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Published: January 19th 2007
Rain, Rain go away.....
Kate: We left Kinabalu Park early on a very wet morning, by waving manically at passing long distance buses until one stopped and let us aboard. If we had thought it was raining alot at the National Park, we were about to be proved very wrong. As we wound round the roads towards Sandakan and the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary, the rain got heavier and heavier. As the bus dropped us off at the junction for Sepilok (about 1/2 hour before Sandakan city) the rain was torrential. By the time we had got the bags and run across the road to shelter underneath the corregated iron roof of a fruit stall we were wet through. Luckily there happened to be a guy in a pickup who did free transfers to the nearby Sepilok Jungle Resort. They had en suite rooms for 50 RM (6RM to the pound) and more importantly, there was a free lift out of the rain, so we took him up on the offer.
The Sepilok Jungle Resort is set in some amazing gardens, with walkways across lakes and grounds between the different accommodation and the restaurant. The accommodation ranges from dorm rooms to
Orangutan just hanging around
at the Sepilok rehabilitation centreexecutive suites, something for everyone.
It turned out that Sandakan and the surrounding area had been having some of the worst rains ever. There has been flooding all over the place, along with landslides and damaged roads. The road to the resort was underwater, we had to wade through knee deep water to get out. It rained none stop for 3 days. I mean none stop. There was torrential downpours and heavy rain and nothing else. It was increadible.
Wild man of the forest
Sepilok is famous for the afore mentioned orangutan sanctury. Its a rehabilitation centre where orangutans rescued from hunting and the pet trade are taught to be orangutans and live in the forest and search for their own food. They have a big reserve where about 22 live that have been rehabilitated. They feed them twice a day, but they dont always come for food if they can find it. We went to the sanctuary for an afternoon feeding on a very wet day when none had come for the morning feed. We waded across the flooded walkways through the completely flooded feeding platform in our waterproofs and waited to see what would happen. At
first there was nothing to see except a sea of yellow waterproof ponchos belonging to all the tourists. Then we noticed that a tree above us was moving. And then, suddenly, out popped a great big male orangutan, he walked past the tourists and onto the feeding platform to wait for his dinner. Then we noticed the ropes around us moving, and rows of younger orangutans came swinging in, following the blokes carrying their bananas and leaves. In total, 11 turned up to be fed, mainly young ones, we were lucky to see the male as he rarely comes for food. Perhaps he was just too wet to bother finding his own that day. We stood and watched them feed for over an hour, it was amazing. We only left when the centre closed. On the way back we passed through a troop of pig tailed macaques who were on their way to see what was left.
A nice cup of tea and a sit down....
Another wet day we spent in Sandakan. Sandakan like Kota Kinabalu is another modern city, rebuilt after it was destroyed during the war. It also looks over the sea. There wasnt alot to
Wild Man of the Forest
...and some orangutans do in Sandakan in the rain, so we walked up the 100 steps to an observation platform to look over the city. Up there there is an English Tearoom. Its like being in 1930 - there are white tablecloths and napkins, waitresses in black and white outfits, grammerphones and songs that your gran used to like. They even have a croquet lawn although it was flooded. Kris ordered a pot of tea and we looked over the bay. How quaint.
Its a jungle out there
After three nights at the jungle resort it stopped raining. We held our breath and didnt want to believe it, but we actually saw some blue sky and the flooding started to clear. Taking this as a good sign we took an overnight trip to the Billit Jungle Lodge, on the Kinabantangan river near Sukau. This piece of forest surrounding the river is protecting from the palm oil plantations that surround it and is home to loads of animals including wild orangutans and the proboscis monkey which is only found on Borneo.
The jungle lodge was 3 hours away by 4 wheel drive truck. And we needed it. The road there can hardly
be called a road, especially by someone who used to work for a motorway building organisation. It was a wide track that was regularly used by great big trucks coming too and from the palm oil plantations, and was probably in a bad state before the rains. During them it was one big muddy whole. The driver of our truck did his best to get us through the mud, although we almost got stuck and skidded off the road in places. He wrecked his truck getting there and ended up with two flat tyres. But get there we did, to a small village by the river where we took a boat across to the lodge.
The river had flooded its banks and the land all around the lodge was underwater, so the boat pulled up at the walkway between the sleeping accomodation and the dining room, passing trees and plants poking out of the water. We had a lovely en suite room, surrounded by jungle. The dining area looked over the river.
Almost as soon as we arrived we jumped into a little boat and took a trip down the river to look for wildlife. Unbelievably, we hadnt
Baby pig tailed macaque
in the forest at the orangutan sanctuary been in the boat for 5 minutes when there were shouts of "orangutan" from the guide. We slowed down by a tree and there was an adult orangutan tucking into his dinner at the top of a tree. It was amazing. It looked very much like a man dressed up, but no man could have balanced at the top of the tree like this. Then they noticed there was another, bigger one at the other side of the river. We stayed and watched them climb about for a while before chugging off to find more wildlife. We saw loads of birds, particularly hornbills and egrets and a mangrove snake before stopping to watch a group of proboscis monkeys in the trees. They jump from tree to tree with such force, and they are so big, its amazing the trees support their weight! We saw loads of different groups, a male hareme and then the bachelor male group. The males have enormous noses and they look like they would honk if you pressed them. We also saw big groups of longtailed macaques.
After it got dark the boat took us back and we had dinner at the lodge with the
Flooded walkways
though the forest at the sanctuary. Luckily the orangutans swing through the trees so dont get wet feet. Belgian couple we were sharing it with. Alloy, the guide, told us lots of horror stories of people getting leeches in unfortunate places, but assured us it was too flooded for leeches. This was quite a relief cos we had to walk through calf deep water between the dining area and the bedroom where the walkway had flooded.
The next morning we were up in the dark at 5.30 for our morning boat trip. As the sun rose we went upstream to see loads of birds including an eagle and many hornbills, and then took the boat into the mangroves to watch more proboscis monkeys and see a baby monitor lizard on a tree. The water was really black and the trees reflected in the surface like a mirror. It was really cool.
All too soon our Borneo safari was over and it was time to brave the truckride back to Sepilok. We took the boat to the village but found the truck with two flat tyres with wheel nuts cemented closes with the mud. We watched as villagers appeared from all over the place to ponder this problem and bring out a variety of different implements to
try and get the wheels off. About 2 hours later we were back on the road again with new tyres, but the road seemed worse on the way back. We bounced around in the truck through the mud, getting completely stuck at one point and having to be pulled out by a strategically placed tractor. It was definatly an adventure. On the way we passed so many trucks going to palm oil plantations that we wondered why they didnt put in a proper road. There were trucks with the back full of people standing up going along, which must have lost people as they went over big bumps along the route, and normal family cars trying the journey which just seemed crazy to us in our truck.
Following a night in the Sepilok B&B with our Belgian companions we got a bus back to Kota Kinabalu ready for our flight to Kuching in Sarawak on the 17th.
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liz penny
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Wow!!
You will have to write a book when you come home and include all the lovely photos. Good luck for the next adventure, whatever and wherever it is.