Orang utans part 3 of 3

When they finally approached us, the orang utans didn’t head straight to the pile of fresh fruit on the small tree stand as I had expected. Instead they lingered in the trees thirty feet above us, playing and swinging back and forth for the next fifteen minutes. There were a few thin trees growing up through a square cutout in the viewing deck and these seemed to be the trees of choice for these two fellows, so they were literally directly over our heads. They weren’t swinging from one tree to another like we used to swing from the monkey bars on the school playground. Instead, they would climb to the top of one tall, thin tree and their weight would cause the tree to lean far in one direction. But then it would inevitably sway back and when the tree did so it would get the orang utan close enough so he could grab ahold of a neighboring tree. And so it went.

Sometimes, though, they would just stay in the same tree and simply sway back and forth. The trees looked so thin, it seemed at times as if the weight of the orang utans might be too much and tree might snap in half. But of course, the orang utans never misjudged. They knew what they were doing. The orang utans seemed to be having a wonderful time and we were simply entranced.

Finally, having had enough of their youthful, tree-top play, the two orang utans made their way to the food platform and ate their late-morning breakfast.

Watching the two primates eat made us realize that it was close to lunch time and that we were pretty hungry ourselves. We climbed down from the viewing platform and returned to the Shangra La resort where we had some nasi lemak on one of their verandas which was made all the more enjoyable by the view overlooking the Pantai Dalit Bay.

-Jack

Watching the orang utans sway back and both high atop the thin trees looked like a ton of fun. A part of me wanted to be up there with them swaying back and forth, moving from one tree to the next. Over lunch, I shared my latest and greatest plan with my daughters.

Now that bungee jumping has worked its way into the mainstream, I decided it was time for the next extreme form of recreation. I painted a picture for my daughters of a large open air gym populated with tall, flexible reinforced graphite poles. Fee-paying thrill-seekers complete with a safety harness could sway from one “tree top” to the next. For a small fee, adrenaline junkies could know what it's like to be an orang utan swaying up among the tree tops.

Who knows, in order to market it to 18-35 year old males, maybe I’ll combine it with paintballing.

Orang utans part 2 of 3

The two park workers started making jungle-y sounding calls to entice the orang utans to come feed. Most of the rescued orang utans that come to the preserve generally start out completely dependent on the staff. The staff works to move these orang utans toward independence with the hope of reintroducing them into the wild.

If we saw any orang utans today, they would be orang utans who were in transition; they would not be living in facilities provided by the rehabilitation center, but they wouldn’t be living fully independent lives in the jungle either.

After five minutes of scanning the dense jungle landscape for any signs of forthcoming orang utans, we still hadn’t seen anything. I started to worry that we might not see any primates today. The park rangers kept up their calls.

All of a sudden, I heard a quiet excitement spread through the other people on the platform. I looked to see where they were focusing their attention. Sure enough, about fifty meters out–I couldn’t see an orang utan- but I could see the tree tops moving back and forth. I elbowed each of my daughters and pointed. Slowly we were able to make out the shape of an adolescent orang utan that was making his way toward us. He was high in the tree and we could only make out his silhouette because he was backlit against the bright mid-morning sky. Then we realized that there were two them.

Apparently, they were not in a big hurry since they were taking their own sweet time making their way to their morning buffet …and us. Slowly they got close enough that we could see them, their distinctive orange hair, and their coal-black eyes. Cameras clicked. I found myself torn between trying to simply soak in this amazing moment and trying to capture it on film. I have seen my share of primates behind bars, but it was almost indescribable what it was like to encounter them face to face as a visitor to their own habitat. A reverential quiet swept through the small group of people on the platform as we watched the orang utans' every move.

Orang utans part 1 of 3

The jungles of Borneo are famous for being home to the orang utans. Short of going to the zoo, the best way to see the orang utans up close is to go to the Shangri-la Rasa Ria resort forty-five minutes north of Kota Kinabalu.

It felt a little odd going to a five-star resort better known for the elaborate breakfast buffets and high thread-count bed linens to see primates in their natural habitat. But the Shangri-La Resort and the government of Sabah jointly developed a wildlife preserve and rehabilitation center for orphaned and rescued orang utans. It's turned out to be a mutually beneficial arrangement: the resort is assured a steady flow of visitors and the government gets a partner with deep pockets and marketing savvy.

