Burning Desire For FIRE

Every roundabout here has a sculpture. This one is the hibiscus flower, which is the national flower of Malaysia.

Entrance to the Mari Mari Cultural Village is via a hanging bridge across a creek. This place was set up to showcase the 5 tribes of Borneo, showing how they lived and also offering food and drink tastings.

I wasn’t sure how this day would turn out. It could be good, or it could be hokey and a little bit Disney. Fortunately, it was good.

The first area we visited was the Rungus tribe, where they offered honey from stingless bees.

If you’re ever in the jungles of Borneo and feel like eating some honey, here’s what you need to do:

Cut a small hole in bamboo. 

Take it to the forest and leave for a month, but check once a week. 

When the hive is ready, take bamboo, cut it in half and harvest for the honey. Too easy!

The honey tasted very lemony. Not nearly as sweet as we’re used to. It was delicious.

Our next visit was inside a Rungus longhouse. I have to say, if I had to spend some time in the jungle, I’d be pretty comfortable here. Aside from being eaten alive by mozzies, of course.

One longhouse for 1 village. 

1 room for 1 family.

The longhouses could go for 1.5 km long, sometimes! When someone gets married, they just add another room.

Everyone in the tribe had to learn how to make fire. The boys… because they’d be out hunting for days in the jungle as men.
Girls… final task before she gets married. She has to make it before her prospective in-laws. No fire? It means she can’t cook, so therefore there’ll be no wedding.

Marat are the headhunters. There are two different types of headhunting.

1. Ethnic cleansing. They kill the whole village, men, women, children, even babies.
2. Normal headhunting. This is warrior to warrior. A man from this tribe needs to present a head to his in-laws to prove himself worthy to marry their daughter.

This is a coffin for a warrior. After 5 years, they come back, clean the bones and bury them.

“We will not be showing you the headhunting demonstration today.” That’s a relief!

They used to hang the skulls around a house. It protected the village by acting as a deterrent. Too many skulls, a group of attackers will go to another village instead.

They call blow darts the silent killer. The poison on the dart paralyses the warrior. Then the attacker runs in, chops off the head and leaves the body there.

The dart can go as far as 50 metres, depending on the lung capacity of the warrior.

My lung capacity isn’t as good as that, but I managed to hit the wall both times. Happy with that.

Tapioca and sugar. We typically know tapioca as sago… little round balls. Mum used to make lemon sago when we were kids and I loved it. I must ask her how to make it.

This was ok, but without the sugar it’d be tasteless. Before European colonisation, they used honey for flavour.

Single lady staircase. They sleep above their parents and pull the ladder up with them. If they get attacked, the girls will hopefully escape notice.

In another longhouse, we were told that after the girls went upstairs to bed, the father would take the ladder and hide it in the jungle. If the girls needed to go to the toilet in the night, they had to wake their dad or their brothers to get the ladder for them.

Every time they chop off a head, they get a small tattoo from charcoal.

Nurseries look the same the world over.

What’s also the same the world over is alcohol. No matter where they live, people have always found a way to get drunk. Here, they make rice wine. The fermented rice wine tastes just like port. The unfermented one tastes like soju. (Happy memories of North Korea…)

Sugar, rice flour and water. Yum! Like crunchy, sweet noodles. They also served a ginger tea which was fantastic.

How to keep the kid quiet while Mum and Dad are working.

Straight after this, it was time for the cultural presentation. We were among the last groups to get there, but Fortunately Frogdancer snagged a seat in the second row, behind some very short kids. Not often that happens!

The musicians were good.

This dance was fun. On the beat, the bamboo poles are moved apart, then together. The dancers have to move in time to avoid getting caught.

The Murat longhouse has a trampoline in the middle. Yes, really.

They use the trampoline to celebrate their victories, or to see who can jump the highest.

Nowadays they hang money, a camera, an Apple Watch. The highest ones win.

Here I am midair, but only just. It’s safe to say that I wouldn’t win a cracker.

On the way back to the bus, I saw the hanging bridge and went across it again, just for fun. Morna was good enough to take this photo when I called out to her.

On the way back, we stopped so that people could buy souvenirs, and the people that were going onto the 5 star resort could buy cheaper wine. I wandered around on my own, only buying a postcard of a baby orangutan to put on my fridge.
Every morning while my coffee is brewing, I look at my fridge with its postcards and magnets from my travels and it makes me feel happy. Not a bad way to start the day.

