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Oragutans !
These orangutans are being rehabilitated, this is the Betty Ford clinic for monkeys ! Arrived in Kuching late at night, but even in the dark this place seemed really welcoming...and we were not mistaken. Spent the rest of the next morning having a general mooch around this little city by the river and then headed off to the organutan rehabilitation centre ("they tried to make me go to rehab and I said no, no, no") in the afternoon. We knew it would be feeding time but because they have free roam of acres of land there is no guarantee of any of them turning up (banana overload). However we were pleasantly greated by around 10 hairy fella's which was great. They varied in age from 1 to 37 yrs old and the grumpy old lady orangutan had a tendency to bite people! They generally monkied around as you can tell from the pictures and we have to say we were surprised by just how bendy they are, all that swinging around was really entertaining to watch.
The next day we were picked up for a 5 hr bus journey, followed by 1 hr longboat (skinnier than a canadian canoe, but much longer, hence the name) to be greeted by rice being thrown
Monkeying around
Feeding time ! Lucky I had my banana guard with me ! over us and rice wine being forced on us. We were staying the night with the Iban Tribe who live in the middle of the jungle in a very long house and as you can hopefully see from the picture each appartment is divided up for each family (there were around 32 families living there) and there is a verandah ajoining them all together so everything is very communial.
Although head hunters by tradition, they were fantastic hosts and luckily we arrived during an important festival as well as being invited to a neighbouring longhouse for a wedding ceremony with more rice wine flowing.
Had a go at using a blow pipe and did not kill anyone!. Then exchanged a few tribal e mail addresses - who said headhunters were primative. Got a couple of internal flights tomorrow as we move over to Mulu for a 4 night organised trek - we'll let you know how it goes when we get out of the other end.
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basil brush
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monkey business
wow. Great piccies of the apes. How many have you taken so far? Looks like the trip has gone over the the wilder side in the jungle...