To Borneo to meet the Orang Utans

---

Day 6 Back to KL

So it was back into the boats and off on the 2 hour journey (shorter because we were going with the flow of the river) to Kuala Tembling, then onto Apple’s little bus and back to Kuala Lumpur. This time we had a much better driver and we arrived safe and sound - thank goodness! After a nice meal we boarded the Monorail out to KL Sentral (station) and then took the AirAsia bus to the low cost carrier terminal at KLIA.
We had a very early flight so decided to stay at a “Tune” Hotel right next to the airport. It was “compact and bijoux” but did the job!
We flew out to Sandakan and arrived in beautiful weather. Took a taxi to the Sepilok Resort but when we said to the reception girl that we were there to check in she said we should have arrived yesterday! Somehow we had booked our hotel for the wrong date! Never mind it was OK - the only room she had left was the Delux room with aircon and balcony at 130 Ringits (that about £30). Sounded good to me, so we took it. If you can remember “It ain’t half hot Mum” then you can imagine what the hotel was like. But the view from our balcony was exceptional.

At 2pm the Sepilok Oran Utan Rehab Centre opened so we went along to visit. It’s incredible what they do and how they rescue orphans. They are just like human babies! I want one! Then at 3pm we all went out into the forest to a feeding platform where they put bananas and sugar cane. Then the Oran utans started to arrive - we were incredibly close to them and they strolled around as if we weren’t there! They are so human like - we share 96.4% of our genes with them.

After our visit we decide to take the local bus into Sandakan, hopefully to find a nice restaurant / bar! Costed 4 ringits each (that’s about 80p). Two young backapckers recommended that we visit the “English Tea Rooms”, so we departed from the rickety old bus and had a nice cream tea looking at the view. We walked down into town but it was nothing more than a smelly port - and when I say smelly, I mean smelly! So we caught a taxi back to Sepilok.

---