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Published: April 4th 2007
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We got a public bus from the bus stop a couple of streets away from the hostel in KK to the north bus terminal & got a bigger bus from there at 9.30am to Sepilok, arriving at Sepilok Junction at 3.30pm. We got a minibus down the road to where we were staying, Sepilok Jungle Resort.
It was set in the middle of the jungle in a beautiful location, surrounded by endless amounts of trees & some lakes, although there wasn't anything to see or do there apart from the Orangutan Sanctuary.
We had dinner, a shower & an early night, (I hope everyone is seeing the pattern over my recent blogs, lots of early nights & not a lot of alcohol!)
We got up at 8am, had breakfast & got to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre for 10am, feeding time! It was so amazing watching them feed the Orangutan's, from the entrance you walked deep into the forest & stood on a platform watching the Orangutan's of all ages, swing in along the ropes to have their bananas & milk. I took lots of photos but non of them captured how close we were or how beautiful
these animals are. They are so human like, (96.4% of their genes are the same as a human). They are also really funny & some of them are complete posers.
After watching them for about 40 minutes we had a cold drink I was melting in the heat & watched a film called Man of the Forest, which is what Orangutan means. It was such a lovely film about the rehabilitation of baby orangutans & so heart warming, of course I had to buy it!
We went back to our hostel & had lunch before embarking on a jungle trek for 2km's past the bird watching tower to the water hole. We thought we might spot an Orangutan or two as they tell you not to take bags or cameras with you as they might pinch them off you; unfortunately we didn't see any.
We spotted a couple of brown & orange lizards, a couple of birds, some very large ants & another green lizard. We got back to the Sanctuary at 2.40pm in time to get our spot at the front of the platform for afternoon feeding time. We watched two Orangutans play on the platform,
one was being very good just sat on the steps waiting for his food & the other was so funny & cheeky, he went on sat on the step in front of the other one to get to the food first so the other orangutan gets up & moves in front of him. The cheeky one was pulling apart the steps & the banister & then went & sat on the platform & kept picking up all the old banana skins from the morning & putting them on his head.
Just before 3pm, (feeding time) there was an invasion of about 20 long tail macaque monkeys, even a mother with her tiny baby clinging to her stomach. (Claire & I don't like these as one went for her in Cambodia & one went for me in Vietnam). They were right in front of us & scared away the Orangutan's a bit, but it was ok as we had seen the Orangutan's, (about 10 of them), in the morning.
I brought a t-shirt from the gift shop & a couple of close up, good quality photographs of the baby orangutan's, I couldn't resist, they were so cute!
We
got home about 4pm, had a shower & spent the rest of the afternoon reading my book, as there wasn't anything else to do. We had dinner & an early night.
On Tuesday we had a bit of a lie in, got up & had breakfast at the Orangutan Sanctuary where we got a public bus at 12pm into Sandakan. Again we were completely entertaining to everyone who said hello & on the way home one man came & sat by me & starred straight at me for about 10 minutes, I felt very uncomfortable.
Whilst in Sandakan we arranged three dives for Saturday in Sipidan & a three day/two night adventure in the jungle, down the Kinabatang River with Uncle Tan's. We also used the internet as there was only one computer at the Jungle Resort so it was impossible to get on, we tried to find St Michael's & All the Angels Church, (the only stone building which took 20 years to construct), but our map wasn't the best & lead us someone else.
We had a walk around, (it wasn't a very pretty own & there wasn't much to see or do) so we
had some food & headed to the bus stop getting the bus back to Sepilok at 4.40pm. We arrived in Sepilok at 5pm, had dinner, booked our flights for next week to get to Sarawak, & you guessed it read our books & went to bed, I think we had a few beers too.
On Wednesday we got up, had a shower & packed, we had breakfast, went for a walk & read our books whilst we waited for Uncle Tan's to come & collect us.
I think seeing the Orangutan's is something I will remember forever & is one of the highlights of my trips so far, I really loved it. It is such a shame that us human's are such a threat to them & that they are an endangered species. I totally recommend to anyone visiting Sabah to visit the centre & help the sanctuary fund the amazing work that they do. For anyone who is interested in helping the Orangutan's go to www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk
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Ceri
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You managed to get a few nice pictures of yourself there lovely - well done! XXXXXX