5traveltheworld: Borneo - Part 2

From Mt. Kinabalu we needed to get to the eastern town of Sandakan; this would involve a 6 hour bus journey. The only way to get the bus is to wait in a small lay-by next to the Kinabalu Park entrance and wait for the KK to Sandakan bus to pass through and then wave it down.

They come through every hour in the mornings although sometimes they are full. We had various contingency plans of what to do if there were two or three seats available, and of course I selflessly volunteered to wait for the next bus if there were only four free seats. As it turned out we all got a seat on the 9.30am bus and settled in for the long journey.

On arrival in Sandakan bus station we took a taxi to our hostel (Harbourside Backpackers) which turned out to be great. We always worry that the children’s noise will disturb other guests, and so we were concerned when the cleaner  knocked on the door saying she had heard the children and wanted to see them.

As it turned out she meant this in an entirely positive way; she propped the door open and stood watching them saying how beautiful and fun they were! The staff was brilliant from start to finish- always taking the time to chat to us all, and much to the children’s delight, taking every opportunity to turn the communal television on to the Disney Channel.

We managed to find a laundry service who could turn around 6kg of filthy clothes in a few hours, but other than that Sandakan was rather lacking in appeal. The next morning, wearing freshly laundered clothes, we tore the children away from Disney and set off to fulfill a life-long ambition in visiting the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary. We stopped off first at our new lodgings, the Panganakan Lodge.

The view from our room was amazing- straight out over the rainforest. The shower was actually outside in the rainforest, along with the loo. This led to a new challenge at night whereby I kept my eyes shut when taking Josie for a wee in an attempt not to see what was flying/scuttling/crawling around on the floor.

Finally the time had come to head to the Orang-utan Sanctuary. The place has been in operation since the sixties. They rescue orphaned, abandoned, mistreated, or even pet orang-utans and work to rehabilitate them to a point whereby they are no longer dependent on human intervention.

As part of the centre there is a dedicated nursery where the babies are taught all the skills that their mothers would usually teach them. Once they have learned the basics they are moved to a different nursery. This is the first stage they can be viewed by the public, and only then from behind soundproof glass as to not disturb them.

Adult orang-utans are free to roam in the entire protected area. At present they have around 60 orangutans in the sanctuary but only 20 or so are still returning to feed at the feeding platforms. They put food out twice a day and the public are allowed in during the two feeding times only. We visited for the afternoon feed.

Travelling with children is the same as being at home with children. At times they are difficult, argumentative, and generally uncooperative. It was just unfortunate that they all decided to choose the afternoon I had most been looking forward to, to go in to complete meltdown.

We lasted about ten minutes inside the sanctuary, catching a glimpse of an adult orang-utan at the feeding platform, and briefly viewing unfeasibly cute orang-utan babies in the nursery before we had to drag out three tantrumming children while receiving the usual mix of pitying and disgusted looks.  We know when we are beaten though, so we wrote it off as a bad day and took them back to the lodge for a very early night.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: 5traveltheworld: Borneo - Part 2

.
.

Kicalduk: Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia

Sabah is a part of Malaysian federation and is smaller than Sarawak. When we traveled to Sandakan from Kota Kinabalu we passed national park with stunning views of the mountain picks and while the bus was climbing up and down we could admire the snow covered picks of Mount Kinabalu.

Beautiful views just slightly disturbed by ‘asian’ style of driving. In case you wander it means the  biggest vehicle has right a way or fast and furious;-)

Sandakan itself is bit sad town with short water front and few hotels. However it is surrounded by a jungle so the vast green areas are everywhere and it brightens the town up a little.

We visited Sepilok Orangutans rehabilitation center and it was awesome. We saw so many of them and not only. They are such a beautiful animals and I love the color of their fur! I wish my hair was red like that:-) We also saw makaks and visited Sun bear rehabilitation center.

Its just across the road from the orangutans and yet the apes are taking all attentions. Like us most of people do not realize but there are bears living in the rain forests. They are not on the en-dangerous species list but the animals in the center were rescued from stupid people who kept them as pets or tried to sell for their gold bladder.