I decided that my last night in Borneo would be spent entirely alone. I’m going back to probate with Dad’s will, dealing with disposing of my parents’ belongings, dealing with banks, real estate agents and other horrible things. Tonight was a night where no one would make any demands on me.

Not even a small, beloved dog. (Sorry, Scout. Mummy loves you.)

I went up to the rooftop bar and bought a couple of cab savs during happy hour. I saw a small group from our tour up there on the other side when I walked in, but I pretended I didn’t see them until I was settled at my table, book in front of me and wines in place.

We waved.

I stayed there for an hour and a half, just reading and sipping my wine. Piano music was playing, it was warm and very pleasant.

A dinner in my room of muesli bars – like China with Blogless Sandy! – and I finished my book. It was an introvert’s dream.

I fly out today and I’ll get back to a Melbourne literally 20 degrees Celsius colder than here. How is that even possible?!?

I’m so glad I came to Borneo. We only scratched the surface of it, as we only went across the top end, but we saw so much in our short time here. My main desire was to see orangutans up close, which we did in the sanctuary. Seeing sun bears and the proboscis monkeys was an unexpected joy, and as for the otters? omg, so rapt.

The interesting thing for me is how different I felt here from how I felt in Zanzibar. I was a little on edge in Zanzibar, whereas here I felt totally at ease and very welcome.

I wondered at the time in Zanzibar if it was all of the women in head to toe coverings, but the Muslims here do that too, so it clearly wasn’t that.

After mulling it over, I think that the people here in Borneo have a clear path forwards to individual prosperity, whereas in Zanzibar there was a much larger gap between the haves and the have-nots. I wouldn’t want to be there if any trouble started.

I booked this tour through TripADeal, and it was excellent value for money. I’m leaving with so much Malaysian money still in my wallet that I’m probably going to have to book a holiday on the Malaysian mainland, just to spend it!

Back to normal blog posts, until I leave for Iceland, Greenland, Scandinavia and the Baltics in a couple of months’ time. That’ll be the longest stretch I’ve been at home all year!

Dad joke of the day:

This will be a short post today, I think.

Most people tend to enjoy going to the beach. Today we had a day trip to an island off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, the city we’re staying in.

My friends and family know that I don’t go swimming unless it’s really hot. But look at me!

Sarah took this shot of me as I was about to go snorkelling in the South China Sea.

What can I say? The South China Sea is really warm.

Unfortunately I didn’t see any fish, though other people did. I put my name down for parasailing but it didn’t go ahead, as I was the only one who wanted to do it.

But some of us did sea walking. I wish I had’ve gone with them!
Basically, they plonk a helmet over your head, pump it full of air and off you go. They put fish food in your hands which are holding the helmet in place, so the fish come right up close to you.

I’m definitely doing this one day.

A monitor lizard came down to the beach to sun itself.

I wasn’t really looking forward to this day, but it ended up being quite nice. I was in the shade reading half a Kate Atkinson novel, we had a very nice seafood lunch and I went back in for another swim.

When we went back to the hotel… the Hilton, daaaarling… I arranged to meet Bron and Jason to go exploring. We decided to go to Australia Place, where Sarah said there’d be art.

These are very small, slightly bigger then bookmark width. I think they’ll look great in a frame together, without the words showing, of course.
Altogether, they cost me 10 ringgit, or $3 AUS.
It’ll cost far more for the frame, but at least, for once, I’m not paying a fortune for my art.

I saw these sun bear socks in other shop. You all know how much I love my useful souvenirs.

It turns out that Bron also lost her father recently, in somewhat similar circumstances to Dad’s death, so we had a good old debrief as we walked the streets of Kota Kinabalu. Jason, her husband, wisely walked a little ahead and let us talk.

Later, we all convened for our Farewell Dinner, even though we still have a full day to go. Maybe the restaurant was booked out on the appropriate night, who knows?

I took this shot on the way to dinner, through the bus window. A floating village, with modern skyscraper apartments in the background. I like the juxtaposition. 

It was an authentic Borneo meal, and it was absolutely delicious. A few people were scared of the spices and didn’t eat much, but they were missing out. It wasn’t too hot (as in spicy) and the Rendang was the best I’ve ever had. The pickled mango was amazing, too.
The dessert had banana in it – you know, the Devil’s food – but just as I gave mine to someone else and prepared myself to sit back and watch everyone else eat dessert, a plate of watermelon was put in front of me. Sarah had remembered that I hate bananas.

