Oragutans & General Monkey Business

So the 2nd leg of the Borneo trip was to encompass a visit to the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary and either a trip to an island or a white water rafting trip... as I have plenty of time to bum around on a beach I of course went for the rafting choice.

The Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary is part run by a UK Orangutan charity and sadly feels like a profit making scheme; sadly the feeling is rather touristy and the generic sob story video that they make you watch before you enter was extremely cringe worthy. Our guide has told us that the Orangutan levels had grown considerably since their plight was highlighted some years ago, approx numbers are 15 -20k in the wild however the sanctuary will of course say that more needs to be done, yada yada. The visit consisted of 2 feeding times, 1 in the AM and the other in the afternoon. The orangs are provided with food and toys to play with whilst a baying crowd of tourists watch them. I was lucky enough to see 2 organutan shaped blobs in the wild and for me this was far more enjoyable than being in the Sepilok environment, however I did of course get some cracking photos at the sanctuary!!

The rafting also deserves a mention as it was most enjoyable, it was a 19KM trip with 9 rapids to maneuver, our guides for the day Mr Bond & Mr Brown assured us that capsizing was extremely rare! It was fitting that on the 1st rapid we flipped over, it took 2 1/2 hours overall from start to finish and 1 chap remarked that was considerably better than he had done both in Thailand and NZ.

So the plan for the next week is as such, in currently in Kuala Lumpur, tomorrow I am scheduled to depart for Cameron Highlands for 2 nights and then finally onto Penang. The plan was then to traverse across Southern Thailand and up to Saraburi, however due to the airline phenomenon that is Air Asia I can fly from Penang to Bangkok for under 60 GBP and do the Thailand traveling later next month once Rob has departed.

Hope everyone is well, speak to you soon

X

written by  Michael Russell on March 7, 2009 from Sepilok, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Escape from Blighty
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