Despite good intentions and caring faces, it would be massively inaccurate to say that orang-utans have been rehabilitated by our presence in the Sepilok sanctuary over the last couple of days. About the best we can say is that we haven’t tangibly harmed any of the big orange fellas, nor have they seen the need to dispense waste from their bodies on to us, so a success of sorts. On a further positive note, Caroline’s desire to see the baby orang-utan was fulfilled, a 2-week old and clinging to its mother as she swung through the trees to the feeding platform. To be fair, it was a good bit of nature.
For much of the second feeding we attended, our attention was drawn to the floor of the observation deck, from where I had already defended myself quite bravely from an unprovoked leech attack and was preparing to bring a size 12 food and considerable weight to fend off on any such future assault. A further animal attack was narrowly averted when a chap in our group finally got the message that using flash photography 12 foot away from the alpha male leading a felicitation of pig-tailed macaques was the most likely cause of its anger. Bloody tourists!
Other than the sanctuary itself, which more than lived up to expectations, the trip over to the east coast of Borneo has been excellent. Our accommodation has been at a jungle edge lodge set in stunning grounds complete with jacuzzi, jungle trails and for some unknown reason a small farm – the animals seemingly in place for us to look at rather than eat. I have to commend the Borneo peoples on their animal welfare however with the animals all being very healthy and in good size, well maintained enclosures. We have even seen a couple of examples free-range cats, both here and at Tempurung which compares favourably to the battery-cats seen in Kuala Lumpur last week. They look healthier and I would imagine have a better quality of meat on them (something I may well have unknowingly sampled at some stage).
Our accommodation has been at the bottom end of the scale offered at the lodge, technically a double room, yet we can’t help feeling that some of the larger ants and assorted bugs sharing the facilities should have chipped in financially. Regardless, from a fiscal perspective, Malaysia (and lying around ill in Singapore) has given us a good head start in our budget management prior to getting to the more challenging shores of Australia and New Zealand. Looking to maintain a positive balance, I was still to be found pushing for us to reconsider our next accommodation choice as I felt that the 3.59GBP/night room should be favoured over the 4.28 one.
Talking to people at the lodge has also confirmed my thoughts on mountain climbing (mount Kinabalu at 4,000+ meters is the largest in Borneo and one of the prime draws of the area). Aside from the fact that it is too bloody hot to walk along the road, let alone climb for hours on end, the sight of people limping around various bars, sanctuaries and lodges suggests that my long held view that mountains should only be approached in a gondola (or similar) with the sole purpose of sliding down the other side is 100% correct.
We head back to Kota Kinabalu later today, and will be looking to pull forward our return flight to Singapore in order that we might make up a bit of the lost time from the start of the trip in mainland Malaysia.
RJH