Oh! For anyone wondering about how good TripADeal is if you get sick, yesterday one of the men in the group was feeling very unwell. When we were having drinks in the rooftop bar, his wife came and joined us.

“ You can’t fault the treatment from TripADeal,” she said. “They paid for the taxi to and from the medical centre, and the doctor’s visit only cost $60 for the consultation and drugs.”

Not that I ever intend to get sick when I’m on holidays, but that’s good to know.

Dad joke of the day:u

This mountain is growing at a rate of 5mm per year. We watched it grow while we ate breakfast,

Sarah is a bit of a Sandakan Death March buff. She’s read many books about it and when she was training for this job, she went on a hike along part of the trail. This, of course, makes her commentary very interesting.

We made an unscheduled stop to see Ranau Camp number 1, which is where the Australian soldiers stopped along the way during the death marches after leaving Sandakan. This wasn’t the end of the actual march, though for many men , it was for them. The actual trail still had 13kms to go.

Those poor men. Even today, the undergrowth is so thick.

I’m writing thisart of the post after leaving the memorial.

It was very moving. The gallery had helmets, revolvers, etc, but there were also some personal items found after the war. There was a ring. As the guy lost weight, he wrapped paper around his finger underneath the ring to keep it on his finger. It must have been important to him.

The most poignant thing of all was a voice recording by the survivors.

“Once, we were lucky enough to kill a dog. A Jap soldier found us and made us bury the dog so we couldn’t eat him. Later that night, we snuck back and dug him up.

A few days later, we saw dogs eating the bodies of dead soldiers. Well, that was it. No more eating dog for us.”

“We were wading through mud, waist deep in mud, carrying the rice bags. We knew that if we fell and broke a leg, the Japs would shoot us straight away.”

“At first the camp was overcrowded, but soon enough, men started dying. You’d wake up in the morning and look to one side to see if the man beside you had died in the night. If he had, that meant more room for you. You’d see if he owned anything that’d be of use to you, and then you’d look on the other side.”

“You could feel yourself dying. When you woke up in the morning, you’d be surprised.”

This memorial is placed where Gunner Albert Cleary was tied to a tree for 8 days after escaping for a second time. His mate was shot straight away, but he was kept tied to the tree, enduring starvation and up to 30 beatings a day. When it was obvious that he was close to death, the Japanese allowed his friends to cut him down, wash him and tend to him. He gave them one last smile and died in their arms.

Here he is, with his friend who had the more merciful death.

I took photos of a 12 page letter that a guy wrote to his p

family after the liberation of Changi in 1944. If anyone is interested in reading it, shoot me a comment and I’ll send it to you.

This was a profoundly moving experience. We were never taught about this when I was at school. To think that we never knew about the worst atrocity to be committed against our own countrymen is astonishing.

Then we moved on to – guess what? Another war memorial.
We were all starting to wish we were back in the jungle.

The first thing we saw was a video of Jana Wendy – remember her? – hosting a do o about 6 soldiers retracing the steps of the soldiers on the Sandakan death marches. Even though they were all fit and well fed, with a good nights sleep every night, they all found it gruelling, with one having to be medivacced out to be put on a drip for a while.

I have to say, I was disappointed with this place. Its selling point is that it has 4 gardens: Australian, British, Borneo and Contemplation. The last one was where all of the names of the 2,400 soldiers who died are written. The last one was the best one. All of the other ones were pretty poor.

Considering the climate, these gardens should be lush. Instead, the Australian garden was full of hydrangeas in pots, the British had roses in pots, while the Borneo one wasn’t much better.

I walked quickly through and went to the contemplation garden.

This garden profoundly affected me.

At first it was the sheer number of names on the wall. There were 29 boards in all, with nearly 100 names on each. The sheer volume was too much to take in.

Then Peta walked by and pointed out that brothers were mentioned as well. She was right. There were many brothers. A couple of pairs of twins. Their poor mothers.

Then I started to take note of the ages. I was expecting 18, 19, 20, but what I was seeing were ages more in line with my boys’ ages. I started picturing them in a situation like this and trying to imagine how they would cope. It made me a bit teary.

Not as bad as being in the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, when my chin got the wobbles, but I had to blink very hard to stop the tears. )

We then wandered over to the fruit and vegetable market. It was SO CLEAN, especially after the markets in Vietnam and Zanzibar.

Kinabalu National Park Botanical Garden.

