Thursday October 18

Thursday October 18: We were all half asleep and left the hotel at 5 am. We took an easy flight from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan (45 mins.) First stop was the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, this is one of the highlights of the trip and we were all looking forward to it. We started with a session to inform us of the type of work they do. It is a UK company that helps run it. It can take up to 10 years to prepare the animals to fend for themselves, on their own, in the wild. The animals are there for many reasons, some are orphaned really young and need a lot of help. A mother generally only has 2 to 3 pregnancies in her lifetime, and the youngster stays with his mum for 4 years or more, learning how to cope on its own. The centre rehabilitates by gradually coaxing the animals to move further away and only returning for food until they are securely looking after themselves. The keeper brings food to the feeding platform at 10 and 3 each day. This is were we visitors watched (from a boardwalk). There were 2 that came, before the keeper arrived, they played and hung around for a while beforehand. After the food arived, a mother and baby came too. We stayed for about 40 minutes, taking lots of photos, we had to zoom in quite a bit, plus they were moving, so was hard to get sharp, focused shots. On the walk along the boardwalk, to leave, one of the animals suddenly appeared and walked along the railing, alongside everyone. We were told to keep walking and not to interact with it, there were lots of photos then! After all this excitement we went into Sandakan for lunch and a beer pickup for later at the lodge. Then we took an almost 3 hour small boat ride up the Kinabatangan river (Sabah's longest), deep into Borneo rainforest, to our lodge for 2 nights. Did some wildlife spotting along the way - proboscis monkeys, orang Utan, birds, and the rarely spotted pigmy elephant. The lodge is quite rustic, we were hearing animal sounds from our cabins, I was glad Ian was there with me! We had a small lizard on the wall, not sure were it ended up hiding. We have AC which is great because it is really humid, and amazingly wifi too. Had a buffet dinner and retired early, we have a 5 am wake up call for a wildlife spotting boat excursion. We must be nuts! I told Chris I can't swim, and with the crocs that are supposed to be in the river he better look after me!!!