Wednesday 13 August 2008

I wonder if I can use my Swiss Army Knife to knock up an ark?

Some internet cafe, Kota Kinabalu, Borneo. 8:43pm

It's dinner time and we came to an internet cafe to check e-mail, planning to head off for something nice to eat when we noticed it utterly peeing down outside so I thought I'd add an update to supplement yesterday's brief post

1: Jungle
We went to Sepilok Orang Utan wildlife reserve to watch the animals being fed. We were staying literally five minutes up the road in Sepilok Jungle Resort who were also running our trip into the Heart of Darkness, or Kinabatangan as most people would refer to it. The forst day we toddled up to the Rainforest Discovery Centre wqhich had some great walks through prmary rainforest, associated with the University of Malaysia. They had some really good metal walkways over the canopy, and the place was teeming with life. Not visble life, but noisy life. We saw a few birds of various types including a very impressive bird of prey, though we're not sure what type. One of the trails though was supposed to have a wooden bridge over a stream, but the bridge was replaced by a single loose plank. Not ideal

We saw the feeding time at the orang utan place which was fun. It was like the chimps tea party, but without PG Tips. OK, not quite. There were four apes in the morning of various ages, and in the afternoon feeding there were six or more. The place is also full of macaques. Macaques are everywhere in Asia, and even the Gibraltar Barbary Apes are a type of macaque, and urban ones that live alongside people are like smart rats. Common and a nuisance, like simian chavs. Also in the park there are more rainforest walks which, annoyingly, aren't circular, so you have to walk down one way, then back the same way. This was OK for the 1.1km one we did, but we decided the 5km mangrove walk was a little gruelling in tropical heat without much water. We didn't se much wildlife here, apart from leeches. Jane got four, though not bitten.

Later I'll tell you about the jungle trip, with more Conrad references. The rain has eased off, and dinner, once again, is calling.

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