Tuesday 20th March 2012 - Borneo

On Tuesday Max picked me up from my hotel at 8.30 and took me for breakfast - peanut butter on toast! :-) we then took an hour drive to see orang utans in a nature reserve. I was planning on going to the sepilok orang utan sanctuary but Max insisted that it is very touristy and you don't get very close to the orang utans. Instead he took me to a hotel - the shangri-la rasa ria. I was planning on spending a night at this place before I left but the price per night put me off! Anyway, behind the hotel is a protected area that has some wardens that protect the area and work with the orang utans until they are big enough and strong enough to be put into the wild.

I got to see three beautiful orang utans. Two bigger ones and one little baby called Ten Ten who was rescued on the 10/10/2010 - hence the name! Apparently she had been spotted by some locals who proceeded to call the nature reserve to rescue her as babies have very little chance of survival.

She was the most beautiful thing I have seen!!! Such a character! She loved the warden and everytime he put her on the tree to climb she would climb back down and cling onto him. If he walked away she would cry - such a cute heart breaking cry but he explained that just with a human baby you must teach them discipline by ignoring their cries.

After the orang utans we took a two hour to the south of KK to the Garama River where we would take a boat up the river to see proboscis monkeys. The drive alone was amazing! One minute there was pure sunshine and the next heavy tropical rains. We stopped at a stall along the way and bought mangosteens and langsat (fruit). It was such a hot day and fruit never tasted so good - maybe it was because they were being fed to me whilst I drove but I appreciated every bite and the mangosteens tasted sweeter and juicier than I remember.

Upon arrival at the lodge, which was located way off the beaten track, Max and I sat on a table that faced beautiful green scenery whilst eating sliced battered banana (which was like plantain but sweeter and softer) and sticky honey rice. Out of nowhere along came a long tail monkey strolling right passed us like nothing. I was amazed and tried to get my camera out but Max made a noise to get rid of it because apparently they are known to attack people. I ran after it but no, it was gone! Damn Max!

Anyway during our little feast Max confirmed my concerns - he told me he liked me. Awkward! I explained that I only liked him as a friend and he sulked like a child for a while and then finally snapped out of it.

We finally got on the boat and proceeded down the river. Although there was a guy driving the boat, he seemed more concerned with listening to Shakira on his phone and driving really fast than helping the people on the boat spot the monkeys. Luckily Max was at hand and spotted loads of proboscis monkeys and made the driver reverse and slow down many times. The monkeys were really high in the trees and quite difficult to see but Max managed to get a few good shots for me. We saw a bright electric blue kingfisher, eagles, a small crocodile type thing, loads of mangroves, banana trees, palm oil trees, coconut trees and, the highlight for me, water buffaloes. The journey back to the lodge was when the sun was going down and that is apparently when the water buffaloes bathe in the river. There were hundreds of them - mummies, daddies and babies. Our boat was like 1 foot away from them. The sunset was in the background and it was just a truly amazing experience. After the boat came back to the lodge we had dinner and then Max took me to see fire flies. That was pretty cool - who knew flies could light up like light bulbs!

I arranged for Max to take me for a tour of various long houses and a waterfall the next day.