After a afternoon/ night in Kota Kinabalu we had a very weak free breakfast at The Bunk before grabbing an uber to the Inanam Bus Station on the outskirts of the city. We grabbed tickets from the booth Tung Ma Express which listed KK-Sandakan with times that it was leaving. We had to wait around for a bit but eventually boarded the 10am coach to Sandakan and asked to be dropped at the junction for Sepilok. On our journey we were surrounded by children that did not travel well and had the only person with the seat down on us which was pretty annoying after a while. After four hours we stopped for a toilet break and food, grabbing fried rice (7MYR) which was much needed after a minimal breakfast. Dave wasn’t feeling great so a bit of time off the bus was a relief for him too. After a bit more travelling the bus pulled up at the side of the road on a junction where we were ushered off and grabbed our bags. We were greeted by several private “taxis” which offered to take us to our accommodation- Forest Edge which was right down the road from the Sepilok. We gladly accepted with us being tired from the journey, it being very hot and being told that it is a reasonable walk down the road to the hotel/centre (5MYR).
We very gratefully checked into our resort, where we were staying in a dorm room. We were given a nice cool welcome drink which was lemon grass and cinnamon, surprisingly nice and refreshing before exploring the resort. The whole place was gorgeous, clean rooms, gorgeous plants, a beautiful wooden bar/ restaurant area and small pool in the countryside. Then we wandered down the road towards the orang-utan centre and other few accommodation options in order to see if there were any cheap food options, due to not being able to really afford the restaurant food at Forest Edge on our backpacker budget. We found a small place for dinner with a couple of women cooking up cheap food called Mama Watis and tucked into Mee Hoon Goreng (7MYR) for a great portion of delicious food. The rest of the day we spent relaxing at the resort, enjoying the more peaceful, luxury feel reading, writing blogs and playing cards.
In the morning we were up early where we had an incredible buffet breakfast and the Forest Edge, filling us up for the day. The main reason we had come to Sepilok was to try to see more orang-utans! So we wandered down the road from our accommodation to visit the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation centre which opened at 9am – 12pm(feeding time 10am). It was 30 MYR entrance with an extra 10 MYR for a camera pass. This is a very similar idea to the one we visited in Sarawak with orang-utans that had been rescued due to injury, illegal pets or loss of habitat. This centre appeared to have more money spent on its structures and accommodating tourists viewing the orang-utans with wooden board walks winding their way through the jungle to viewing platforms and a gift shop and café.
Buffet breakfast, road to centre, orang-utan centre
At the feeding platform we saw an orang-utan and her baby hanging about in the trees and after we waited around for a while these orang-utans came to the feeding platform and in time were also joined by 3 others. They are gorgeous creatures and incredible to watch. When these orang-utans dispersed back into their jungle home we made our way to the nursery. This is where the baby orang-utans are taught the skills they need to survive in the jungle on play gyms. We viewed these adorable baby orang-utans from inside the viewing stations and it was great to see them playing and having fun, the majority of them orphaned due to parents being killed or taken. After this we walked back as the site shut at 12pm for a couple of hours and chilled out at the resort. Due to being right by we walked back to the orang-utan centre for 2pm and saw another few orang-utans in the afternoon, with one cheeky one stealing bananas off another. Throughout the day we heard male elephant noises about 6 times and were informed that they often have to be careful about elephant being around the centre due to the dangers they can possess to tourists but that they often are roaming the jungle nearby. When we finished our time at the orang-utan centre feeling very happy with ourselves about seeing so many orang-utans, we relaxed back at Forest Edge cooling off in the pool before getting dinner at Mama Wati’s.
Next to the orang-utan centre is also the Borneo sun bear conservation centre. So after another great fresh buffet breakfast we headed to the sun bear conservation centre for 9am. It was 31.60 MYR entrance. On entering this we watched some information on sunbears. Then we made our way around the huge enclosure conservation site for the sunbears along the paths and raised boardwalks to various viewing platforms to try to spot the bears. Due to this area being so vast and full jungle it was difficult to spot any at first but we eventually got lucky and saw a number of sunbears climbing up trees and clambering to get to food from the tree bark. These bears were very cute and great fun to watch. The centre was also incredibly well done. During this time we also got to see two species of macaques- pig tailed and long tailed, which were big and strolled and jumped through the enclosures and on the board walks.
After a lovely morning seeing more wildlife we checked out of Forest Edge (reluctantly as it was so nice) and were picked up by a driver to take us to our homestay in the heart of the wild jungle of Borneo in the hopes of seeing some animals in the true wild.
Alex
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