Sandakan-Borneo -Malaysia -2009

The Entrance to the Centre

One of the highlights of our tour to Sandakan was to visit The Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabiliation Sanctuary which was established in 1964 and is about 25 km from Sandakan. It is the world's largest Orang utan Sanctuary covering  almost 4000 hectares.

The Orangs known as "Wild Man of Borneo." roam freely in the Sanctuary and decide if they want to go to one the feeding platforms where milk and bananas are put out for them by the Rangers. The babies and pregnant mothers are seen more often at the Platforms and closer to the Headquarters than the males who seem to stay deeper in the forest.

Twice daily, it is a bit like "a photo feeding frenzy" when all the tourists arrive to photograph the feeding sessions. Visitors are allowed to walk along the tracks to the platforms for the sessions and this is when it is possible to see an orang heading towards the feeding platform.

We were lucky enough to meet this orang utan on the walkway. This young mum to be, wanted Fran and then Ranger to carry her to the platform!

As visitors we were not allowed to touch them so the Ranger ended up carring her as she refused to move!

Carry Me Please!

Go on. Carry Me!

Yeah! I Win!

This close encounter was a magic experience and sent shivers down our spines!

We also travelled 20 km inland to the Gomantong Caves which are famous for the swiftlets' nest that are used by the Chinese in bird's nest soup. Twice a year licensed collectors climb to the top of the caves to collect the nests. It is a long way up and they must be very brave as they only use rattan ladders, ropes and poles! We were there on their last day of the season and they were dismantling ladders and that looked scary enough!

Collectors at Work

It was very dark in the caves so photographing was difficult and we also had to tramp over dung heaps, so it was smelly and there were thousands of dung beetles and cockroaches! Fran felt brave after that!

Lots of Bugs! Brave Fran!