Friday 10 October 2014

Stop 7; Sepilok

The far east of Borneo has been, as previously mentioned, decimated by palm oil plantations.  Absurdly tucked away within this is Sepilok. There is an area containing rehabilitation centres and accommodation where tourists and locals can go glimpse wildlife in a tiny pocket of conserved jungle.

Had we bothered to research properly we may have not headed this far east to visit, certainly not this area (our next stop was our main priority), but we were lured by the task of finally seeing orangutans.

We arrived at our lodgings early evening an grabbed a great dinner. Turns out all meals were included for the days we would be here, result! Hot showers, comfy bed and free transit to and from the orangutan sunctuary the next morning were also included, things were looking up at last.

Next morning, well fed for free and in great weather (out of the mountains it was like being in a different country in regards to climate) we headed of to see our elusive cousins, well I say elusive... We'd prepared ourselves for the experience to be organised and non-wild and we got what we expected - feeding time arrived and so did the orangutans and monkeys of differing species. We could openly see the ranger passing the food direct to each creature from behind a tree on the feeding platform.  Still, we saw yet another new species of monkey, the short tailed macaque, and also a pit viper. Cool.


Next door there was a sun bear sanctuary too. These little blighters are rather cool, we spent an age watching them feed and climb trees.  That, however, was about it for Sepilok! We'd made some travel buddies who were interested in our next adventure so we nailed down plans for meeting up and getting there the next day, we had high hopes for some real wildlife encounters before we said goodbye to Borneo!




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