King of the Swingers

All day today I've been singing the song from The Jungle Book that the orangutan sings: "Now I'm the king of the swingers, yeah, the jungle VIP. . ."

Yup, more orangutans (did you know that it's officially spelled orang-utan and means "man of the forest"?). We went to Semenggoh Rehabilitation Centre this morning, and I saw a LOAD of these red-headed apes. They were much closer and more abundant than at the other sanctuary I went to up north. They were everywhere, in fact, and the rangers spent much of their time trying to chase them back up their trees to protect the visitors and reminding us people to "watch out" when the apes got too close.

They hung out at the feeding platforms some, but mostly they just hung out--just as curious about us as we were about them. At one point the alpha male (named Ritchie) lumbered onto the platform, sat his 250 pounds down, and began eating all the fruit. He is MUCH bigger than the other orangutans and has big cheek flanges that identify him as the leader. His hair is also about three times the length of the other apes. What a guy. When he finally left, he bent trees down left and right and even broke a few from his massive weight. Here he is climbing up a vine.

There were orangutans of all sizes--mothers, babies, juveniles, as well as the big daddy of them all. They seemed so comfortable and I got the feeling that if I had reached out my hand, they would have grabbed it. A big poster out front, though, showed injuries sustained by guests who got too friendly with the apes, so clearly I wasn't the only one who considered making friends with them. I learned from the photos and my memories of being attacked by a grown baboon in Namibia, and so I held my ground. (I wanted to touch them, though, so much!)

Here's a mother and baby. Be aware that these pictures were NOT taken with a zoom. They were really this close. As a matter of fact, after I took this picture of the baby, the ranger had to stop people on the trail because we were practically brushing shoulders with the mommy.

Finally, I'm going to include a film of an encounter I had with a juvenile orangutan who was swinging toward me and away from me over and over. He (or she?) was so close I kept thinking I should back away, but then he'd swing back and I'd stay where I was. He seemed like the kind of guy I could be friends with. You know, just hang around.

There's a point in the film where I get bumped by someone and the camera shakes and moves, but keep watching. I want you to see the end where he swings over and takes some fruit from one of the forest rangers. (By the way, the ringing sound you hear in the background is some form of cicada, not a fire alarm.)

I know you've heard from me three times in three days, but you're about to get another break. Jodi and I leave tomorrow morning for three days and two nights at a longhouse. This is the traditional structure of the local tribes (some of them were headhunters up until the end of World War Two!!). We're going to be guests of a community, eat with them, sleep with them, and participate in and observe their way of life. A different kind of "wild life." I'm both nervous and excited. Look for another blog in four days or so--and wish me luck that I keep my head on my shoulders.

On to the Rainforest

One more picture to share from the river trekking. We came upon some silver macaques one day, and they had this adorable baby that couldn't have been more than a few days old. He looked right at me and seemed so human. I love this picture and I fell in love with this little one and wanted to pop him in my pocket and take him home.

After three days on the river, we left by van and drove over five hours into the heart of the virgin rainforest. Borneo has lost so much of its rainforests through logging and through clear-cutting for palm oil plantations, but there are several places that are protected. One of them is Danum Valley, and this is where we headed.

We stayed at a place called the Borneo Rainforest Lodge, a wonderful and luxurious resort smack dab in the middle of things. (Still no air conditioning, but the forest was cooler at night than I thought it would be, and there were fans everywhere. Still, during the day, we did little besides sweat.)

Every day (and most nights) we took hikes into the forest, wearing our full gear. Here are Amy and me in our gear, crossing one of the bridges. Notice those always-fashionable leech socks on our lower legs.

We saw amazing animals--more monkeys, orangutans, civets, a leopard cat (a bit bigger than a house cat and looking just like a leopard), flying squirrels and flying lemurs, weird insects!

The highlight was always finding an orangutan, and one morning we got more than our money's worth. Amy and I were rinsing out sweaty gear in our bungalow when Amy saw something move in the fig tree off the balcony. It was a large male that the locals call King--because he is the alpha male in the area, not because he looks like Elvis. He was calmly eating figs just five feet off the ground.

