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We flew from Singapore into Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, before an onward flight to Sandakan airport. We checked into our dorm room in the exotically titled Sepilok Jungle Resort. Looked great in pictures, but less so in real life - a tad dated and lacking in life. However, it's only a 5 minute walk to the Urang-utan centre. That afternoon we went to see the Urang-utan feeding session. They put bananas and sugar cane onto a platform twice a day and the urang-utans and other smaller monkeys come to feed on them. Pretty cool. The urang-utans tend to eat and then retreat back to the jungle, but on the walk back to the exit we had the smaller monkeys walk right next to us on the paths, including ickle babies clinging to their mums. Check out the photos.
As we were a day ahead of schedule, we managed to get an organised overnight trip to Turtle Island, one of 3 projects to help increase giant turtles numbers. We were picked up by coach in the morning and taken to a boat which then took us through tiny rivers and the open sea to a small island resort ( you could walk the island round in about an hour) where we had lunch. We shared lunch with 1 fellow turtle tourist and a couple on their honeymoon (the only couple to be staying on the island that night!). We then continued by boat to turtle island for a spot of afternoon sunbathing and then gathered in the centre's restaurant to await a turtle landing. Later on, the rangers rushed us to the beach where a giant turtle was laying eggs. Sadly, we wern't allowed to use flash photography and only 1 torch was allowed, so you will have to squint to see the turtle photos. We then saw the rnager collect the eggs and place them in the nursery, and then saw a newly hatched batch of baby tutles released into the open sea (same photo problems but even worse). Turtle spotting complete, we finished a game of cards with some other tourists and headed back to the accommodation. On the way, we came across some baby turtles who had got lost,and did our bit for the environment by returning them to the sea. When we got back to the room, we had another close encounter with wildlife by chasing the rat from our room and then blockign all the holes up! No photos of this though!
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