Lankayan Island to Sandakan to Kuala Lumpur - March 20-21st

This morning we took a 6:30 AM boat ride back to Sandakan. Another jarring boat ride with engine alarms that kept going off.  But we made it safely back and were picked up at the jetty to head to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center.  

"The centre opened in 1964 as the first official orangutan rehabilitation project for rescued orphaned baby orangutans from logging sites, plantations, illegal hunting or kept as pets. The orphaned orangutans are trained to survive again in the wild and are released as soon as they are ready. The sanctuary is located within the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve which covers an area of 4,294 ha (10,610 acres), much of which is virgin rainforest. Around 60 to 80 orangutans are living free in the reserve" [Wikipedia]

The areas opened to the public are the Outdoor Nursery and the Feeding Platform.  The indoor nursery has the very young orangutans, some of whom are bottle fed every 2-4 hours. They are taught needed skills such as climbing (as they live their lives in the tops of trees) and foraging for food. Once they learn the basics, they are released to the outdoor nursery which is open to the surrounding forests.  This is the area we visited. There were about 10 orangutans there along with some pig-talked macaques that had come in from the forest.  A mother who had been raised in the center was back visiting with her baby.  The baby was born in the surrounding forest.  There is food for them and lots of ropes to play on.

Mom playing with her baby
They also have a feeding platform and there are feeds at 10 AM and 3 PM.  We went to the 10 AM feeding.  There were a couple of orangutans there but a lot of pig-tailed macaques.  The person with the food kept trying to move the macaques away.  Our guide told us that the orangutans are a bit afraid of the macaques who out-number and surround them.

Orangutan Yoga

Eating while hanging

They have the same food all the time so that the orangutans must forage if they want any variety in their food.

We watched a short video about the orangutans. There is an eight part documentary on Animal Planet called "Meet the Orangutans" that supposedly can be watched on Amazon Prime.  I will try and find it when I get home.

Bornean Sun Bear

After our visit with the orangutans, we went to the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Center next door. Sun Bears are very small bears (about 28 inches at the shoulder) and get their name from the large sun like patch on their chests that can vary for cream to yellow.  They spend much of their time up in trees.

After this visit, our guide stopped to pick up our to-go lunches and then dropped us at the airport for our flight back to Kuala Lumpur.  We got here about 6:30 PM last night.  Our flight was filled with club team rugby players from Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia who had just played in a tournament in Sandakan.  There were eight teams in the tournament of both men and women. We had a young woman from Singapore sitting next to us (she was a university student) and we chatted with her for much of the 2:45 hour flight.

Today we are repacking for the trip home and I am using the internet to finish the blog posts.  Our last night in Malaysia we enjoyed a lovely Tapa dinner at a nearby restaurant, followed by an amazing electrical storm.

This will be my last post for this trip.  I hope you enjoyed reading about our adventures.


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