This was a definite change of pace. We ambled around the paths of the Gardens, while Sarah pointed out various plants and birds to us.

Was I bored? Not quite, but if it had gone on for too much longer I might have been. Still, other people in the group were in their element, so that was nice to see.

Pink Maiden. The fruit tastes like blueberries.

Naked Tree. It regularly sheds its bark to stop the moss from growing on it.

You can drink water from this vine if you cut it. “But if the liquid is cloudy, don’t drink. It’ll make you sick.” Good to know.

Jewel orchid. Very popular with the Japanese. They come here to study it.

Pitcher plants. Famously carnivorous. They have 13 species in this garden. It attracts insects by its sweet nectar.

In Sumatra, orangutans have been observed drinking water from the pitcher plant, but so far in Borneo, this behaviour hasn’t been seen.

Laughing Orchid. It’s like a little boy sticking out his tongue.

Kerosene Tree. The inside of the fruit can be used to start a fire.

Wild begonia.

Lego orchid.

Corkscrew vine. I liked this one, so sculptural.

We saw quite a few orchids, but I’m clearly hopeless at taking pictures of them.

Then we wandered around a market full of bags, sarongs and other tatt. I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t bought a Christmas tree ornament from Borneo, so here it is:

A proboscis monkey keychain. Perfect!

When we got back to the hotel, I met up with the people I was marooned with on the boat… did I mention that for a while there, they were calling me ‘lunch’? 😂 … and we went up to the rooftop bar. It was happy hour, and for once, we found reasonably priced wine in Asia.
I ended up having 3 glasses of Cab Sav and a couple of muesli bars back in my room for dinner. It was a fun night, though.

Dad joke of the day:

Head hunting. Because today was mainly a long bus ride.

Muru tribe were the most murderous.

A prospective bridegroom must present a head to the bride’s father. No head, no wedding.

The Muru used blowpipes. It paralyses you, then they chop off your head with a machete. 

Headhunting was stopped in the 1950s. Sarah’s own tribe used to headhunt, because they wanted their loved ones to have company in the afterlife.

She recommended not going into the deep jungle, though…

Japanese occupation was from 1941 – 1945.

September 1944, the allied forces controlled the air

The Japanese wanted to use the jungle trails, so they asked the locals for help. The locals made the trails as difficult as possible, not realising that the Australian and British soldiers would bear the brunt.

Each soldier was expected to carry 20 kgs. 

The locals purposely kept the trail away from their villages, so they asked Japanese wouldn’t enslave their young men and rape their women. Fair enough, too.

The lodge we were staying in had these stuffed tigers in the dining room. I was puzzled by this, as tigers aren’t from Borneo. It turns out that the wait staff use them to frighten off the monkeys. We saw it at breakfast today. Three monkeys tried to sneak in, but they were sent packing by a waiter waving a tiger around.

Just before we reached the Tea Plantation, where we stayed the night, we stopped off at the fish spa. I was looking forward to this, around 16 years ago, I plunged my feet into a fish spa tank at the Singapore Zoo, when David 32, (then David15), and I were there on holiday. My feet have never looked better.

This time I had to wade into a rocky river.

I have to say, it was easier to sit and put your feet into a tank. 

The Sabah tea plantation was established in 1973. Naturally they grow normal tea, but they have herbal teas as well. Pandan tea is the big seller here.

This will be the third tea plantation I’ve been to in 4 months!

The travel bag that I bought last year in the Outback got ripped on the boat, so today at the fish spa I bought a new one. It’s early days, but I think I’m going to like it.

Dad joke of the day:

WHAT a day!

Today was a truly memorable day. I fulfilled a goal and had an adventure.

We had an early start for the morning cruise. By 6:30 we were on the boats to see what we could find.

A crocodile!

The first real thing was a tiny bronze-backed snake. I have no idea how the boatman saw it in amongst the reeds. It’s non-venomous. Now I know why snake beans are called what the are. It was just as long and thin.

An egret. I love how they always look so clean. Remember how the guide in Arnhem Land last year said that not even crocodiles would eat them, because they’re nothing but feathers and bones? 😂

We saw another stalk billed kingfisher. I like these, because even I have a good chance of spotting them.

Female black hornbill.

Long tailed Macaques.

Black and Red Broadbill. We were on our way back to the lodge for breakfast when one of us asked if we could stop at the nest again. We’d see it, but the bird flew away when we approached, so no one got a photo. 

