Outside the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center

Today we woke up after yet again an amazing sleep in a dorm, had breakfast and met Neil and Reggie, who slept in a room instead of choosing the dorm option due to Chris’ snoring! We then got into a minibus to go to the Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre. There are 2 feeding times there, one at 10am and one at 3pm. We decided to go to both to make the most out of our ticket and it was awesome!

An orangutan hiding!

An orangutan holding on tight

An orangutan holding on by it's legs, whilst eating... impressive

Orangutan

Orangutan

Eating

Gorgeous orangutan

Monekys at it yet again....

Monekys at it again...

And again....

Monkeys once again....

Orangutan eating

Orangutan disgusted by the monekys in front of him

An old orangutan with a disgusting moneky's arse

Neil and a monkey

Basically, the centre is for rescued orang-utans either saved from being captured and then kept as pets or orphans alone in the jungle, and their aim is to eventually release them back into the wild when they are fit enough and able to do so, taking around 10 years to accomplish this.

An orangutan

Swinging

Orangutan

He looks like he's about to sneeze!

That pose looks painful

A very thoughtful expression

Orangutan

Poser

Nice bum shot

A hanging orangutan

The orang-utans themselves are 96.4% human, according to the facts and they are just fascinating to watch.

A posing monkey

3 orangutans

The guy feeding the orphaned orangutans

Swinging

We actually got really close to them at feeding times, but the wild masque monkeys scared them away after about 10 minutes, which was irritating.

Eating

Orangutans scared of the monkeys

Orangutans

Orangutans

Full-on kiss

Ahhh...

Orangutans comforting each other from scary monkeys

Kissy kissy

2 Orangutans

Bestest friends

CUTE!!

You wouldn’t think they would be scared of them considering they are 3 times the size of the monkeys! At 4pm, we took a transfer back and relaxed in the bar for Reggie and Neil’s last night with us…

written by  chrischarly on May 13, 2011 from Sepilok, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Borneo 4WD tours Ltd

We checked out this morning heading to Tawau over some pretty dodgy roads in the 4x4 driving slowly and enjoying the scenery of Borneo, as it really is beautiful out here.

Nice smooth road

Jungle storage

If the road can break them what hope do we have !

On the jungle route

More jungle passing us by, literally

Once in Tawau, we found a really nice hotel to stay in for the night being the cheapest as well as the best so we settled in and chilled out for a while before taking a wander about enjoying being the only tourists around and receiving special treatment from the locals.

written by  chrischarly on May 15, 2011 from Tawau, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Lost at the end of the road

We got up early today leaving Tawau heading towards Maliau Basin (Sabah’s lost world) Conservation Area, trying our luck getting in without a prior reservation. It is basically a circular basin with pristine forest inside, has only been open to the public since 1981, and receives very few tourists. It was really pricy but the chance to stay in the middle of a rainforest in the middle of nowhere and nobody else around us was too good an opportunity to miss, so we decided to go for it!

Malau basin was open but no car to drive us in, poo !

In order to get inside, someone had to pick us up, as our little 4-wheel drive wouldn’t make it, so we sat and waited… and waited… Eventually Chris went to go and find what was going on and we discovered that the owner of the place had left with the car keys to Kota Kinabalu, which is about 300km away from here! This was the only vehicle insured to take tourists so we had no choice but to continue on our adventure.

There goes some more virgin Borneon jungle

Roadside cafe, Borneon styley

We then made our way to Sapulut to try our luck with somewhere to stay. Once there we realised that we were once again in the middle of nowhere and stopped at a random shop to grab a drink, which was dirt-cheap and sat surrounded by indigenous locals trying to work out our next plan. A trucker came along after a while who luckily spoke a bit of English and acted as translator for us so we could ask where would be best to stay. He told us there was a missionary just down the road and we could stay in the Catholic Church, but apart from that there was nowhere except to stay with the shop owner and we could negotiate staying at her house. But as she didn't speak any English and quite possibly lived in a tiny shack with all her family and not wanting to offend anyone if we turned up there and it was horrible, we made a quick getaway.

Elephant poo, we were on the trail

All we can say is, not often !

We waited, and waited!

Wee stop #1

Then we headed towards Keningau, which was the closest city in search again of finding somewhere to stay. So after about 11 hours of driving on some very dodgy rounds, written in the Lonely Planet as virtually ‘impossible to travel to on your own’ and only if you were ‘a proficient 4 wheel driver’ you could give it a go, we made it and found a great place to stay for really cheap.

Keningau stop night #2

We then wandered around once again no tourists whatsoever amazed at how happy everyone was to see us in their city, pointing, giggling, and wanting to be our friends.

written by  chrischarly on May 16, 2011 from Keningau, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Very local town

Gravel, not bumpy at all!

