Orang Utans Are Even Hairier In Real Life!

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Four days after we climbed Mount Kinabalu our legs had just about fully recovered. We'd made the long 6 hour bus journey from Kinabalu National Park over to Sandaken the day after the climb and conveniently booked ourselves into a hostel with a tv and dvd player in each room so we were laughing! It's a bit of a cop out really, going all this way around the world only to sit in watching dvd's and sports channels all day, but we felt like we deserved it!

Sepilok was the main attraction for us in Sabah, in the northeastern part of Borneo, and is where the Orang Utan Rehabilitation centre is based so we travelled there from Sandaken for the day. It was set up in 1964 with the purpose of rehabilitating young orphaned Orang Utans. Large parts of forest in Borneo have been lost due to deforestation and logging which has resulted in shrinking of the natural habitats that the Orang Utans live in. Because if this, many young Orang Utans are found by villagers or workers that have either lost their parents, or have been abandoned due to serious ill health. The purpose of the centre is to help bring up the youngsters so that they learn the skills needed to live in the wild so that they can fend for themselves. Once they are of an age, or ability, to go off on their own, they are released from the centre to roam freely in the 43 sq km of protected reserve but many choose to return on a regular basis.

We timed our visit to the centre to coincide with one of the two daily feeding sessions that take place. Alongside the need to care for the Orang Utans, there has become a demand from tourists to watch these amazing animals as they feed, so the centre have created a viewing platform next to one of the feeding areas closest to the centre. We knew before we set off that there was a possibility that we might not see any Orang Utans at all - after all they are wild animals and if they dont want to eat, or dont like the look of the viewing public, they might not turn up. So we arrived at 2pm, an hour before feeding was due to commence, and waited.........and waited. Then, around 2:45pm, 25 - 30 macaque monkeys turned up and performed infront of the 20 or so tourists who had gathered to get a glimpse of large, hairy, orange beasts. And then bang on 3pm, as the first bucket of fruit arrived with one of the rangers, a large Orange ape appeared in the distance and came swinging towards us on the ropes set up in the forest and landed on the platform right in front of us.

It was amazing to stand there, 20 feet away from an animal that is massively endangered accross the planet, and watch it tuck into a bunch of bananas. We'd had a quick chat with one of the rangers there and he said that you could never guarantee seeing an Orang Utan. Sometimes half a dozen would turn up and other times none so we were happy watching this guy. Then, like a big red bus, another 6 turned up all at once! One after the other they swang gracefully along the ropes before plonking themselves, side by side, on the platform and sat eating the mixture of fruit prepared especially for them.

This went of for a good 45 minutes and we could have stayed longer. The Orang Utans were happy with the free and easily available food on offer, while the macaque monkeys were having a ball trying to steal whatever they could get their mits on when the big guys weren't looking. It eventually came to an end when the last orange ball of fluff had swung off into the jungle and out of site and the macaques were off scavenging for anything dropped 20ft to the floor from the platform.

It was well worth a visit to the centre and showed how well the money raised for the charity goes to a good use. As the present moment in time around 25 young Orang Utans are housed in the centre while another 60 - 80 'grown ups' live freely in the reserve and out of harms way and it was good to be able to view them feeding freely without it feeling like a bit of a circus!

Craig & Nik x

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