It turned out that the timing was perfect… not a minute later, someone in the boat yelled out “Otters!” 

The boatman instantly jumped off the gas and swung the wheel. We reversed past a clump of reeds that was in the way.

“Even the boatman is excited!” said Sarah.

The boatman wasn’t the only one. Ever since I missed out seeing wild otters at the floating village in Canada, I was keen to see them. 

I never dreamed I’d see wild otters in Borneo. What a wonderful surprise.

“It’s very rare to see otters on the riverbank,” said Sarah. “Usually, they stick to the swampy areas further inland.”

The other boats crowded around us. Sarah started making a squeaky/ chirping sound to keep the otters where we could see them. 

They were so curious. They kept poking their heads up over the riverbank to check us out. I kept craning my neck to see more of them. We were mirroring each other!

Finally Sarah said, “Take your last photo. My mouth is getting tired from calling!” So we left them. 

Honestly, I can’t believe how amazing my life is. 

Otters in Borneo!

After breakfast, we had a trip to the Gomantong. Cave. As we were waiting for the boats, David heard a ‘thump!’ as something hit the ground from up a tree. 

“Is that a snake?” he asked. The jury was out, until it moved its head when he walked up to it. It’s the same sort of snake as the one we saw in the reeds earlier, so now you have a clearer look at it.

We put on our hard hats, donned our disposable gloves and set off for the cave. You wouldn’t believe that this hill is completely hollow, would you?

I wasn’t expecting much from this tour. We were warned about the stench of the bat guano, which can be so strong that people take one step inside the cave and change their minds about going any further. 

There’s the possibility of getting peed on by a bat or a swallow, which made some people I saw wear rain ponchos over their clothes. 

That all didn’t bother me much. I’ve always had a bad sense of smell, and if I got peed on, we were going straight back to the lodge so a change of clothes wasn’t far away.

What did bother me a bit was the cockroaches.

Disgusting, dirty things. They make nests in the guano and then swarm all over the railings, the steps and the walls of the cave. Sarah issued us with disposable gloves so we could use the handrails. The steps were somewhat slippery from the droppings.

But it was worth it. Video taken by Elizabeth.

I didn’t find the guano smell too bad, but then again, if I could smell it clearly, then it must have been strong.

The cave itself was spectacular.

The caves were discovered by foreigners in the 15th century,when Chinese traders discovered the birds nests in here. They are still harvested today.see the long ladder? A few men brace the bottom while one brave soul goes up to collect the nests.

“Geese, you’d want to make sure you had your mates down there holding you up!” said Gary. “Imagine if you owed someone money??”

They weren’t wrong about the cockroaches. The place was full of them. I’ve never been more glad to be wearing gloves.

You wouldn’t want to lean against the wall for a rest. I wasn’t expecting constantly moving my feet because I didn’t want one to start crawling up my leg.

But, as I said, this place was worth it.

It didn’t take long for us to walk the circuit. I was in the front group, as usual, so I missed the drama of when a local woman who was in a hurry, tried to push past some of our group on the slippery stairs. She slipped, fell on her back and cut her arm open.

Imagine. Not the sort of place where you want to be courting an infection. Someone dabbed her cut with tea tree oil, but she left with her back and bum covered with bat, swift and cockroach poo. 

Stay safe, people!

After lunch we had a few hours to spare before the next boat trip. I thought I’d spend the time blogging and reading, but instead I had a solid two hour nap. I must’ve needed it.

As I left my cabin to get to the dock, I glanced at the sky. “Hmmmm, looks like rain,” I said. I wasn’t wrong.

As we were enjoying afternoon tea, the rain began to. Soon, ‘thunder, bolts of lightning’ joined in. 

We would be out on a body of water in the middle of a storm. What could possibly go wrong?

Eventually, all but one of us set off. I had a rain poncho on, under my life jacket, and I was sheltering my precious phone near my chest, where I hoped it wouldn’t get wet.

The likelihood of seeing anything was low, but we all had hopes of spotting the Pygmy Elephants. FOMO is a powerful thing.

The rain was bucketing down. I absolutely hate getting rained on. 

This proboscis monkey looked as though it felt the same.

I wasn’t taking pictures of everything we saw, because the rain was getting very heavy, the light was dark and I love my phone. But when a Hornbill is silhouetted, you take the shot.

Would you believe it? As we were all snapping away, its mate flew up!

After 5his coup, Sarah asked if we wanted to go back now. We didn’t, so off we went again. 

