Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Woke up early and excited for our day. Headed off to the local Kopi Kedai for roti teduk and kopi susu to fortify us ready for the “tourism” experience of the region. We met the lady at the tourist office who introduced us to our taxi driver for the day who was punctual at 8:30.
Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilition Center. We made the decision to see what we could when we could in case we can’t make it all the way down to Kalimantan in the time we have. It takes about 45 minutes from Sandakan due to the traffic and the road is the same as yesterday – so another view of the palm oil plantations. We arrived at Sepilok at about 9:15 and paid our park entrance (rm 30 each plus rm 10 for the camera) and went and had a look at the stories of how the park works and it’s aims etc. Fairly depressing in one way, but at least somebody is trying to help. We then wandered with the masses (and I mean masses of people) into the park and to the viewing area near the platforms.
At the prompt time of 10:00 several park staff came out and placed food and milk on one of the platforms and were soon joined by 4 young Orangutans who obviously love the milk and then helped themselves to some bananas or what looked like sweet potatoes. After ensuring that they got a fair share the park staff left and the Orangutans made a display of hanging and eating their food. They are lovely to watch, but the gaggle of people and the noise of people talking (ignoring the silence signs) made it a surreal experience.
I know people want to see animals up close, but pay attention, don’t sit there rabbiting on about nothing. The good point was that you could not touch any of the animals or were meant to go close to the, unfortunately a young Orangutan didn’t read that sign and decided to walk along the boardwalk as a quicker means of getting to his food. This was a place for the serious cameras as well, you are in the sun and the Orangutans are in the shade, so photos are hard to capture on a standard point-and-shoot.
Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary: Now this I was really looking forward to. We arrived (finally) and paid the entrance fee (rm 60 each plus rm 10 for the camera). As soon as we walked into the main part of the sanctuary we were greeted by Silvery Gibbons playing and who were happy to pose for photos. Soon the Oriental Pied Hornbills came down from the large trees for a treat of bananas and they are just beautiful (made the trip worthwhile). Next up were three large groups of Proboscis Monkeys all coming in from the surrounding forest (mangrove swamps) and who were very social, probably watching us as much as us watching them. They hung around for ages before getting bored and meandering back into the trees.
Sandakan War Memorial: This was on Scott’s top 10 list and has an horrific history. In 1944 approximately 3 groups of Australian and British POW’s (2400) were marched from Sandakan to Ranau by the Japanese at the end of the war, only 6 survived and that was through managing to escape. This is the memorial to those killed by the Japanese to ensure that nobody could tell of the atrocities in the camps. A memorial has been built and it is actually really nice and tells the story of how, what and how it all happened with comments by some of the survivors. We had only just entered the park when we bumped into Dean and Craig (fellow Perth Scubaites from Mabul) who were also visiting the memorial. It was heartbreaking that this could happen, although more heartbreaking in that the Government knew what was happening but didn’t find time to go and attack it until it was too late oh and then they let the people who were charged with war crimes go a couple of years later. Very weird. Anyway it is a sad and sobering memorial set in a lovely park with some relics and a map of the layout. It was not a luxury resort that is for sure.
We had our driver drop us back in Sandakan after that and headed down to the Waterfront for a small snack (which turned out to be a huge plate for prawns for Scott and tofu for Tracy). Back to the hotel for a nanna nap and desweat before heading back into the fray.