The stations does great job and we spent almost 3 hours observing those lovely animals. The bears are like miniature black bears and grow up to 160 cm and 60 kg but the one we saw were a way smaller. They hang on the trees most of the time and only wander down when they are hungry. The staff at the center was very informative and it showed they know what they do.

We also visited proboscis monkey sanctuary, which made me doubt its sanctuary status. The behavior of staff there made me think that the monkeys are to attract tourist and photo shots. We saw loads of proboscis and silver head monkeys but the way the feeding took place left my with bitter aftertaste.

At all centers we visited we were always told that guests and staff should not interfere with the animals however it was other way around there. Once all tourist were on the viewing platform staff started calling the monkeys and once they came they fed the  with bread and cake! and encouraged them to ‘mix’ with guests on the viewing platform where they feed the with long beans from hand.

‘The show’ was purely for tourists amusement as some of them went  crazy with their cameras taking close shots of pure animals into their faces. After the feeding we were taken for lunch and then ushered to TV room where we watch some para-documentary about the monkeys with some sleazy comments done by some ignorant prick.

It praised the owner of the oil plantation where the ‘sanctuary’ was based for helping the animals. I guess Mr Lee, the owner, completed some training from corporate social responsibility and applied it in truly ‘Asian’ style. If I had a choice I would not have gone there one again.

Nonetheless , the animals were beautiful and there were so many of them that I got my fix of monkeys for a while. I guest what helps is that at least they are not kept in the cages and maybe at some stage in the future the center will turn into its real purpose.

We also had loads of laugh because proboscis monkeys live with packs with one dominant male who copulates whenever he is ready. And he is ready a lot so we watched some monkey sex with bunch of older Asians who giggled like crazy and started making monkey noises themselves. It was hilarious;-)

Continue reading at: Kicalduk: Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia

.
.

A Race to Save Ancient Human Secrets in Borneo

Archaeologists enlist UNESCO's help to protect prehistoric sites threatened by limestone quarrying.

If you wanted to create a new UNESCO World Heritage Site, you might well look to the limestone landscape, or karst, on the Sangkulirang Peninsula in eastern Borneo. There, in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan, you could cite the abundance of human and natural riches to justify your proposal.

For seven years, archaeologist Francois-Xavier Ricaut, from the University of Toulouse, and his French-Indonesian team, MAFBO (Mission Archéologique Franco-Indonésienne à Bornéo), have been excavating three sites in the Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat karst, which spans 3.7 million acres (1.5 million hectares).

In the karst, thick tropical forest shrouds weathered limestone spires, making it hard to get around, let alone do science. As a result, Ricaut says, “hardly any archaeological work has been done in this karst—we’re just beginning.”

After dogged sleuthing, Ricaut and his colleagues have found bones and charcoal that date back 35,000 years, the earliest such evidence of human occupation yet found in Kalimantan.

“These early remains are exciting,” he says, “because Kalimantan has for a long time been excluded from the human evolution and dispersal story.”

UNESCO seems to recognize the natural and cultural values of this landscape. The organization has placed the karst on its tentative list of sites to protect and has shown interest in sending a team out to see the region.

But Ricaut worries that recent scientific finds, and UNESCO interest, may be coming too late. Rapid expansion of plantations of oil palm, and illegal logging, have put pressure on the area, and now industrial companies are poised to mine the region’s limestone, the main raw material for making cement. Forest fires—ones now raging in Kalimantan were likely intentionally lit to clear land—compound losses of wildlife and habitat.

It’s anyone’s guess what might disappear. The “hobbit,” Homo floresiensis, discovered a decade ago in a karst cave on Flores, Indonesia, continues to rouse scientific curiosity and debate. It is thought that this miniature hominin lived as recently as 12,000 years ago alongside modern humans.

The French-Indonesian MAFBO team is working in the same area where ancient people made impressions of their own hands in cliffside caves 10,000 or more years ago. Along with the old bones they’ve unearthed, Ricaut says they’ve found hundreds of prehistoric rock paintings that show, in orange to brown hematite pigments, the figures of animals such as tapirs (now extinct on Borneo), banteng (wild cattle), and some creatures unknown to us today.

