James takes on the world!

After leaving Seporna where I had been diving I decided that I would head north to stay at a tropical retreat called Paganakan Dii near Sepilok, Sabah, Northern Borneo. It was a great place to relax in the very humid tropical rainforest surroundings. I stayed in one of their new Longhouses (a type of long, narrow, single-room building built traditionally by the indigenous peoples of Borneo) which had 12 beds and I had all to myself. It was a lovely airy building surrounded by the sounds of the rainforest which was great to wake up to in the mornings.

The first evening I was there I met a group of four Brits who were on holiday in Borneo for 2 weeks. They invited me to have a drink with them and I ended up travelling with them for the following four days. They were great fun to be around and after an evening of drinking, laughing and dancing the saff of the retreat informed us that they never really had visitors like us but they had really enjoyed our company.

The following morning we took a trip to the nearby Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre set in 4,300-hectares of the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve. As a visitor you are allowed to watch the orphaned Orangutans as they are feeding at the phase 1 platform. The reason there are so many orphaned Orangutans in Borneo is mainly due to the deforestation of the rainforest to make way for Palm Oil plantations. This forces the Orangutans into human conflict where they are often kept as pets by uneducated locals and mothers often become parted from their young ones.

The centre slowly reintroduces the orphaned Orangutans into the wild through a series of 3 feeding platforms. Phase one platform is located near to the rehabilitation centre at the edge of the open rainforest and the Oragutans are fed twice daily with some human interaction. Phase 2 is located deeper inside the rainforest where they are fed slightly less with no interaction from humans and Phase 3 is located deep inside the rainforest where they are fed very little. This slowly encourages the Orangutans to go deeper into the rainforest at the same time as increasing their need to find their own food. The Orangutans are free to go from phase to phase as they feel happy. Some will take months to move out into their natural habitat and some take years.

It was great to see the Orangutans so closely, however, I still really wanted to see them in their natural environment without the aid of humans. We all decided to go on a 2 day/3 night trip to the Kinabatangan River. After travelling for 3 hours along roads surrounded by palm oil plantations that extended as far as you could see we reached the Kinabatangan River Nature Lodge. That evening we took a boat trip down the river into the rainforest. We were incredibly lucky as my wish came true when we saw a male Orangutan high up in a fig tree on the edge of the river. I was so happy to get to see an Orangutan in the wild and I couldn’t believe my luck when 20 minutes later we saw a female Orangutan with her baby. Our guide informed us that it was very rare to see Orangutans in the wild nowadays, let alone 2 separate sightings. We were also lucky enough to see a group of Proboscis Monkeys (the ones with the big long red noses, not the prettiest of animals), Ring Tailed Macaques, Kingfishers and beautiful Rhinoceros Hornbills. I was stunned at the amount of wildlife that could be found along the river.

That evening, after being bombarded by lots of large insects and Mosquitoes at dinner, we went out on a night safari kitted up in Leech socks. Once again our luck was in as we saw a Western Tarsier as it clung to the tree on its way to the top, its huge eyes mesmerised by our torch lights.

We woke at 5:30am the following morning ready for another river safari. We saw lots of bird life as well as a couple of big, and very dangerous, Freshwater Crocodiles. We returned for breakfast and then went on a 3 hour trek to an Oxbow lake. We saw a Prevosts Squirrel, various dangerous and brightly coloured spiders and Elephant tracks but sadly no elephants. Once again in the evening we went out on a river trip and unbelievably we saw another young Orangutan playing in the trees. I was starting to think that these Orangutans weren’t actually endangered but the constant reminder of how lucky we were from the guide erased any suspicion. We also saw some highly venomous tree snakes.

After one more night I said goodbye to my new friends as they headed to Semporna where I had already been and I headed for Kota Kinabalu. I am planning on staying here for a couple of nights before heading to the east Malaysian state of Sarawak.

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