Sepilok

After the boat back to Kota Kinabalu I took a day of just being lazy and getting my laundry done. From Kota Kinabalu I caught a bus and got off at the Sepilok junction. This is one of the cases were I was really glad that other tourist were on the bus going to basically the same places as me because I am always worried I will not know when to get off the bus and they seemed to know where they were going.

The bus ride itself was just another bus ride but the view was great. I enjoy watching the scenery go by on a number of bus trips but I think this one offered as many great views as any that I have been on and reminded me of Laos for some reason. I did not get much of a look at Mt. Kinabalu because it was covered in clouds. Mt Kinabalu is the largest mountain in Southeast Asia and it seems that most backpackers climb it while in Borneo. I am not the normal backpacker so just tried to enjoy the view from the bus and not do the 2 day hike up the mountain.

Once I made it to the Sepilok junction and found the place I had booked a tour for the following days I walked down to the rainforest discovery center. Here is a picture of the lake by the visitor’s center.

I walked through the garden there that had all different sorts of plants and then walked on the canopy walkway. Only a part of the canopy walkway was open due to a problem with bees and I was a little bit disappointed to not see more birds.

The following day I went to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center and it was priced a little bit higher than I had expected. Since I had already been to one in Sarawak I thought about not going in at all but figured I was there and it would be stupid to not pay the fee but I did decide to not pay the fee for the camera so don’t have any pictures from the center. I had read a lot of bad things about this center and was one of the reason I made sure I went to the one in Sarawak so was not expecting much. Afterwards I was really happy I paid the fee because I really enjoyed it.

I was there about 30 to 45 minutes before the feeding was suppose to start so walked a little ways down the bird watchers trail. I did not see any birds but when I got back to the feeding area I found a couple of leeches on me. It ends up I missed one and he seemed to stay on me until he was full. I think he was 3 times the size as when you see them on leaves. Here is a picture from another place of a tiger leech prior to feeding.

I found it rather interesting and fun to sort of tempt a leech when I would see one of them on a leave. I would place my hand close to the leech and it could tell where my hand was and would stretch in the direction of my hand trying to leech on. As I would move my hand around the leech would change directions always following my hand.

When the feeding started there were about 10 Orangutans that showed up. The Orangutans did not seem to swing the trees back and forth like I had enjoyed watching so much in Sarawak but I got to see them at a lot closer distance. One came onto the observation deck during the feeding and the ranger took him back into the trees but after the feeding when most of the people had left 2 came onto the deck and the ranger allowed then to walk the length of the deck so I was with a foot or 2 of them.

The other thing that I really enjoyed was I got a good view of some Hornbill birds. One flew right into the open area for the feeding and then landed in a tree. I think this was a rhinoceros hornbill from the orange coloring of the upper part of his bill. After the feeding a pair of hornbills flew over the area behind the feeding. I am not sure what type these were but there is a type that are usually seen in pairs but I forget what the specific name was.