Orangutan in Wildlife Rehab Center
June 15
Near Sandikan is a wildlife rehabilitation center, which Camp Leakey also is, that we will visit at Sepilok. But first we headed for Uncle Tan's the homestay outside Sandakan highly recommended by Lonely Planet. Uncle Tan has tours, on actually very low-key visits, available to various nature areas in east Sabah. We decide to visit Uncle Tan's jungle camp on the Kinabatangan River. After our time at the jungle camp I was asked to write a piece that Uncle Tan could send to the Ministry of Tourism to ensure them that a stay at Uncle Tan's jungle camp was a safe and valid experience. I'll let the attached docs (search diary, Uncle Tan's letter, mlm's experiences) tell the story.
During our time in the jungle, we clearly heard the orang utans calling, the male long calls, and hoots and kiss squeaks from both males and females, but never got a good look. We did see hundreds of macaques and lots of proboscis monkeys, and even a clouded leopard racing down a tree, but didn't get photos that will actually show the animals. As a matter of fact, the photos we got probably won't show a thing, because the camera and I fell in the irrigation ditch when the log I was crossing n snapped in two. Unfortunately, that probably also means the photos I tried to take of the orang utan we did finally see at the rehabilitation center at Sepilok probably won't turn out either. But we did have a splendid time at Sepilok. There is a feeding platform that provides fruit and water for adolescent orangutans who haven't yet learned to get all their food in the forest, after having been captives as illegal pets during their cute youth, where we saw animals interacting with humans, but it was rather zoo-like. The better places were along the forest path where we saw orang utan and macaques exhibiting their natural behavior. It was a thrill, when a sudden heavy rain came, to watch a mother orang utan gather a number of branches with broad leaves and clasp them over her head as an umbrella against the rain. Galdikas had written about her witnessing and documenting for the first time this behavior among orang utan, which I think we were lucky to see. We also watched two young males play fighting in a tree. one fell to a lower tree near the path, and I'm afraid I taunted him, laughing and teasing that he had lost that round. He was not amused and dropped to the path to continue his play fight with me. He grabbed my leg with a hand and a foot and ripped at my knee. Each time I removed one gripping arm or leg and tried to move away, another one latched on tightly as could be. Finally both Bob and I were able to disengage him and move away, and turned to realize all the center's visitors that afternoon were watching the spectacle. I was dreadfully embarrassed at having caused the little thing distress, but perhaps on the other hand I added to his fun.
Our next adventure was to be a jungle canopy walk outside Panai, a little mountain town about halfway between Sandakan and Kota Kinabale by bus. At a park established because of the hot springs present, you hike a switchback trail up the hill to a level high in the jungle canopy, then navigate plank walkways suspended by cables between the trees. They're quite bouncy, but sway side to side only mildly. Friends at home who took this walk said it was scary but well worthwhile. I discovered I didn't even think it was scary at all. Bob said he was a little apprehensive before he got on the first bridge but then not nervous. Unfortunately, we didn't see any orang utan up in the trees, or proboscis, only the ubiquitous macaques, but that may have been because of the tour group of giggly and screaming teens who crossed the bridges a few minutes before us. Bob got a kick out of discovering that he held the age record for crossing the canopy for the last five years, but in the registry book we found an 80 year old who had done it in 92.
June 9th
From Danai we took the bus to Kota Kinabale on the west coast of Sabah. Jon Nelson's sister and her husband, Elizabeth (Biz) and Walle Lempp, live in KK, and we hoped to make a connection. But Jon knew they would be heading to Germany at some point this spring, and may have been gone by the time we arrived. As it turns out, we missed them by two or three weeks. We're using KK, as it is known here, as a base to get the camera repaired, to receive usable Visa credit cards by courier from Steve - the ones Visa emergency services sent us to not have the magnetic stripe encrypted and people here cannot enter the numbers manually, and to have a few days beaching. KK has a few small islands only a few minutes offshore that have beautiful white sand beaches for swimming and coral reefs for snorkeling. Friday, on Pulau Mauwkan, we fell in to conversation with two folks about our ages on the beach. As conversation went on, it turned out the woman, Sylvia Margaret Jeanes, had some connection to the missionary or seminary work and is in fact good friends with Walle and Biz. It was then we knew that Lempps were already in Germany. Saturday we spent the day on Pulau Sapi, swimming, snorkeling, and picnicking, and I'm finally catching up on journal writing Sunday morning. KK is a lovely shorefront town or something over 200,000 people. Our little Muslim hotel is smack in the center of town and it's easy walking from one end of downtown to the other. I like the combination of a medium sized town with all services available and the beautiful park of islands and beautiful clear water just a few minutes away. At the island park, by the way, jetskis are forbidden. We'll be very comfortable here 'til the camera is repaired and credit cards arrive, then it's off to Kuala Lumpur on the Malaysian peninsula to get my replacement passport at the US embassy.
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