This time, we turned up the river where the elephants are sometimes seen.

The rain got heavier. I tucked the poncho around every bit of me I could reach, lowered my head and let the rain fall. The boat would stop if anyone saw anything was, I reasoned. It’s not as if I ever spot much. I’m very unobservant.

I wasn’t taking pictures correct. The boat slowed to a stop. I shook the water from my poncho hood and saw this family of long tailed macaques crossing the river.

This one was showing off his acrobatics, walking upside down nearly the whole way.

Sarah told us that we were turning back now, after we took photos of these wet monkeys. The rain was getting heavier and the animals would be hiding away.

The three boats sped back towards the lodge. I was in the last boat.

We were zipping along, me hunched over under my poncho, when our engine died. No coughing or spluttering… it stopped dead. 

I waited for it to start again. Nothing. Meanwhile, the other two boats were merrily heading over the horizon.

The rain poured down. Elizabeth tried to call Sarah but she had no reception. The boatman got through to her voicemail and left a message. As this is happening, the boat is quickly heading downstream.

The rain start3d to ease up, so I emerged from under the poncho. I decided people needed cheering up.

“So who are we going to eat first if we don’t get rescued?” I asked. Then I realised.

“Shit. It’s going to be me. All of the rest of you are married.”

“Aw,  maybe we should eat the youngest person. They’ll be tender,” said Gary.

I looked around at them. I was well and truly screwed.

“That’s me,” I said.

They laughed. “It’s not looking good, Frogdancer!” said Ken.

I fished out the little whistle attached to the life jacket and blew it. 

“We’re SURE to be saved now!” I announced.

We swept around the corner of the river and the place where the boats would come was lost to sight. It was amazing how quickly the river was moving.

When a boat swung around the corner, we cheered. “I told you the whistle would work!” I said.

A rope was quickly slung between the two boats and off we went. All was going well until the rope snapped. 

Just as we were about to head off into the wide blue yonder again, another boat turned up and positioned itself beside us. We made a mid-river transition from one boat to another.

Then we were off again.

The rain had stopped and the ride home was lovely. At least, it was for me. Ken has straight into a puddle of water on his chair, so he wasn’t all that comfortable. 

“At least it isn’t warm, Ken!” said Jenny.

I’m ending the day very happy to have seen otters in the wild, and to have survived my almost certain brush with death. 😀

Tomorrow we leave the lodge and head back to civilisation.

Dad joke of the day:

Why should you never date a baker?

Because they’re too kneady:

Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. I went in thinking that orangutans were the only Borneo species for me. How wrong I was.

The sanctuary is surrounded by palm oil plantations. An abandoned one was bought, with plans to get it up and running again as a working farm.

One of the staff was cooking pancakes one day, when a proboscis monkey ran in and stole all the pancakes. For some reason known only to themselves, the new owners decided to turn it into a sanctuary. This property has one important feature… it borders the mangrove swamp, which is where the monkeys prefer to sleep.

The Reticulated python and Clouded Leopard are their main predators. The proboscis monkeys have webbing on their feet, which enables them to (sometimes) outswim crocodiles.

They can jump 30 feet from one tree to another. This is a learned skill, with the babies trying to jump further and further. As they gain confidence, their jumps get longer. It takes around 4 years until they make the 30 foot leaps.

Playboy of Borneo. 

The males’ noses grow to 16 cm long, which allows the males to make loud noises. Whenever the group moves, the alpha male will call to make sure the whole group follows. The longer the nose, the more attractive the male is to the ladies. Their penises stay erect for 24 hours.

No comment.

They can’t eat sugar. If they do, it leads to gastric upset. The food the sanctuary feeds them are pancakes made from flour, water and cabbage.

They have a 4 chambered stomach, which digests leaves over 50 hours. They have a pot belly due to this.

Harem group, 13 to 50 members. One male, and the females.

Bachelor group… heaps.

He looks like a middle aged businessman on the train, staring at his phone, doesn’t he?

One of the males was trying to provoke the alpha male.You can hear the banging of it running across the roof, while the alpha male climbs up the tree and onto the roof to chase him.

After he landed on the roof, there was a huge kerfuffle, with thumping feet running, screaming and yelling. All the tourists went”ooooooooo” and raced to the other side, hoping to catch the action.

The winner appeared, looking mildly pleased with himself, gathered up his family and slipped back into the trees.

