We have breakfast, get our backpacks and go to the Orangutan Rehabilition Center. It is part of the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve.
Orphaned and injured orangutans arrive at Sepilok to be rehabilitated and returned to their environment. They are fed twice a day, which is when you are most likely to see them.
Orangutan
Orangutan
To reach the area where they are fed, they have built a wooden walkway, from a large terrace you can see how they put the food on them, the caretaker moves the vines energetically and the movement spreads so that the orangutans know that it is time to eat.
Orangutan
Orangutans eating
Orangutans eating
We are immensely lucky, two males and a female appear. One of the males is young and submits to the other. How wonderful, what a deep red colour and how big they are. We stare at them for half an hour until they leave.
Orangutan
Climbing the banister
Orangutan
As we were leaving the enclosure, one of them gets off the vine and approaches the railing. It is less than one meter away. We stood still watching it and it finally advanced through the handrail until it reached the height of a caretaker who would guide it back to the forest. Another must in Malaysian Borneo.
It is not yet time to take the bus to Semporna, and we make time for a drink in the restaurant after watching the movie in the auditorium.
Family watching orangutans
Two young orangutans play jumping from tree to tree near the entrance of the auditorium.
The Malaysians are very nice, we talk to a taxi driver to get us to the crossing where we take the bus. Around 1pm we pick up our backpacks, at the Centre they don't allow backpacks or bags but there are some lockers before entering.
Waiting the bus
The taxi driver takes us to the bus stop, which is in a rather dirty ditch. Once you leave Kota Kinabalu, the gutters are very dirty, people throw everything into the gutter and nobody picks it up. After three quarters of an hour the taxi driver returns and tells us not to worry that he has called the bus driver and that he has two seats reserved for us.
The bus doesn't arrive until 14:30 and the taxi costs us stories of Borneo, of life, in short a very nice man and without asking anything in return. The bus arrives and we say goodbye, we are the center of attention, there are no more foreigners.
Waiting the bus
We arrive in Semporna around seven in the evening and it is getting dark, we take a taxi to go to the accommodation and it turns out that we are two streets away.
Semporna is a rather dirty port city with almost no street lights. There are not too many accommodations in Semporna, we go to the Scuba Junkie Backpackers but it's full and the one in front of it costs a hundred euros a night, thinking about what to do a woman comes up to us and offers us a room in a pension over the restaurant next to the Scuba, we say yes. The room is very basic (like the prcio 40 MYR both), without window and with shared bathroom, you enter from behind the restaurant. We don't have any other options so we stay.
Road to Semporna
We want to stretch our legs before dinner but the walk is short, we arrive to an already closed market, there is practically no light anywhere, and we have the feeling that we are being followed very closely. In the supermarket a security guard checks at the door. We go back to the restaurant and have dinner. We are not very confident about taking another walk.
We go to sleep, and suddenly in the middle of the night some noises in the false ceiling, what a scare! a jig rat walking around! That's the thing about coastal places. We get some sleep, tomorrow we go to Mabul.
Entrance to the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center: 70 MYR 2 pax.
Bus from Sepilok to Semporna: 80 MYR 2 pax
Drinks: 25 MYR.
Accommodation: 40 MYR double room with shared bathroom
Taxi from Semporna: 3 MYR.
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