The Men of the Forest

Yes I joined the masses of tourists wanting to have a "jungle experience" and see orangutans in the wild. I definitely had the impression that I was being judged by the "men of the forest" (orang utan) and them all laughing about the orang putihs (white man) in their camouflage trousers and safari shirts! Ecotourism is a huge part of Sabah's economic industry which has made the Malaysian government rethink about their huge plantations of oil palms and the cutting down of the native forest . In 2002 they started  preserving and replanting of huge areas and allowing corridors of native forest for the animals to travel through. Huge fines and prison sentences are strictly enforced if any animals are captured or killed, however only last year a local was found to have killed an orangutan and sold it to China for meat - sadly the black market trade is still alive.

 Despite the Disneyworld experience of going to Uncle Tam's Wildlife camp it really was a marvellous couple of days and we were lucky enough to see three orangutans in the wild, a family of proboscis monkeys, gibbons, hornbills, kingfishers, monitor lizards and so on. My favourite part was sunrise listening to the sound of the jungle waking up and then going on the Kinabatangan river. The camp itself was one hour by boat from any village and we certainly had the impression of being in the jungle apart from being with other tourists of course! We had 4 hours of electricity in the evening and washing was limited to barrels of brown river water. My wind-up torch, silk sleeping bag and mosquito spray were essential and fortunately mosquito nets were provided. I was with a lovely group and we all got on very well and were quite sad to say goodbye even after such a short time together. In my dorm. I had two young German men, a Ukrainian accountant, a Danish couple, Emily and myself and there were also Spanish, English and American. I haven't met any French yet to refresh my French but fortunately everyone else speaks very good English. I can't wait to go back there with my visitors! There will be better photos coming from people with "real cameras" - my zoom is not up to much!