Borneo

Our Borneo journey stared April 2. direct from Gold Coast via Kuala Lumpur. A long but nice travel day. On the 3. we were picked up on our hotel by Borneo Eco Tours and taken to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation centre, where they raise orphan baby Orangutan and set them out into the wild again. The centre is run by the Malaysian government and a british project. To read more about Sepilok go to: http://www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk.

We went to see the feeding of the Orangutans that are in the wild around the centre. Most of them are raised at the centre and continue to come back twice a day for food. Some of them are quite naughty and steals mobile phones and cameras. Lucas was skeptical to the whole feeding thing. Sure that the naughty Toby would come and take our camera. It all went well the Orangutans behaved themselves.

After lunch we started the boat trip into the rainforest to get to our lodge. Sukau Rainforest Lodge. http://www.sukau.com. The two and a half hour boat ride was a really nice experience. We were on a speedboat going up the river.

At the lodge we met Adele, Jacob, Ulrik and Sofia, our neighbors from Oslo, currently living in Xiamen in China. Sofia is in Lucas’s class in Oslo and meeting Sofia was the biggest event of the day for Lucas.

In the afternoon we joined a monkey spotting boat ride up the river to look for the Proboscis Monkey(the big nose monkey), and there was lot`s and lot`s of them to be found.

There were also a lot of Pig-tailed Macaque monkey’s, also known as the Mafia of the rainforest. They are not popular by the local fishermen as they find and steal their scrimps form the crates.

We also saw a lot of birds, the Kingfisher bird amongst other’s.

The lodge we were staying at was nestled in the rainforest and we saw long-tailed Macaques in the garden. We had a very nice dinner with the Rognhaug family that evening.

Next day was departure day and we headed down the river in the speedboat again. Half way to Sandakan the guide started to get very exited and told us that there was a Pygmè Elephant spotting a bit further down the river. That is very seldom to see the Elephants. There are only about 200 of them in the area, and they are on the move constantly. We had a very close encounter as the elephants were right on the riverbed. Up close there is nothing pygmè about them. Some of them came as close as 4-5meters to the boat. What a thrill!

We counted about 20 elephants in the herd.

The kids were not as interested as the adults.. Elephant- Smellephant..

After lunch and a short flight to Kota Kinabalu, we checked into the Shangrila Tanjung Aru Resort right outside Kota Kinabalu. A very nice place to spend a few days. The kids were ecstatic about the pool area with slides and a lot of water fun.

Friday we went on a snorkel trip to Palau Mamutik, a 10 minute boat ride from the hotel. A lot of fish and a very nice beach.