Onward to Kinabatangan River

After awakening at dawn, we took a boat from Turtle Island to the pier, where we had breakfast on the dock over looking the houses on stilts that protrude into the water. Then, we drove to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, where they teach orangutans to survive independently in the wild. Many of the orangutans there were kept as pets or orphaned. Slowly, over a period of years, the young orangutans are reintroduced to the wild. The center also helps catch and relocate adult orangutans to preserves and provides medical care for injured or ill animals.

We arrived for feeding where orangutans who are living semi-independently in the preserve are feed milk and bananas to supplement what they find to eat. We saw two orangutans, Mishka and Biba, come to the platform to eat. The larger of the two, the male, came along the balcony area where we were watching and was very close. After eating, the two left in the same direction, swinging along some fire hose that leads from the feeding platform. Then, a group of pig tailed macaques finished up the left over food, run and play on the ropes, and squabble over the bananas.

After leaving Sepilok, we went back to the pier and took a boat across the bay to the head of the muddy Kinabatangan River. We stopped for lunch at a lodge and then continued on the boat to our lodge at the edge of the Kinabatangan River. On the way, we spotted long tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys, silver leaf monkeys, rhinoceros hornbills, black hornbills and other birds. We took a boat trip on the river and were fortunate to see a herd of pygmy elephants feeding along the riverbank. These elephants, which are smaller than Asian elephants, are a distinct species. We also saw a huge crocodile and several bird species. After a gorgeous sunset on the river, we returned to the lodge for dinner and to sleep. The temperature here is close to 100 degrees and it is very humid. At this lodge, there is no air conditioning so it was a very sticky night of sleeping.

We felt these accommodations were pretty rustic; however, we met a Dutch couple, who had spent a night sleeping on mats in a native longhouse. They brought their own pig’s head for dinner and as a gift for the family they were staying with. The best comment of the night was “and the worst part, we had to eat the pig’s head too.”

Interesting Fact: Orangutans are the only representative of the ape family outside of Africa and are now only found in Borneo and Sumatra. Unlike the other members of the ape family, which includes chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos, they live in solitary ranges. Young orangutans stay with their mothers for 5-7 years. The word orangutan means person of the forest in Malaysian.