Sabah: Orangutans, Turtles and More.

The Jalan Sepilok, Rural Malaysia at its best.

We did have our doubts about the safety of Sabah following  the recent Lahad Dhatu uprising just down the road from Sandakan. However after several contacts with locals we were assured it was safe and we should proceed. Monday morning found us rising early and off to the airport for breakfast. We arranged a pickup with the Sepilok Jungle Resort and found ourselves quickly transformed by a relaxing with lunch beside a jungle pond just down the road from the Sepilok, Orangutan  Rehabilitation centre.

Sepilok Jungle Resort is about 10 minutes walk from the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre.
This makes it an excellent base for people planning to spend some time watching the orangutans.

After lunch we wandered off down the road to the Rainforest Discovery Centre. It was a short 20 minute walk along the road. This is an amazing place that is teeming with birdlife. We found our way across the suspension bridge, it really was swinging, and up to the canopy walkway. This would be one of the best we have been on. It is wide enough to allow people to walk both ways. There is no pressure to keep moving so there was no problem with stopping to take photos. There were so many birds in this area, including hornbills. We spent the entire afternoon exploring the canopy walk and a number of paths in the area. As we came back out to the road the nearly full moon was rising. The reflections in the pond at the entrance were quite interesting.

The Rainforest Discovery Centre is about 20 minutes walk from Sepilok Jungle Resort.
 It well worth spending a day or two here. It is well signposted. We didn't need a guide here.
We found we enjoyed the opportunity to explore the jungle tracks.

By the time we walked back to the Sepilok Jungle Resort it was dark. We had missed happy hour but we were still  had a happy day. 

This is the boardwalk to the restaurant at Sepilok Jungle Resort.
Every meal there was something interesting to see along this walkway.

This Stork Billed Kingfisher lives at SJR

Sepilok Jungle Resort: Well it is not 5 star but it is comfortable and adequate. The staff is friendly enough and very helpful when asked. They are not all very confident with their English but a smile goes a long with them. We arrived on a 2 night Agoda booking knowing this was where we wanted to start our trip. Before we had settled into our room we had planned our entire itinerary with the assistance of the helpful young lady at the front desk and we included all of the places we had hoped to visit. By the way it ended up almost half the price of booking it online before arrival.  Banana Café is adequate it has good basic meals at reasonable prices. Some drinks available including Beer and Wine. The setting for the resort and the restaurant is delightful. With the tropical garden there is always something to look at and it is a pleasant place to relax in the middle of the day.

The gardens are well planted and they do attract a lot of birds.
There are numerous places to sit and enjoy the peacefulness.

Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre

These two seemed quite shy. They also were being hassled by the monkeys.

This is a long standing project to rehabilitate Orangutan that have been captured and kept as pets or orphaned. It is illegal to keep an Orangutan as a pet, for fairly obvious reasons. It seems that most of the Orangutan at the centre arrive at a young age often dehydrated , malnourished and suffering from illnesses.

Each Orangutan is tattooed with an identification number. This 718.
He hung out and seemed to enjoy the feeding time.

The whole process of looking after them and releasing them back into the Rain forest takes a number of years. This rehabilitation centre aims to look after and teach the young Orangutan how to live back in the Jungle. At the same time they are trying to educate the general public about the plight of these close relatives to humans. 

This mother and her baby arrived for the afternoon feeding time.
Poachers are known to shoot mothers to capture their babies.

The centre opens at 8:00 am in the morning and holds a feeding time at 10:00 am, this is a good time to see the current young Orangutan as they come out to feed . It is a part of their training to get them familiar with the jungle environment. The experience is very controlled but it does provide the opportunity to see some of these reasonably close up, with some great photo opportunities. There are two feeding times each day and with one ticket it is possible to return for the 3:00 pm feeding. After the morning feeding we viewed their video, which filled in a lot of gaps about what was happening.  We also enjoyed their information hall which has a lot of photos and factual information on the rain forests and Orangutans.  We stayed nearby so we returned to Sepilok Jungle Resort for lunch, if you were not staying here you could still drop by the Banana Leaf café and enjoy a fine lunch. Although their prices are a bit high, the food is good.

This guy decided the best way to keep the water dish was to sit in it.

The 3:00 pm feeding had fewer visitors the day we visited, a troupe of pig tailed Macaque monkeys showed up as well as the Orangutans. These monkeys can be quite aggressive, so it pays not to make eye contact or to show your teeth at them.  The feeding did provide some good photos, it is better if you have a reasonable zoom on your camera. It is a good idea to stay for a while at the end as sometimes the Orangutans will come over to the viewing platform and you will get some close up shots. We left before they visited and were told later that they did come right up on to the platform. As we walked out we did see a couple of older Orangutans playing in the trees just off the walkway. They had not come in for feeding. We watched them for a while and they seemed unconcerned about the fact that we were not far from them. It would seem that these Orangutans are on the very early stages of going back to live in the jungle. They still like to be close to humans and are very much dependent on them to provide their food. As always it is good to see that there are places that are working hard to ensure that animals are given the chance to survive in their natural environment.

The look  on his face says it all. 

Mother and baby with their shopping basket.