fill. Tiffer and I started off through the thick woods, following a guided group along the Bird Trail -- until we somehow lost them. The jungle is a little bit less hot because the sun doesn't come through, but there's no breeze and you're going up and down hills, on a trail full of tree roots, mud and leaves. We didn't see any wildlife other than HUGE millipedes/centipedes and a large swarm of ants or termites, until I saw what looked like a twig swaying -- A LEECH! I alerted Tiffer and started videotaping it, until it smelled me and started RUNNING in my direction. When he got a lock on my carbon dioxide, the little guy could MOVE! We kept walking a bit further, and I said something to the effect that I don't understand what everyone is freaking out about leeches for, we haven't seen one on us yet. Then Tiffer found a big blood stain on his sock, and we both found about 5 leeches on our shoes and socks. Leslie, I made sure to take a picture of it ON MY SOCK before I flicked him off, but no, he didn't get any blood. Now we are adults and we know that they are harmless, but as soon as you stop moving, they start inching up your shoes and socks toward your skin. They don't flick off that easily, so you have to use your fingernails, but they have amazing suction and they can stick on very well. So here we are in the middle of the trail, freaking out and hopping about making weird noises as we frantically whip our hands in the air trying to get them off of us. There were other couples walking around with flip flops(!)and shorts, apparently unaffected by the leeches. When we stopped and asked, they said they stop every 100-200 meters to remove them. No big deal. I guess we're just woosies.
After an hour of hiking and leech-picking, I was feeling pretty darn gross. On the way back to the information center, we saw some macaque monkeys hanging out on the wooden path (on the way into the jungle) and I filmed as they started mating. Monkey porn. The guide book said that they are always aroused, and they were right.
After the 3pm feeding, a very tired and sweaty Tiffer and I headed back into Sandakan on a scary public bus. I took pictures. But this bus and sanctuary is the only place we saw a ton of white people. Funny thing is, one of the couples I saw yesterday just walked into the internet center here in Semporna. I guess we're on the same route through Malaysia.
Ok, 9 more minutes to go.
Tiffer was sorely unimpressed with Sandakan, and with other tours much more expensive and farther away than Sepilok, he decided that he wants to go back to Kota Kinabalu and explore the Kinabalu National Park instead. I decided to scrap the three one-way tickets I had already purchased (no refunds) so that I can go dive Sipadan. So we parted ways this morning, and I bought a one-way ticket here to Semporna. I am now planning on spending the next 3-4 days here diving, then have to figure out how to get to Bali to catch my 4 flights home.
For those of you following the news, the Islamic militants who bombed a nightclub in Bali were executed a few days ago. As with many terrorist groups, there are often retaliatory attacks so Bali probably isn't the best place to hang out right now. Plus, Sipadan is a better dive spot than Bali, so I figured I'll change my plans. I'm flying by the seat of my pants, and my flight to SE Asia didn't cost me much thanks to frequent flier miles. I'll report more tomorrow, after my first day of 3 dives!
asami
