Hey everyone, I am currently sitting in a very nice hostel in Kota Kinabalu called Borneo Discoveries or something like that (it's really not that important). Regardless I've had some pretty heavy wildlife adventures over the last couple of days so let us get to it. When I left off last time, we had just completed our diving near Simporna. After that we traveled to a place called Uncle Tan's Wildlife Adventures in Sepilok by bus. While there we booked our room for the night and settled down to a night of wifi, Batman Begins, and the stories of an older professor of biological anthropology from the University of Sacramento who would be accompanying us to the lodge in the middle of the forest the next day. We had an early night to prepare for our early morning where we hopped on a bus and proceeded to the orangutan sanctuary 5 minutes down the road.

We paid our fees for cameras and entry and proceeded to the raised platform which would lead us to the feeding area where we could expect to see the resident orangutans in about an hour. Just past the entrance to the raised walkway we saw a group of people clustered around what we appeared to be an orangutan. As we got closer, we noticed the young female in the trees off to the side, and were amazed at how close we were to her, and how comfortable she seemed with us so close. After watching her for about 30 seconds, we started to move along the path again, but quickly realized why everyone had been clustered there in the first place: there was a huge male sprawled across the path. We stood in awe for a while just watching him lounge and halfheartedly grab at the ankles of people who had to walk over him to continue down the path. We also notice his teeth when he yawned. Those things are impressive. After getting our fill of the big male and braving the treacherous orangutan infested walkway, we made our way to the feeding area. We had some time to spare, so we continued down the pathway and came across another young female who descended from the trees as we walked up and began to walk along the railing of the pathway towards the feeding ground. Not wanting to miss this great oppurtunity for photos and close interaction, we followed closely behind and ahead of her. At one point during her journey, she suddenly stopped and sat down, seemingly so that she could get a better look at the humans who were so closely following behind her. This was not the reason. With a sudden splash, she decided that she needed to poop. It was pretty vile and the smell drove us to a more respectful distance even after she began to move again. She completed her journey without incident, so we proceeded to take our seats at the feeding area. The first arrivals were a pack of around 7 macaques who waited in the wings for the orangs to finish eating. Four orangutans came to be fed (I expected more because there were 10 in the park, but apparently some are more independent than others) and we watched with wonder as they ate the fruit and lapped up the milk that was offered. Hilariously, the macaques braved the presence of the larger primates and would periodically sneak in to snag a loose banana.

After the feeding we decided to check out one of the trails. It was only 1 km long, and after the hiking at Taman Nagara was laughably relaxing and easy. However, I did have my first experience with leeches, and had to burn two of them off of my body during the hike. It's so strange to look down and see this small, dark tube (which you cannot feel) happily sucking away at your blood. They were easy to remove though, and after completing the trail and grabbing a celebratory ice cream bar, we caught a ride back to Uncle Tan's. From there we packed a change of clothes into our small packs (while leaving our large packs in the care of the workers), and hopped on a bus for the first leg of our journey out to the commune where we would be spending the next 3 days and 2 nights. The bus ride was only around an hour, after which we hopped in a boat and spent around 1.5 hours making our way to the commune. This jungle river boat ride was much more entertaining than the one we endured in Taman Nagara due to sightings of a variety of bird species along the way such as hornbills, eagles, and hawks, and many troops of long-tailed macaques which we passed right along the river. Once we arrived we offloaded our things and were led to our sleeping quarters. The whole commune was raised about 4 feet above the forest floor due to the flooding which occurs during every wet season (it is currently the dry season). Our room for the next two nights was an open wooden hut with 3 mattresses on the ground, all of which were covered with mosquito nets. We hung out for a time and got to know the people who would be accompanying us on our 5 hikes and boat rides. There were two girls from Virginia Tech, a New Zealander, an English couple, the aforementioned professor, and a Malaysian mother from Kuala Lumpur and her 3 young children. The children provided entertainment throughout our time there and I played ping pong with the oldest child (the 11 year old Keith) many times throughout our stay. We also engaged in a night time penalty kick shootout on the small dirt soccer field the workers had built.

That night we hopped on a boat for our night tour where one of the locals manned the front of the boat with a massive torch light. During this ride we saw several civets (small, cat-like creatures), some sleeping hornbills, and a troop of the ever present macaques. The next morning we arose very early for the first of 3 tours (2 by boat and 1 on land) which would keep us occupied that day. Throughout these tours we saw more macaques (probably 200), a gibbon, more birds, a troop of silver leaf monkeys, and many proboscis monkeys as well. We also went fishing in the afternoon which turned out to be something of a bust. The day before we had seen one of the locals with a foot-long catfish which we expected would be pretty similar to what we would be catching, but after the first 3 5-inchers were caught, we knew we shouldn't have expected much. After I realized how small the fish we could catch were, and catching one myself, I quit baiting my hook and just let it sit in the water while I basked in the shade at the front of the boat. I relaxed completely except for when I had to help Keith bait his hook or feel amazement when his younger sister would cast her pole expertly when she had never done it before that day. We kept 3 of our tiny catfish and the cook prepared them in a sweet and sour dish later that night especially for us.

The next morning we found out rats had been running around in our hut, and had even chewed a hole in Greg's pack so that they could make off with a bag of granola he had tucked in there. Luckily, I had no food with me so they left my pack alone. We had nothing scheduled for the morning until our departure, so after breakfast we lounged in hammocks until the workers took to the soccer field and began to play a 5 v 5 match. I was amazed at how good they were. Much better than the people I had played with in Nicaragua last year. The rest of day was filled with the boat and bus ride back to Uncle Tan's, a quick shower (because there were no showers out at the jungle lodge), and hopping on another bus on which we stayed for the 6 hours it took to get to Kota Kinabalu. Once we finally arrived we dropped our bags at a hotel across the street from the bus station because we didn't feel like looking for anything better. This place was a little janky, as evidenced by the hole in the floor which served as a toilet in one of the rooms we booked. After that we ate and set off to find wifi. We finally found it in a hotel lobby, and the guy behind the desk graciously let us use it free of charge for which we rewarded him with a Coke. After that we got some much needed rest.

That brings us to this morning when we cheked out and took a taxi into the nicer inner city region of Kota Kinabalu. The city is surprisingly clean and nice considering it is the 2nd largest city in Bornean Malaysia. All we had to do was pay for me and Greg's Mt. Kinabalu climbing expedition which we will be doing in 2 days. Stephen and Jenny decided not to join us and are instead going to spend the 2 days we are climbing the mountain in Brunei, a small Sultanate not for from here. By 1 we had accomplished everything we needed to do for the day, so partly as celebration and partly due to the torrential downpour which started around the same time, we wiled away a couple of hours on Heineken and pool. That brings us to where I am now. I beleive tonight we are going to spend some time at a bar called Shenanigan's where there is a jazz festival supposed to be taking place in an hour or so. Next time I should be able to talk a little bit more about Kota and climbing the mountain and the world cup (WHAT!) and maybe Singapore because that we will be flying there in a few days. Aunt Neva if you have any suggestions from your time there for places of interest or anything like that it would be greatly appreciated. Alright guys I'll see you next time.