We took a bus to Sepilok, close to the east coast of Sabah and famous for the Orang Utan Sanctuary there. We found a great place to stay, the Sepilok B&B - a very chilled out place and well recommended. We headed out to see the Orang Utans that afternoon. The deal was that there was one platform that the public could visit to see 'wild' apes come for food. They arrive by swinging down a series of thick ropes, strung up so that the surrounding vegetation dosen't get mashed. They certainly knew how to make the most of the bananas that were available. After the feeding one juvenile hung about the feeding platforms for ages, amusing itself by regurgitating banana paste into it's hand, and then licking it all off again. This routine was repeated for about 25 minutes, whilst the ape constantly farted like a trooper. It was amazing to see just how much gas could be produced from a bunch of bananas! On our return the next day, I was relieved to see that there were no bananas on the menu. It was a sugar cane day today. We were however, treated to a live hard-core sex show by the long tailed Macaques. There will soon be a few tourists smuggling monkey porn out of Malaysia.
(The Orange carpet-faced man)
The Kinabatangan.
We headed out into the jungle for a few nights in a lodge on the banks of the Kinabatangan river. We were met by the lodge staff at a coffee house around 10am and then drove for an hour and a half through what was once virgin rainforest, but is now palm oil plantation. I was amazed just how big the palm oil industry is in Sabah. The plantations are everywhere. It's terrible to see just how widespread the deforestation is here. Sabah's first and second major exports for tropical hardwoods and palm oil respectively. All that is left of the jungle along the river is a thin strip sandwiched between the water and the plantations behind. The areas is great for viewing wildlife, but that's mainly because the animals have no where else to go!
Before heading to the lodge we took an unplanned trip out to the Gomantong Cave - famous for it's sustainable collection of edible swiftlet nests, which are harvested (by VERY brave, or desperate people climbing 85 metres up on thin rope ladders) and sold for big bucks to the chinese community, destined for 'birds nest soup'. The cave itself is huge. The floor was completely covered in 'Guano' - a collective term for the material that is formed whern you mix the shit and bodies of thousands of dead cockroaches, dung beetles, bats and swiftlets. Suffice to say it wasn't nice stuff, and didn't smell too good. Apparently you used to have to wade through this stuff to access the cave, but luckily for us a boardwalk had been installed.
As I mentioned before, there were roaches in this cave. LOTS of roaches. I thought Kerry was going to bottle it at any moment as we strolled through (being very careful not to touch anything...). She didn't however, and we made it out without incident.
After that side trip, we were driven to the lodge where we stayed 2 nights and were taken on various boat trips on the river and nature walks in the jungle. Highlights were the examples of the Proboscis Monkeyin the trees (a very cool sight), various scorpions and a spitting cobra (which our guide was very impressed with). Kerry and I have decided that we are not jungle people. It's just too hot and sweaty for fun. Admittedly the river trips were better than the previous ones we took a few years back in the Peruvian jungle (where it was hard to work out whether the tiny orange thing up in the trees was really a Spider monkey, or in fact a bit of bark). We saw crocodiles, hornbills and various monkeys, but the best nature photo I took was this one....
On one of our jungle treks, I got 'leeched'.... I didn't realise until the little bastard dropped off my upper thigh. I thought a coin has fallen through the lining of my pocket, but it turned out to be a fat content leech, who had been gorging himself on my blood. If he had had one, he would have been laughing on the other side of his slimy little face as I crushed him under my boot, creating a minor blood-bath on the ground. Amazingly he survived that, but we finished him off with a lit cigarette. Ha!
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By the way, my dog ate a loaf of fresh banana bread recently and the gas that produced was toxic. A bunch of straight bananas would be near deadly!