Female has a growth hanging from her. It started growing during Covid. They are vet checked and she’s doing fine. They are reluctant to perform surgery because they don’t want to let the animals get used to people. Then they won’t be wild animals anymore.

The babies are born with a blue face. It turns orange by around 2 years old. 

They live for 25 years in the wild. The rangers hardly ever  find bodies, because the monitor lizards clean them up.

These monkeys are absolutely terrific! I came to Borneo to see orangutans, but these are equally worth the trip. They were so entertaining to watch, and although they’re not the most attractive, they have an odd, quirky appeal.

Sarah’s story. Mother Muslim and father Catholic. They registered Sarah as a catholic and her siblings as Muslims, because the laws changed. Anyone marrying a Muslim must convert, and all their children must be registered as Muslim. (Her little brothers are catholic, and are having difficulty getting the government to change their official religion.)

Her parents divorced when she was 9 years old.

When she was a child, she lived with her mother in the poorest part of Borneo. People existed on rice, and to add some excitement to their diet, they added salt. She remembers going into the jungle with her friends to eat tapioca leaves, and when her Dad shot a deer, it lasted them a month. When she was in primary school, she had to walk for an hour each way to school.

When she was older, the kids went to live with her father in Kotakinabalu – the big city. There, they were exposed to all sorts of food.… fish, chicken, eggs, macaques, snakes and dog. He impressed on them the need to not waste food.

Dad fed them dog without telling them until they finished. The kids all cried, because they had a puppy. They all went to the bathroom and threw up.

Anyway, back to the trip!

We had a short boat ride across to the lodge, where we’ll be staying for 2 nights.

We were walking back to the lodge dining room and we saw a civet and a monkey having a go at each other. Sarah took this video. She was excited because she hasn’t seen one at the lodge during the day before. I was excited because I’ve never seen a civet before.

As we were getting ready to leave for the boat trip, word came in from the villagers next to the lodge that an orangutan had been spotted in an old nest. We raced over. Honestly, how would you ever know it was there?

The kids playing underneath the house were laughing at the crazy adults, I’m sure. People with binoculars could spot the orange fur in between the branches.

And then there were more civets! There were two of them in the tree.

Black hornbill. Zoom in.

Stalk billed Kingfisher. It took me ages to find where it was, which is crazy when you consider how colourful it is. Anyway, I got there in the end.

Rhinoceros Hornbills. These are one of the Borneo Big 5 to spot.

Proboscis Monkeys in a tree. We counted at least 4 of them. If you see a tree violently shaking, it’s probably not the wind.

Baby crocodile. Sarah has a handy pointer to show people like me where the animals are.

Macaque monkeys.

As we were speeding back to the lodge, I spotted a blue snake in the water. We were past it before I could take a picture.

One last treat… Darters in the treee, with one spreading its wings.

We’re staying two nights at this lodge, which doesn’t have wifi. If there’s a break in transmission between posts, this is the reason why.

Dad joke of the day:

This is the fulfilment of a dream. I’ve wanted to see the orangutans of Borneo for I don’t know how many years. And today – here I am, walking quickly past this mother and baby while taking a quick snap. What a lucky pic!

You can see the stick that a ranger was waving in front of her. We all thought it was to protect her and her baby from stupidity humans, but we found out later that she likes to steal iPhones from people. She was casing the joint.

The Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary is a place that rescues orphaned and injured orangutans and rehabilitates them to hopefully go back to the wild. The orangutans are at the centre due to deforestation for palm oil and timber. . They like to eat the young shoots at the palm oil tree, which obviously causes problems with the farmers.

97% same genes as us. The people of Borneo call them “little cousins.”

Every day orangutans make a new nest . They wander 2kms a day, never far from food. They are 10 – 20 metres off the ground and it takes 15 minutes.

A mother and baby made a nest in a palm oil plantation. The farmer called the wildlife people, who came and tranquilised the mother. The baby thought its mother died. It cried, threw leaves at the wildlife officers and bolted for the jungle. Both of them were transferred to the sanctuary.

If you are caught hunting orangutans, it’s a fine of 50,000 ringgit (around 12,000 AUD.) Also 5 years in prison.

Baby orangutans stay with their mothers until they are 10. In the wild, they live for 60 years. 

They release the babies back into the wild after they reach adulthood.

These videos were taken through a one-way mirrored window, which has unfortunately made the colours a little wonky. This is a place where the young orphans learn to socialise with each other, under the careful supervision of their keepers.

We were given an hour to sit here and the time galloped by.

