Wednesday 25 April 2007

Borneo's King of the Swingers, the Jungle VIP.


When we were in New Zealand, we went to Phil's birthday on his boat and met a couple who had done a similar trip to us in the opposite direction. "Go to Borneo" they said. "The flights are cheap and you'll love it". We decided to take their advice, and they were right; the flights were cheap, so we booked our Air Asia flights shortly after and then got on with New Zealand. A couple of months later and it was now time to take that flight.


Borneo is a massive Island off the east of Malaysia. The northern third, or so, is Malaysian territory and the bottom two thirds belong to Indonesia. We were going to spend a week in Sarawak, the western province and landed in Kuching the capital. Kuching has a lot of remnants of British rule, most noticeably in it's municipal buildings which are typical of the colonial style. It is a riverside town with an esplanade that runs a length of the river, with little traders selling food along the waterfront while boat taxi's shuttle people back and forth across the water. Apparently swimming wouldn't be an option as the water plays home to crocodiles, although as the river is none too clean at this point, there could be a hundred reasons why you might not make it to the other side.


Chinese run Hotel number 2, 'The Fata' become home for us for the next couple of days as we make our way around the town. The people in Kuching are particularly friendly it was quite odd at first to have so many people say "hello, welcome to Kuching", but not try to sell you something. The school children would take great delight in saying hello too and then burst into a fit of embarrassed giggles when you replied.


Our first excursion out of town was to Semenggoh Nature Reserve to see orangutans who have been saved from captivity and are being rehabilitated into the wild. The nature reserve is a fairly large forest where the orangutans live free, but with an eye being kept on them by the wardens and vets. The animals are encouraged to look after themselves, with the ambition of returning them to the truly wild jungles on Borneo when they are ready. Until that day comes though, the apes can enjoy a fresh serving of breakfast and dinner every day, if they want it, and we had come in the morning to coincide with the breakfast serving. It was explained to us that, because it was summer at the moment, and the trees full of fruit, the orangutans might not come down for breakfast but we might be lucky and then we, and the forty or fifty other people (who we were not impressed at) were led along a path for a short way into the forest. There, one of the rangers was busying himself by making screaming noises into the trees. Either he had forgotten his medication that day or it was intended to tell the apes that grub was up, either way it worked and from high in the tree tops we could see branches and leaves swaying until a flash of red fur revealed the big bloke ape meandering down for a spot of breakie. He reached the clearing, still in the tree tops and then slid down a rope before landing himself on the platform across from us and tucking in. It was great to see. It was just like watching an Attenborough programme only in the clearest pictures ever, and then you keep realising you're seeing it for real. After he was done he meandered off along the ground and about ten minutes later a mother and child who had earlier skirted past up high came back. They were much more timid and spent a lot more time slowly climbing down the tree trunks and then picking at the left-overs, always with a hand or a foot holding on to a vine ready to whisk themselves back up to safety if the big boss man came back for seconds. Having had a few bits of melon and other fruit that looked good enough to eat ourselves, they grabbed a coconut and climbed up the trees again, resting directly above us where they then broke into the coconut, showering everyone below with coconut milk and rusk as they tossed away their unwanted bits.


We left late morning, having felt like we really saw something special. It's one thing seeing these animals at safari-parks or zoos but when you see them acting entirely by their own will, in genuine environment, just hanging out and popping by for a moment is something else. They were totally relaxed and at ease, and by the time we left, we felt we had taken some of that with us. And then we stood in the sweltering heat waiting for a bus that never came, got a taxi and felt just as fried as ever again.


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