We called our friends from the other bungalows and we started watching and taking pictures. Eventually he even dropped down to the ground and looked right at me.We continued to watch, and I guess he enjoyed being the center of attention. He decided to move a bit closer--too close. He walked under our bungalow and came right at me and two of the Baltimore women. The workers who were doing landscape work started yelling "Go! Go!" So, still filming (of course), I backed away while he came right up on the boardwalk and posed. It was amazing to be so close to such a massive and rare creature. If I wasn't afraid of being ripped apart by his extremely strong arms, I would have gotten closer.

Today Jodi and I flew to Kuching (which means "cat") where we've rented a nice apartment in the central part of town which we'll use as our base. Jodi has lots of friends here because she comes here twice a year for 6 weeks each. Tomorrow morning we go to another orangutan sanctuary, so if you like these apes, you're sure to hear more about them in my next blog.

Borneo Adventures 2

I was joined on April 23 by my friend Amy, three wonderful and crazy women from Baltimore, and our tour organizer Jodi (from Jodi's Jungle Jaunts). We took a short flight across Borneo to Sandakan and began a wildlife adventure that has seemed charmed in so many ways.

Our first visit was to Seligan Turtle Island, a sanctuary for sea turtles. We watched large Green Sea Turtles (their shells more than a yard long!) actually struggle ashore that night and we watched two of them lay eggs that looked a lot like ping-pong balls. The eggs are gathered up by the rangers and taken to the hatchery to protect them from predators (the mothers leave them alone anyway). Then after that, we got to take 50 or more of that day's hatchlings (about as big as an "OK" sign with your finger and thumb) and release them on the beach and watch as they scrambled and fought their way ten yards to the sea. Magical!

The next day we went back to the mainland and visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. We went to a feeding platform where orangutans can come if they want food (but most eat in the forest once they're rehabilitated, but they always know the food is there if they need it). There is no guarantee of seeing any of our "red-headed cousins"--as the guidebook calls them--but we were lucky.

Some juveniles showed up as well as a mother and a clinging baby, swinging themselves arm over arm along ropes leading to the platform, often hanging by three limbs and gazing at us as curiously as we were looking at them. Here's a video:




We left afterward on a boat heading up the Kanabatangan River and spent our night at the Abai Jungle Lodge and the next two nights at the Kanabatangan River Lodge. Rustic with no a/c but right in the heart of river country. At night it cooled off and we had ceiling fans.

Each day we'd take boat rides up and down the river and on smaller tributaries. We saw so many animals--troops of monkeys (especially the rare and endangered proboscus monkey (the ones with the big noses), a wild orangutan, two crocodiles, a python, colorful and exotic birds. We reveled in the variety of animals we saw along the river.

But then the big moment came:

We came around a bend in the river and saw 6 juvenile and 1 adult female pygmy elephants (about 2/3 the size of other Asian elephants, but pretty darn big) swimming in the river, wrestling with each other and rolling around in the water to get muddy and cool. We stopped the boat and floated nearby, just observing and taking pictures--feeling so lucky to see seven of these hard to find creatures.

Trumpeting came from the forest and a herd of elephants began to appear from out of the trees: 5 . . . 10 . . . 20. . . .30. . . 60 appeared and lined the banks! We oohed and ahhed. Our guide said he'd never seen a bigger herd in Borneo.

And then they moved toward the river. One by one they ambled down the muddy bank and into the river, swimming in front of us all the way across to the opposite bank--about 40 yards or so.

We were awestruck. Even our native guide admitted he had only seen an elephant herd cross a river twice in his life.

Mothers, their babies, big males, elephants of all size. After an hour they were still coming, it was getting dark, and we had to leave before the crossing finished. We motored back to the lodge, giddy with the experience.

And this is only the beginning of our week. I'll write more tomorrow.