Sepilok

We flew into Kota Kinabula from Kuchng but only stayed a couple of days as we needed to come back there to fly out again, but needed to get across Sabah to a place called Sepilok where all the jungle animals native to Borneo were hiding waiting for us to explore.Thus, we will review kota kinabula on our return. We didn't fancy the 7-8 hour bus journey to get to Sepilok so we took a flight instead which only took 45 minutes. You may have seen Borneo on t.v. showing all the endless expanses of jungle and the 'lost' indigenous tribes that inhabit these impossible to get to places but in reality over 70% of Borneo has been cut down and logged for the western demand and the land replaced by palm and rubber tree plantations which are intensely farmed which provide very poor habitats for the indigenous species thus they are killed as a consequence or driven out to smaller patches of rainforest where they can still live in the wild. Sepilok is one of these jungle areas where the jungle is protected by the government and conservation is at the fore front although I personally feel it's too late to save a lot of the native species from extinction in the wild as poaching still exists by the local people to fuel demand for body parts for the Chinese market and the locals also like to eat the bush meat as it is called and even catch the young ones and keep them as pets. One of the most endangered species is the Sun bear as when young is as cute as a button but grow up to be quite the opposite.

Even the Sunbears were begging for money from us. 

   Our first visit was to the Sun bear conservation project in Sepilok where Sun bears are rescued from the local villages that keep them as pets as it is illegal to do so. The villagers can be fined but do not understand the detrimental effect it can have on the bears so the center prefers to educate to try to preserve the animals still in the wild as they are an endangered species. The center rehabilitates them and them releases them back into the wild to fend for themselves in protected zones of jungle. The bears are kept in 'pens' which are fenced off sections of jungle where they are fed until strong enough to go back into the jungle. In reality this is the only chance to see a Sun bear as they would be impossible to detect in the wild and were hard enough to spot at this center but the guides are really helpful and point them out to you. They sleep in the jungle canopy so the center has built an ariel walkway so you can get an eye to eye level view of these amazing creatures. They are still a distance away so the staff have telescopes to pick the bears out for visitors and it was really frustrating trying to get photos with our crappy point and shoot compact camera but patience paid off and some of the bears would move around and when they did I made sure we 'papped' them and ended up with some OK photos which we were satisfied with.

Ed Sheeran loved it when the kids dressed like himself. 

  Next day we visited the Orangutan project which is basically has the same motives as the Sun bear operation but the Orangutans are not caged or penned and are free to roam the jungle as they please but staff at the center put food out on platforms and the apes can come and feast on the food if they wish to supplement their diet. There is no obligation for them to come back and on our first visit at feeding time there was no apes at all so did not see any. Luckily our ticket entitled us to another feeding in the afternoon so we went back to our resort which was only 5 minutes walk from the center and went for lunch and a swim in the pool because it was hotter than you could ever imagine and the heat soon tires you out. We did see an Orangutan on the way out funnily enough as it was on the roof of one of the out buildings of the center and the tourists which were still milling about which was not many, suddenly started getting in the face of the the ape with their cameras, it was like watching a pack of wild dogs hunting down its prey all armed with cameras as their weapons of choice. Of course these are wild animals and are unpredictable so should be treated with caution and as fast a lighting this massive ape turned on this Asian tourist and started chasing him about which made us laugh.The staff intervened and saved his bacon luckily for him but it was nice to see the tables turned! In the afternoon we went back to the second feeding and there were much less other tourist there this time and we were rewarded with 4 apes showing up at various intervals and 2 of them had babies which was a bonus and made for some great photos as a couple of times they came really close which was exhilarating for us both.

This bad boy was the best at doing shadow puppets.

   The only problem with hanging out in the jungle is the mosquitoes. It doesn't matter how much lotion you apply they always manage to get you. You sweat so much the lotion just runs off and there is no point reapplying it as your skin has a second layer of permanent sweat all over as the humidity is floating around the 90% mark all day and night. Another dilemma we were faced with was the sun was so strong and we needed to cover up or wear sunscreen. The sunscreen was also pointless for the same reason and covering up was not an option as the heat would soak any clothes you wore to saturation point pretty quickly and again overheat your body as well. So basically we were at the mercy of the mossies and they feasted on us like  kings. If it wasn't the jungle, than it would be the swimming pool, or in the shower was a favourite rendezvous point and if that failed they would get you in your sleep. The mossies here are particularly aggressive and would leave large welts on us unlike we had encountered before in other locations. I still don't understand why the locals did not get bitten. What is their secret? Mind you we were not the worst cases here, as at breakfast we used to see some real horror stories that used to make us wince in reaction to the pain they must be feeling. In fact we met one guy in Indonesia who had a bite which got infected and after 4 days had to have an operation to remove the septic puss which had built up but the hospital was so dirty that the wound got reinfected and his leg blew up like a balloon and he ended up with a hole in his leg so had to go and have another operation to try and save his leg which is when we met him and I can tell you it didn't look good to me. Anyway Kathy was feeling a bit below par the next day with possible symptoms of malaria or dengue fever but we hoped it was just heat exhaustion and she would recover after some rest. While she was resting at the resort I acquired a taxi to the rainforest development centre which is a swathe of protected virgin rainforest with massive towers built into it where you can get up into the canopy and search for exotic birds and admire the amazing panoramas of the rolling jungle. It also has walkways suspended up to a 80 meters high so you can walk amongst the canopy. Total amount of exotic birds seen = 0! Needed binoculars really to see anything so just enjoyed walking through the jungle and did not meet another soul on my 3 hour walk.

