Breakfast With the Orangutans and Lunch in the Borneo Highlands

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Today we woke up in Borneo for the first time. Borneo is an island that is made up of Malaysia in the North and Indonesia in the South. We were in the Malaysian part, in the province of Sarawak. It was difficult to decide where to go in Borneo when we were planning this trip, but the other Malaysian province, Sabah, is more mountainous and since we were just in Nepal, we thought that we should just do that on our next trip to Borneo. So we settled on flying from Singapore to Kuching, which is only an hour and a half flight.

Having just arrived last night we made quick work of organizing activities for today. We decided that we would visit the orangutan rehabilitation facility near Kuching in the morning and do a river kayaking trip through the jungle in the afternoon. We arrived at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre at about 8:45 this morning. When we got there, one of the workers was standing a little ways off the path with some coconuts. High above, hanging from the trees and from ropes tied between the trees were about four different orangutans. They would come far enough down the tree to either grab the coconut from the worker, or to catch it when he threw it up to them. I'm not sure about you, but I am pretty sure I would have a tough time opening a coconut while hanging from a tree. They are tough enough to open when you have two feet firmly on the ground! The orangutans were really quick to get into the coconuts though. They stripped the fur off with their teeth (just pulled it off), then cracked the whole thing against the tree trunk until it gave way. We also saw one just crack the coconut open with his jaw - I imagine that would be tough on the old teeth.

We then moved on to the main feeding area. As soon as we got there a female came down from the trees with her wee little baby hanging on to her. The worker had a huge bin of bananas and he just started handing them to the momma. She devoured a bunch, grabbed some more and headed back into the trees. When she ate the bunch, she came back and the worker fed some to the baby while momma ate some more. Soon we saw trees in the distance start to sway and a bunch more orangutans came by. Another mom with her baby and a couple other young ones arrived. It's quite amazing to see how well these animals can grab into things with their hands and feet. They can hang in basically any position from any one of their limbs and look perfectly comfortable! This must be where humans got the idea for acrobatics. These oranguans move like Cirque Du Soleil performers! The pictures really say more than we can (and still not as much as actually being there!). Did you know that orangutans are only found in Borneo (well and some in Sumatra), and that they're members of the Ape family? We didn't realize that they are apes!

Our trip down the river was a lot of fun. The company we booked it through did a great job organizing and the guides were really great and they packed a delicious lunch. Since this is the dry season in Borneo, the river was really low. There were quite a few places where Mike had to get out and push the kayak over a sand bar or rock, but other than that, the low water wasn't a problem. It actually made for a relaxing paddle because you didn't have to worry about any rapids, but there were still a few to keep things interesting! The river we were on flows through the jungle, so we were continuously looking at huge trees and thick bunches of bamboo. In the background were towering outcrops of rock and beautifully shaped mountains. A couple of times we saw a scrap of plastic high in the tree branches. Out guide told us that that is how high the river is in the rainy season. It must have been at least 20 feet over our heads! We stopped at a small village for lunch after about an hour of paddling. The village spans both sides of the river; a suspension bridge connects the two sides. For lunch we had a traditional Malay noodle dish (wrapped in plastic) and corn on the cob with fresh local fruit (purple dragon fruit and watermelon). It was delicious! After lunch, we walked through the village and the guide pointed out lots of locally growing plants, which ranged from citronella, pineapple, and dragon fruit to cocoa and black pepper. We actually saw some pepper drying on a weaved mat in someone's backyard.

After seeing the village we continued with our paddle. Unfortunately, the plug in our self-bailing kayak leaked so we had been slowly sinking all morning. This of course continued after lunch until we had to stop and trade kayaks with one of the guides. As it turned out, his kayak also leaked! We went over a very small rapid and got leaned over a bit. Then, the water inside the kayak sloshed and flipped us over completely! We were the only ones on the trip to capsize! We've been white water rafting and kayaking many times on much bigger rapids that never flipped us over (except one time- for Elysia). We hadn't planned on swimming, but we got the opportunity anyways! The water was warm and there were no crocodiles or leaches in the river, so we didn't mind. The guides made us switch kayaks again. This time, it didn't leak and we were fine for the rest of the paddle.

The scenery after lunch changed a bit compared to before lunch. After lunch, the river banks were much rockier. They were huge rocks though and the river had slowly eroded them. At one point, shortly after it started to rain really hard, we came to a bend in the river where the rock had basically been eroded into a cave. Our entire group, with our kayaks was able to fit under the protection of the rock. At least the hard tropical rain caught everyone else up to how wet we were! After hiding from the rain for a bit, some people decided to swim in the river during the rain and the guides threw in some fish food. Although the fish had seemed relatively non-existent to this point, they made their presence known when there was food to be had! The river started to boil with them! From this point, we were only a short paddle to the ending point, so when we got going again it felt like only a few seconds had gone by before we had to get out and go back to the hotel.

Back in Kuching, we decided to go for a stroll along the beautiful waterfront boardwalk on the river. We admired the buildings and tried out 'Milo', a chocolate flavoured drink. It has the consistency of chocolate milk made with water instead of milk, but is quite good. We had dinner at an open restaurant (ie, no walls) right on the river boardwalk (called Khatulistiwa Restaurant).The food was not bad, but probably not the best place we've eaten. Good atmosphere though. The restaurant made us laugh because as we were paying at the cash register, we saw a sign that management had posted telling us to check our bills carefully to ensure that the staff isn't charging us extra. A manager really must have trouble with staff stealing money from patrons when they have to put up a sign like that! Maybe that's something that happens when a restaurant is open 24 hours, like that one was.

We tried out the local Laksa Sarawaka, a noodle soupy dish, chicken satay and Mee Mamak (another noodle dish). After dinner we picked up a Malay-style cake from a hawker stall on the riverfront and ate it back at the hotel. A long day, but definitely a great introduction to Borneo!

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Photos

There's A Whole Bunch Coming In
It took them awhile, but soon the trees swinging in the background got closer and closer and eventually one after one the orangutans showed up!