proboscis monkey
Well, a bus, a plane and two more buses later and I'm at Sepilok in Sabah, Borneo, home to the famous Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary. We spent last night in a hostel in Kota Kinabulu, not getting much sleep thanks to some drunk chinese people. Grrr. So far Borneo seems lovely and friendly, everyone smiles or waves or says hello to you as though you're some sort of celebrity. It would be pretty disconcerting but they're just so smiley! Even when we were on the bus children and roadworkers would wave from the side of the road. We're staying at Uncle Tans B&B which is our departure point for the 3 day jungle trek we'll be doing so it just made sense. Tomorrow we're going to Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary then the next morning, orangutans! I'm so excited.
baby orangutans
...I've had a photo of an orangutan in my wallet as a saving incentive for ages and I can't believe I'm actually going to see some! Maybe even a wild one when we do our jungle trek, which would be even more fantastic. Just sitting on the bus you could see how little habitat they have left, its really sad. There are miles upon miles of palm oil plantations where there used to be rainforest which had been there for millions of years. Apparently orangutans used to be able to travel from one side of Borneo to the other but theres no chance of that now.
Anyway, I'm sure there will be tears when we get told about the orphaned orangutans, but I'm just going to do my best to enjoy the experience of being in this amazing place. We both just keep saying 'oh my god, we're in Borneo'. I've got myself a place to go diving at Sipidan, which was seriously lucky as it gets booked up weeks in advance and then we're hoping to go and spend some time at Kinabalu national park before heading back to Kuala Lumpur. I'm sure I'll have plenty of photos to upload by that point! I'm already way behind with that...