Stork billed kingfisher about to dive.

  When I returned to the resort, luckily Kathy was still alive so that was a relief. She had picked up some virus/chesty cough but as there was no doctors here so we decided to see if it would pass on its own as the fever had subsided and she was feeling a bit more chipper next day. We then took another taxi to the Proboscis monkey sanctuary which is basically a vast area of protected mangrove swamp that is the prime food and habitat of this type of monkey. They are weird looking as the males have large droopy noses, fat bellies and brightly coloured genitals. It was an expensive excursion for us and we were debating whether it was going to be worth the money as the monkeys are completely wild and you can never be sure that a wild animal is going to make an appearance in the short space of time that you frequent its habitat. It was a fair distance away but as we have searched and failed to find this type of monkey before on our travels and the monkey could only be found wild in Borneo we decided this was our last chance so off we went.

This Proboscis was REALLY pleased to see us arrive.

 There is a visitor center which had a viewing area where the staff would 'call' the monkeys out of the jungle with a weird sound which was a cross between a Tarzan bellow and a cat miaow. When we arrived Kathy and I had the whole place to ourselves and it was not long before the monkeys were swinging through the trees and coming towards us. The staff then rewarded the monkeys by giving them fruit to munch. After a short time there must have been over 50 monkeys all around us. They were going mental all around us squabbling over the food. A big male appeared and restored order with some hefty grunts and a few slaps to the younger more boisterous juveniles. We got to work with the camera and got some killer photos even with our primitive camera. Then the tour groups arrived and ruined the ambiance with there enormous telescopic lenses and jockeying for position with each other. Again it was like watching animals trying to take photos of .......animals! Kathy and I took a back seat in the shade and watched the melee unfold with amusement which was as much fun as watching the monkeys play. The groups were soon ushered away as they always put tour groups on a tight schedule and we had the place to ourselves again except for one other couple. Then my phone rang so I retrieved it from my pocket and as I answered a call from our Taxi driver who had been waiting for us for the last 2 hours,then suddenly a massive male Proboscis swung down from the roof above us, onto the veranda where we were standing and came pounding on all fours at full speed towards us in an aggressive stance while the taxi driver was quizzing me about how long we were going to be but I could not answer him as I was rooted to the spot in fear with the phone still to my ear as the seriousness of our position was being processed by my very slow brain. I just stood there and Kathy stood next to me with eyes as big as saucers ready for the impact. But at the last moment the monkey grabbed the balustrade and hooked himself over with such amazing arm power which would not be possible in a human and catapulted himself over the railing to avoid us. Kathy and I just looked at each other in stunned amazement. The taxi driver was still on the phone shouting "hello Mr Daz are you still there ? and it was all I could do to compose myself to answer him that we would be another 10 minutes once we checked our smalls. It turned out that a rouge macaque monkey had infiltrated the proboscis troupe and the male was chasing him out of their area.

"It's not you at all, it's me....I just fallen out of love with you and it's nothing to do with your nose"

We then returned to the Orangutan center to the relief of our bored taxi driver and saw a couple playing near some outbuildings which was a bonus then returned to the resort for an afternoon by the pool to get munched by mossies. Overall, we really enjoyed our stay in Sepilok. There are no shops or restaurants so you have to sleep at a jungle lodge resort. We chose Sepilok Jungle Resort as it was the cheapest of course, as they are all expensive but we enjoyed the kitsch  rooms which are styled in the 70's but we found this old school set up really charming. You are tethered to the resort via food but it turned out the food was really good and cheapish for the remoteness of the location. The pool was a welcomed addition and most days we had the pool to ourselves as it is now out of season here now.  At night we used to go out on our own for 'night safaris' with our trusty new touches we had just bought and used to be hassled by rabid dogs mainly marauding around the streets.The taxi drivers had told us that many a tourist had been bitten by these dogs recently so we kept our distance. One night though we did come across a family of what we think were fruit bats (as they were huge!) swooping around us and feeding on the fruit in the trees. Next stop Sandakan.(so we can count our mossie bites!)