Boat building

This morning we woke up, found a cute local roti restaurant sitting with locals who spoke not a word of English so we got the chance to practice speaking the local language (Satu Kopi Susu= 1 coffee with milk) as well as just pointing and luckily, we got what we wanted! The locals all loved us and the pretty Muslim girls all wanted to have their photos taken with us especially enjoying the novelty of being with a pink and yellow haired Justine!

Car lost for a while we think !

Deep Borneon jungle

Strange insect, we discovered it !

We then checked out of our hostel and started our next adventure going around in circles due to getting seriously lost before doing some mega off roading and driving through a fast-flowing river, all of us being quite surprised that us as well as our car made it.

There was a road but then it rained

Lets just go for it and dont stop, whatever !

Nice offrad track

Roadside cafe, Borneon styley

We then made our way to Sabah Tea Gardens in Ranau to work out where we could stay the night from talking to the locals, before finally finding somewhere to sleep in Telupid, with dubious stains on the bed and cockroaches running about. Nice.

Amazing skies

Amazing skies

Justine watching the Roti maker

Tea plantation

Through a rough track then we fing a bus stop ?!

We found an awesome roti restaurant again this morning, but didn’t really get anything we ordered but it still tasted good! Once again, as we were in a really small local town not even mentioned in the Lonely Planet so virtually non-existent in the eyes of a tourist, we got a load of attention from the locals before once again setting off for our next adventure.

Black squirrell eating bananas

Offroad adventurer!

Palm fruit off to the refinery

Another end of the road, great navigation Justine !

Extreme !

Offroad adventure

Getting a bit tricky

Palm workers suprised to see us

Justine leaving car whilst moving ?!

We drove on a windy road up North towards Pitas and then got lost, yes, again as we planned to do some 4-wheel driving and managed to find some pretty exciting roads before finally finding the right way and headed in search for a beach.

Beach at 2nd tip of Borneo

On the 2nd tip of Borneo

Amazing beach middle of nowhere!

We found the beach !

Through a palm plantation to the beach

So much so that there was nowhere even remotely close to staying so we relaxed and splashed our feet for a while before driving almost to the tip of Borneo to finally find somewhere to crash for the night in Kudat driving through massive thunder storms with practically no visibility of the road ahead. Scary!!

written by  chrischarly on May 18, 2011 from Pitas, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Off on our 4WD adventure

Crazy Justine off across the swingy bridge

The river of browness

So confident, look 1 hand !

Slowly slowly

Difficult passing move

On the swing bridge

Coming down from the swing bridge

We woke up early this morning and had a curry breakfast before heading to Tuaran to stay with a Muslim family Justine has stayed with before. Of course, along the way we got lost once again but arrived not long after 2pm.

Cooking at our private retreat

Cooking out our private retreat

Cooking out our private retreat

Although it was a guestHouse, it felt a lot more like staying with the family at their own House as we were made to feel so welcome.

Amazing sky before the storm

Amazing sky before the storm

Amazing skies on our last night with Justine

In the evening, we cooked at made dinner for them, and it was amazing to have mashed potato again, and chatted the night away.

Justine chewing on beetlenut... yuck

Justine, Annie and her mum

written by  chrischarly on May 19, 2011 from Tuaran, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Me early morning waiting for the ferry to Brunei

We woke up far too early this morning to ensure we got first dibs in the showers and toilets as there’s only 2 per floor so we wouldn’t have to queue. We then skipped a vile breakfast before taking a taxi to the Ferry terminal and taking the Ferry to Labuan where we had to wait a couple of hours for the next one.

The ferry port

The second ferry we went on

Chris outside the first ferry

Once in Brunei, we took a bus into town and then found accommodation relatively easily and then decided to go for a wander in the smallest capitol city in Asia, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the smallest in the world!

Another photo of the mosque

The mosque at almost sunset

It takes pretty much no time at all to have a walk around and it’s pretty expensive here, so don’t think we will be spending loads of time here. But nevertheless it’s still a nice place to go and visit.

A crazy Manakin

The mosque over the river

Today we had a bit of a lie-in and then met our friend Laura to go for a walk around Bandar Seri Begawan.

The pretty village

Water village

Walking around the water village, the biggest in the world

Our driver

Me enjoying passing through the water village

A shell garage

Filling up with petrol on the river

Local boys going for a late night swim

A fire station on the water

Early evening we decided to go on a boat trip around the river managing to haggle the trip down to 15 ringgit (£3) and saw probiscus monkeys, fireflies, the Sultan’s Palace and went through the water village again. Photos didn’t however turn out great as it was dusk but well worth the trip.

The River Brunei

A firefly that landed on Chris' hand... Look closely and you can work it out

A tug-of-war game we randomly came across

When we got off the boat though, the skipper tried to rip us off by saying that it was 15 ringgit per hour and as we were gone two, it was double the price and certainly NOT what we agreed, so basically just laughed at him and walked off, which was a shame as we thought he was lovely.

written by  chrischarly on May 22, 2011 from Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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