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Poverty: it's a bad thing. I'm not talking about the 'I can barely afford to smoke, I only drink the specials in the pub and Chesney's going to have to live with a fake Chelsea strip this year' type poverty we see in the west, rather the 'I live in a rat infested slum, not sure if I can feed the family and I will die if I get sick' type poverty that 100s of millions in developing nations suffer. It is fantastic that the slow spread of wealth is improving the lot of millions. Really, it is. Doesn't half make traveling dull though.
Dull is not the right thing to say but without doubt some of the adventure is lost. I remember the good old days when the start of the trip involved arrival at some hot, sweaty rundown airport where queues were long, loos where like the pits of hell and everybody tried to rip you off. If you didn't have your wits about you, you could lose your first weeks budget before you arrived at your hotel, your luggage was stolen and you woke up from a drug fuddled sleep married to a Thai lady with an adams apple and a bulge under her mini-skirt.............. ok, just one more night.........******************
As demonstrated on our arrival in Kota Kinabalu, everything is much more civilized now. The airport is as modern as any you will find, complete with Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and the Scottish restaurant. Bags arrived promptly, no bribes were required at customs to avoid anybody being intimate and a taxi booth made sure we only had to pay the right amount to get to the hotel. A safe journey then followed, through safe, well lit streets past well known shops before arrival at our very international hotel where tips are not expected. All very easy. All very safe. Not very adventurous. Now you need to go to Heathrow to experience what the third world used to be like.****************************************
The first few days involved lots of travel, early mornings and not enough sleep. I also got the 'no longer working hard so let's be ill' man flu which made me great company. Phlem, snot and moaning. Jodie was convinced I did it all to annoy her.*+**************************
In a nutshell, we overnighted in in KK at the only ok Le Meridian (very tired), got up at 5 am, went back to the airport to catch an Air Asia flight (not a bad airline) to Sabah's second city, Sandakan. We then 'did animals' for the next few days, using the Four Point hotel, in a town that lacks any notable features besides a smelly fish-market and a sea full of plastic, as a launch point to other places.*******************
Day one took us to 3 sanctuaries containing proboscis monkeys, sun bears and the rather fantastic orang-utans. We were driven about by Ahmed who we organised through a local travel agency and for $300 drove us around for three days. This is well worth it as hire cars are expensive, roads in need of repair and signposts rare.**************
The proboscis monkey sanctuary was about 45 mins from Sandakan and was started by the Lee brothers, palm oil plantation owners who, either out of genuine compassion or an eye for a good tourist cash cow, kept a bit of jungle and the monkeys within. They get fed at the same times in the same places so all we had to do was turn up. The first place we stopped at was a bit obscure and as it was a bit early we had them all to ourselves for about 45 mins. They are strange creatures. The men are all nose and hard on. Allegedly you can tell by the big nose that a male is ready to breed. That maybe so but I reckon the bright pink 3 inch permanently hard penis sticking into its belly is a bit of a give-away too. And no way are they going to hide it. They are going to sit staring at you with their legs up and the pink pointer looking straight at you in a 'not bad for a little monkey eh?' kind of way.***************************
Whilst all the male adult monkeys look the same, only the leader can actually use his man staff in anger, which is a tough job if you have more than 10 wives and all of them are always keen. The other adult males just do a lot of personal training in the trees until they are tough enough to oust the leader. What a great motivation to fight! The second place fed them at 11.30, by which time loads more people have arrived. Top tip: if visiting do to the 9.30 feeding at Viewing Platform B.***************************************
The ranga's and sun bears are in Sepilok, which is about 15 minutes closer to town. Both look after creatures that have been orphaned. Sun bears are orphaned by poachers who want to drain their gallbladders to make what I am sure is a very effective medicine. When are the Chinese going to learn that the most effective medicine comes from poachers testicles?*************************************
They are cute little things (the bears, not the testicles) that snuffle about the forest floor digging for grubs or climbing trees to get honey from beehives.*****************************
The orang-utans are orphaned by us and the palm oil plantation companies that work on our behalf. As the forest is cut or burnt, those that aren't quick enough are killed or very badly injured. As it takes about 8 years of motherly support before a young ranga can fend for itself a dead mum = 2 dead apes. If these young are found the 2 or three local sanctuaries try to teach them what they need to know before releasing them, or just allowing them to grow old in a protected forest.***********************
They are great to watch. Very playful, agile and occasionally graceful. They don't jump about from tree to tree like the monkeys but go from branch to branch in a slow considered fashion. The youngsters are very playful and cheeky, showing off by hanging upside-down like bats. It was great to see them and hope to see more in the wild.**********************
From Sandakan to the Kinabatangan River where we picked up our boat was about a 3 hour trip and it was during this we saw just how little forest there is left. For 95% of the drive we saw palm oil plantations as far as the eye can see. The roads are full of palm oil trucks and occasionally we saw smoke billowing from palm oil mills. It is not only very boring to look at mile upon mile of palm trees, it is also a very sad reminder of a habitat that may soon be lost forever. **********************************
The effects of deforestation are interesting along the river. The Government has shown real leadership and stopped protected a depth of 50 meters from the river so that the creatures have a corridor (I think this means the elephants need to walk in single file). The upside of this is that there are a lot of animals in a small space so we saw long-tailed macaques, pig-tailed macaques, red-leaf monkeys, kingfishers, lizards, and many other birds. Alas, no orang-utans though. They are there, they just hid from us.
Day three involved a 3 hour trip, starting at 5.30 am to Lahad Datu, which is the start point of the proper jungle leg: three days in the Danum Valley Conservation Area. More orang-utans!
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