Blind Fish, Orangutans—And Indigenous People

The wonders of the Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat karst are not limited to the human imprint: Southeast Asia’s limestone hills and valleys have been dubbed “imperiled arks of biodiversity.” 

“I was speechless when exploring this karst,” says Rondang Siregar, an Indonesian biologist from the University of Indonesia, in Jakarta. The region is brimming with rare limestone-restricted species.

“I saw blind freshwater fish, rare bats, black- and white-nest swiftlets, and countless other animals," she says. "The karst forest is also a refuge for orangutans fleeing forest fires during El Niño years.”

Matthew Struebig, a tropical ecologist at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, says the diversity of bat species is greater here than most anywhere else in Southeast Asia. And the sheer number of bats is impressive. “Some Sangkulirang caves support populations of several hundred, if not millions, of individuals.”

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: A Race to Save Ancient Human Secrets in Borneo

.
.

The Phuket List: Borneo - Sarawak

A quick flight from KL to Kuching (for the ridiculous price of $24) set me down on the island of Borneo to start my 5 week exploration.

I hopped in a cab and headed straight for the downtown area to drop my bags off at my hostel.

Then it was time to get out and explore the Chinatown area nearby.

My first full day in Kuching I caught the local bus out to Semenggoh Orangutan Rehabilitation Center to meet up with my relatives.

The park originally had 10 semi-wild orangutans and now they have 26.

It was amazing to watch them peel bananas and boiled eggs.

Their faces are so expressive and human-like. I just couldn’t get enough!

After watching them eat and play for a few hours it was time to head back into the city.

The next day I caught another public bus to Bako National Park for an overnight visit.

Unfortunately when I arrived it was low tide and had to wait 3 hours for the boat to take us out to the park.

Once we finally arrived I dropped my bags off in the dorm room and headed out for a hike.

I hiked about 2.2 km to a beach to see if I could find some proboscis monkeys.

As I approached the beach I managed to scare off a group of about 6 or 7.

After the hike I went to lay down and take a short nap before dinner which turned into sleeping until the next morning.

Oops, guess I was tired. When I woke from my deep slumber I headed out for another hike, this one about 7 km to a different beach and viewpoint overlooking the South China Sea.

Then I grabbed my stuff and headed back to Kuching for the evening.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: The Phuket List: Borneo - Sarawak

.
.

Agop Batu Tulug - Exploring the ancient burial caves of Sabah

I have always been fascinated with the past and as a child I daydreamed of becoming a famous explorer and discovering ancient tombs filled with treasures. So when I was invited to go on a trip to visit the ancient cave burials in the Kinabatangan district with some Sabah Museum staff, I jumped at the offer.

This was back in 1984 and the road conditions were pretty bad to say the least. It took us a whole day to get to Batu Putih, which was a small village along the Kinabatangan River. Arriving at night, we stayed over with one of the local villagers.

We left for the caves after breakfast the next morning and armed with ropes and torchlights, we made our way to the limestone massif known as Agop Batu Tulug which towers 39 M above the forest and houses 4 caves within it. It was hard work trekking through the scrub to get to the lower cave.

From here, we scrambled over very sharp lime stone rocks and even did some rock climbing to get to the higher caves where the coffins were housed. It was a very rewarding sight to see so many wooden coffins stacked one on top of the other while some rested on wooden racks while others were strewn around the cave floor.

The coffins were all made of local hard wood such Borneo iron wood (Belian) or Merbau and varied in size, but most average about 2 meters with some smaller ones presumably for children. These coffins are very heavy and some date back to between 700 – 900 years ago. There are 125 timber coffins in this site alone.

According to the local people, it would take 5 men to carry an empty coffin and we were left wondering how they managed to get them into the higher caves when we had to use ropes to climb up?

The coffins are made from single logs with the insides hewn out. The two ends are carved with various animal head designs like Tembadau (wild Buffalo), crocodile, lizards, snakes and even birds. There is also a protuberance or “tongue” at the far end of the coffins and if the tongue bears no particular shape, the coffin was made for a women but if it has an animal shape, then it house a man.

Continue reading at: Agop Batu Tulug - Exploring the ancient burial caves of Sabah

.
.