When the food was brought out, some of them were chill. Some shared… while this one raced away with food clutched in her feet.

I got very excited when I saw a black squirrel running across the rope leading to this platform. This makes 3 continents that I’ve seen squirrels in! It’s on the tree trunk to the left, doing its best to grab a snack without being seen.
Actually, me mentioning the 3 continents thing reminded me of when I was talking to a stupid American, who wouldn’t believe me when I said that seeing a squirrel was exciting for me, because we don’t have them in Australia.

” You must do!” the stupid American said. “Squirrels are everywhere.”

They went on and on about how every country has them, until I lost patience and snapped, “Ok, so how many wombats do you have in YOUR country?? Everyone knows wombats are everywhere.”

That shut them up.

I’m way zoomed in on these two, heading for the food through the jungle at the back.

Then it was time to head out to the outdoor feeding area.

There were many macaque monkeys there. I don’t know why this one was looking so distressed.

I like this shot.

There was only one orangutan mother and baby at the feeding spot. The rest were macaques. It was sweet when the keeper arrived with the food.

I love how the keeper almost absentmindedly helps the baby. It’s obviously something that happens a lot.

Then all of a sudden it got exciting. I was standing right at the front of where the feeding platform was, when suddenly we were all being told by keepers to stand away from the fence. At first we were reluctant to move, but when they said that a mother and baby orangutan were coming down the path, we all moved back as one to give them space.

It turned out that instead of wanting to walk down the path, she wanted to stick around. She and her baby ended up on the roof above our heads.

You’d better believe that I moved lickety split up and over to where I could see her peering down at us!

Not even 6 feet away.

They stayed up there for quite a while. Apparently, one guy on our tour keeled over and needed a wheelchair. I only heard about it at the end of the day. I was too busy watching these two.

Look at the colours.

So very cute.

Then as suddenly as she appeared, she decided to leave.

I was third on the path following them. We saw them both climb some ropes leading up to the tall trees. I was just in time to snap her swinging away.

This was only the first of four stops today, but I’ll pick up the story tomorrow. This was a wonderful experience in a year that’s been full of wonderful wildlife experiences. I’m a very lucky woman.

Dad Joke of the Day:

Day one of this trip was a huge travel day, but by 3pm I was in Sandakar, Borneo, meeting Sarah, our tour guide for the next 9 days, and sizing up the rest of the group. There are 29 people on the bus this time, and it looks as though I might be the only solo traveller.

Usually, I fly with no checked luggage and 2 carryon bags. For the first time, Malaysian airlines weighed my carryon. I was over 7 kegs, so I checked in my little suitcase. In the rush, I forgot to check if it was locked.

Imagine my relief when I got it back at the airport, when I saw that the lock was open but absolutely nothing had been messed with. Fortunate Frogdancer strikes again!

Some locals that I saw from the bus window when we came into town.

After I found my room and settled in, I decided to go for a walk. I bumped into a group of 3 couples who were travelling together, and so I joined them. Over drinks in a rooftop bar, they said they were part of a group of 6 couples who met when their kids were preschoolers.
They go travelling together, years after their kids have grown up and gone. This time, half of them wanted to see Borneo.

This is a predominantly Muslim place. Borneo is an island split into 3. We’ll be travelling in the part owned by Malaysia.

As were were walking along the harbour front, one of us saw a monitor lizard at the water’s edge. You can see its tongue, helpfully silhouetted against a piece of rubbish.
Sadly,Sandakan is very dirty. My room looks out across the harbour front, which would be lovely except for all the litter floating around in it. You wouldn’t want to eat at the local KFC. As we walked past it, the smell from the drains outside was absolutely putrid.

I haven’t seen a single dog, which isn’t surprising, given the high Muslim population. But there are cats. Not as many os in Zanzibar, but they’re here.

We went walking around. We went into a shop or two, but there was nothing I wanted to buy.

We ended up by the water again to have dinner. Sarah had recommended a place called Bistro 88, which served beer and good noodles. Dinner was $4 Australian, and I think the beers were $3 each. As a non-beer drinker, this will be another alcohol-free holiday for me. The wine here only came by the bottle and was $57 AUS.

When I got back, there was a guitar player down in the square below, singing loudly. Luckily, he sounded good, because I needed to sleep. There’s only a 2 hour time difference, but it was a long day. I drifted off with his voice in my ears…
Tomorrow – orangutans!

Dad joke of the day: