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Published: September 7th 2009
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After our longhouse adventure and good previous experience we rented the motorcycles for 3 more days. The first day we visited the wind and fairy cave. The wind cave was totally dark, moist and had lots of bats. This made it somewhat scary but and lots of fun. The fairy cave was simply amazing. So amazing that Ilse went for a panorama shot. The only other place she ever did this was high in Truind in the Indian Himalayas. So it was pretty damn amazing! Sadly, somewhere halfway through the shot the battery went dead. This frustrated Ilse so much that we decided to come back the next day.
This is just what we did and we finally completed the shot. To give a small description of the pace: It’s like walking on the set of one of the lord of the ring movies. If anything lives there it would be dwarves and goblins (and fairies obviously). The kind of sights you never thought possible outside your own fantasy and imagination. But it’s there and it’s real. Yet before our 2nd visit to this magical place we got up early and drove to the wildlife rehabilitation center. This center has
daily feeding programs of orangutans that have been reintroduced into the wild.
We arrived there about 15-30 minutes early which gave us time to talk to the rangers and acquire some more background info on the park and its creatures. Since it was 15 minutes before feeding we figured we would have the whole park for ourselves and started exploring it a bit. At this point we spotted 2 orangutans in the trees waiting for the feeding. One of them was Richi or ‘Big Boss Naz’ the alpha male. When we got back for the feeding the area was slowly being flooded by tourists that arrived by the busload. About 5-10 minutes into the feeding there would be as much as 60-70 tourists watching every move of the 2 apes.
It’s great to see the orangutans though, especially the big male. His trend was slow but deliberate and he moves around like he owns the place, even though barely reaching half the height of an adult man. Still, I wouldn’t want to arm wrestle with this creature. At some point he got annoyed by a tripod, which he sees as a gun, and all hell broke loose. He
smashed his female companion and baby from the platform as if nothing and had 30-40 tourists running for cover. He then proceeded to a corner and made clear his discontent to all. After this show of force we proceeded to another feeding platform were we were just in time to see 3 apes descending from their trees.
It’s amazing to see what a good climbers they are as you wouldn’t think them capable of certain feats due to their size and weight. Having 4 arms does help a lot I guess though. Next we wanted to leave but came face to face with the big boss himself. This is because the boss deemed it necessary to take the tourist route. After a long second we gave way and scrambled to higher grounds while he passed us by peacefully. The parking lot, that had been empty when we arrived, was now packed with vans, busses and a small motorcycle.
Just one motorcycle as the other wouldn’t start in the morning. Since we couldn’t wait for repairs, as we would miss the feeding, we shared just 1. In the end this proved to be much better as Ilse had been
feeling a bit insecure on a motorcycle in Malaysia and I can’t blame her, it can be madness. So by sharing one we couldn’t loose each other in the traffic and Ilse could focus on navigation while I was driving. It is this way that we drove to the rehabilitation center, the fairy cave and last Kubah National Park.
We arrived here around 2 and had just 3 hours to explore the park. This was just enough time to see the main attraction, a beautiful waterfall. It took us 1 hour of jungle trekking to reach it and it was definitely worth the effort. The waterfall was simply amazing. Also, we had the whole place for ourselves. Hooray again for not being depended on tourist busses. We took our time here enjoying the scenery and reached the park entrance again just before closing. Then another 45 minutes drive to Kuching to end a busy day.
During our stay in Borneo it had been raining a lot. A good thing cause the region had faced a 1 month draught just before our arrival. The next day however we decisively blue so we decided to hit to beach. Hence we
drove up north, crashed a private resort and claimed the whole beach for king, country and ourselves. Although it was not the secluded beach we still hope to find somewhere on this journey, as the resort & golf course was quite near, but it was close enough. Were not hardcore sun junkie’s though so we left 3 hours later to the little village of Damai. At least we thought it was a village. In the end Damai was many resorts but not much else. We arrived back in Kuching just before the rain. This is a good thing because rain in Borneo is something else than rain in the Netherlands. Next up was one of Borneo’s main attractions: Bako national park. Sadly a fever had us both grounded for 3 days and even when we caught our flight back to Singapore we were still feeling a little ill. In Singapore we spend most of our time doing very little. This was mostly because we wanted to recover a bit. Something absolutely necessary as our next step is the city of Angels! Also on the program is a pilgrimage to Angkor Wat.
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