Sepilok, Borneo, 24-25 July 2008
Vincent, back in KK, had booked us onto a 3 day/2 night tour to Kinabatangan Jungle. This is wild remote Borneo. We were scheduled to take boat safaris, night walks and day treks into the jungle. While we felt confident we'd see monkeys we were hoping to see some truly wild orangutans and if we were really lucky some Pygmy elephants. The first stop was a river Cruise and it wasn't long before we spotted some playful long tailed macaques. Further downstream we came across some Proboscis monkeys, these are really funny looking fellows - they have a huge belly and a big fat droopy red nose giving the impression that maybe they have been hitting the jungle juice a little too hard. Finally we had an orangutan pointed out to us but really it was little more than a brown amorphous shape in the foliage. For all we could see it might just as well have been a big leaf or some exotic fruit so it was difficult to get too excited. We didnt see much on the night safari other than a few sleeping birds and a couple of centipedes. The early morning boat trip bore even less fruit. but we felt confident that our 3 hour jungle safari would have us running to avoid Pygmy elephants while jumping over sleeping orangutans. We didn't see a thing, nothing/nada/ziltch. Not even a solitary monkey! .
All was not lost however while on our afternoon river cruise we stopped to check out a croc in the river. What we didn't realise is that he was stopped to check out an orangutan at the waters edge. No, we didn't have one of those David Attenborough moments where the croc lunges from the water to snag the over confident great ape but what we did have was a close up encounter with this endangered species in the wild and everyone in the boat knew this was special. We walked along the ground in front of us and then swung up into a tree to gorge himself on ripened fruit. As is the orangutans were apologizing for their absence earlier in the day we quickly came across another one on the bank of the river. This guy was just as big but a little on the shy side. After swinging through a few branches he turned his back to us and became like the amorphous blob we had seen the previous day. We never did get to see Pygmy elephants although we did see a lot of their dung on the trail. We felt satisfied with the orangutan and proboscis monkey experience.
Orangutan means "old man of the forest" in Malay language
From Kinabatangan we took a short bus journey to Sepilok, home to Borneo's orangutan rehabilitation centre. No, this is not where misbehaving orangutans are sent to get them back on the straight and narrow. Rather it is where orphaned or displaced orangutans are brought to teach them natural survival skills before releasing them into the wild. The centre had a zoo feel, you are only allowed to enter during the two daily feed times. There is a large viewing deck set up in front of where the orangutans are fed. At the designated times these great apes swinging and fill up on free grub and then swing out again. We went to both feeding times and there were more orangutans present in the morning than in the afternoon. This fact helped us appreciate that Sepilok Orangutan Rehab Centre is not a zoo. It is a large jungle area where the orangutans accept food for a period of time as a stepping stone before becoming completely independent at which point they will no longer turn up for feeding time. "Orangutan sightings are not guaranteed" was clearly printed on our tickets and I guess if you don't spot them then SORC is doing a good job. It is a nice place to visit but these sightings do not compare with the excitement we felt on spotting the large male in the wild during our Kinabatangan trip.
Feeding time at Sepilok
Kinabatangan River
Jungle Bug
No comments:
Post a Comment