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The airport finally re-opened just before 3am, so we moved our camp back inside the departure terminal. We hung around for a couple more hours.. people watching, then we checked in and went through to the departure gates. Our flight was around 2 hours 30 minutes, we unfortunately weren't sitting together.... Peter was in the middle of an asian woman and a old man who didn't smell too great and looked very nervous of the prospect of flying. Meanwhile. Lucy was further back in the plane, she was ment to have the window seat but ended up sitting in the middle of 2 friends... abit wierd with them talking across Lucy. The man at the window finally went to the toilet after take off, maybe sickness... Lucy claimed the window seat back. ha
After arriving at Kota Kinabalu airport we walked around 1km to the main road to catch a bus to the city, we waited and waited.... still no bus. One lad at the bus stop even set off walking... 4-5km in that heat, no thankyou. We eventually flagged a taxi down, as we were discussing a price and where we wanted to go... hello bus, sorry Mr Taxi man, we'll take the much cheaper bus service. The bus unfortunately only took us to the southern bus terminal where we ended up having to get a taxi to the guesthouse anyways. We stayed at Lucy's Backpackers Homestay. A nice little place consisting of dorms and rooms, a basic breakfast included too.
Lucy wasn't feeling the best when we got there and the cats didn't help either. We grabbed some food from a local restaurant where we tried the duck. Didn't do much for the rest of the day, and just wandered out at night and ate on the sea front at a food stall.
The next morning we were up early, breakfast was toast and fruit.... only 1 banana left in the fruit bowl. We then got a taxi to the northern bus terminal where we boarded a Sandakan bound bus. The journey took around 6 hours and we got off at the Sepilok junction. Basically got dropped off at a roundabout in the middle of nowhere. We saw a sign advertising Uncle Tans, and walked there. We had booked a trip into the jungle with them and requested 1 nights stay at there Ops Base so we could visit the Sepilok Orangutan Rehab Centre. For the rest of the day we just hung around the Ops Base, playing abit of pool and basketball. All our meals were included. So we just had a buffet tea which was pretty basic. The rooms were pretty basic too... a four bed dorm but we were the only ones in it which was good. Uncle Tans does advertise there accomodation at the ops base and their jungle camp as being 'basic', so we knew what we getting.
The next morning we were up and had a simple breakfast, before ORANGUTAN TIME....
Uncle Tan's provided a free shuttle bus from there base to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre.
The aim of the centre is to return orphaned, injured or displaced orangutans back into the wild. Many orphans have successfully undergone the process of rehabilitation and have been released into the 4,294 hectare Kabili- Sepilok Forest.
What does Orangutan mean?? ... Man of the Forrest.
Anyway when we got to the centre we had to leave all our things in lockers (except the camera), this was so none of the monkeys pinched any of our things. The feeding time was 10.00am and we wanted a good spot so we walked to the viewing point in good time.. about 30 minutes before (Can you tell Lucy was a little excited.) Whilst waiting we were approached by about 8 Macaques monkeys prowling up and down the woodern platform.. they got very close to where we were standing and one even showed its teeth.. Lucy stepped back but then got pushed back forward by Peter as he didnt want to lose the viewing spot.
Everybody were too busy watching the monkeys to notice that Ronnie the Orangutan (in the picture) had turned up just sat on one of the ropes.. Ronnie is 8 years old and was the only male Orangutan we saw.. which was a little disappointing as we would have like to have seen a huge male. But you can't push your luck.. at least we saw some.
Once it got to around feeding time a female and baby Orangutan turned up.. we're sorry but we didn't quite catch their names... but this was Ronnies mother.. we felt really sorry for Ronnie because apparently when his mother had another baby, she pushed ronnie away and devoted all her time to the new born. Another mother orangutan with her baby also turned up for the feed. It was funny to watch the orangutans eat and drink on the platform.
The macaques looked like they wanted some food aswel and headed towards the feeding platform. The man who was feeding the Orangutans must be use to the Macaques and kept the food well away from them. Once the Orangutans had had enough food they went back onto the ropes well away from the macaque monkeys. We tried our best to get some good photos. We stood around for about 20minutes watching the Orangutans chill out on the ropes. The baby orangutans were so cute, their mothers never letting them stray far away. After a while the Orangutans went swinging back into the forest out of sight. It was a brilliant experience witnessing this amazing creatures in their natural habitat.
We later watched a video on the work the rehab centre does. Its a very good cause. Lucy wanted the job of one of the people who get to feed them with a milk bottle and bring up the young orangutans, sometimes getting cuddles.
She just loves Orangutans.
We then had a drink in the cafeteria and waited for the shuttle bus to pick us up, not forgetting this was Peter's Birthday, so Lucy bought him some tic tacs. What a great girlfriend... haha..
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