We called ahead to book a spot to ensure that there would be room for us. Once we arrived we had to walk through the Shangri-La’s cavernous and opulent lobby and then walk through their meandering, impeccably landscaped grounds. Eventually, we made our way to the northern edge of the Shangri-La where the resort ended and the jungle began. In the preserve's welcome center, we sat down and watched an informational video about the orang utan that was already in progress. When the video finished, the guide had us follow him outside.

We began a steady ascent into the Borneo rainforest. Ten minutes later we were on a large wooden viewing platform in the middle of the jungle. Twenty feet away was a smaller feeding platform where the ranger had just dumped a bucket of fresh fruit. We all staked out our location along the railing on the viewing platform and got ready to wait for orang utans to show up.

KK Water Village pictures

Water Village part 2 of 2

It was 8:00 in the morning and the village was abuzz with activity. Six young men already had a rousing game of volleyball going on a net that was so threadbare that it could hardly be called a net. Several groups of small kids were scrambling around.

I left the dirt path and stepped up onto the makeshift boardwalk. I saw a young man in his early twenties standing next to the boardwalk on a small piece of foam on an equally small piece of terra firma. He was washing for the day up at a public water spigot. Sitting on the boardwalk at chest-level was his blue plastic bucket in which he had all his morning toiletries.

I am usually pretty uninhibited with my camera –to a fault- but I decided that today was a pretty good day to keep my camera in my backpack. I never for a moment felt unsafe. It just turns out that when it comes to social propriety –contrary to the rumors- even I have my limits. I decided that this morning, maybe I should just wander, observe, and absorb.

Northern Borneo is very close to Palawan Island, Philippines and the water village is predominately populated by Filipino refugees,. While there was running water and I did see a few signs of electricity, I suspect that the city of Kota Kinabalu was not officially providing these services. They certainly weren’t provided garbage pick-up services.

I became intrigued with the water village/slum and wanted to know more. Later in the week when I had internet access, I searched the web for more information. I’m pretty adept at finding what I am looking for on the internet, but for the life of me, aside from two other blog entries from fellow travelers and a few pictures on Flicker, I couldn’t find any information on the slum in the heart of Kota Kinabalu. I guess there is not only a big ten-foot green fence around the actual village, there is a virtual one as well. On the three or four maps of KK that I had, the village wasn’t even given a name. It was simply labeled “Water Village.”

Later in the week, I found out from an taxi driver that one of the new, high rise hotels just down the road was built on the site of a smaller water village. I realized that it was only a matter of time before the local government and developers prevailed and the water village would be pushed aside for yet another series of hotels. I don’t know if I will ever make it back to Kota Kinabalu. But if I do, I am guessing the water village won’t be there any longer.

But for now, I have a wife and two daughters back in the hotel who are probably waking up just about now and will be looking to start their day.

-Jack

(Note: as I made my way out of the village, I did slip my camera out of my back pack and managed to squeeze off a few pictures.)

Water Village part 1 of 2

“Did you see the slum just south of town?”

We were having dinner with my colleague Nate and his family at a local Malaysian restaurant in Kota Kinabula.

I hadn’t.

I was a little surprised when Nate explained to me where the slum was located. It was right in between the heart of downtown Kota Kinabalu and the five-star Sutera Pacific resort. I had traveled this route; it was wall-to-wall hotels and other tourist amenities. Or so I thought.

The next morning, while the girls and Julie slept in, I grabbed my camera, slipped out of the hotel room, and started walking south out of town.

Ten minutes later, I was standing at the entrance of the water village slum. Sure enough, the village was hemmed in by high-rise hotels of varying degrees of luxuriousness. I now understood why I’d missed it when we’d ridden past it: the government of Kota Kinabalu had erected a ten-foot high, corrugated metal wall all the way around the village. At the northeast corner where I now stood, was a forty-foot gap in the fence with a wide dirt path leading into the village.

The village is on the site of a former mangrove. The water was still there but the trees were long gone –torn down to make way for houses which were little more than huts. The houses were all built on stilts to elevate them above the water. A network of very crudely built boardwalks zigzagged through the haphazard arrangement of wooden houses.

Sadly, the water that was next to, around, and under the houses had become a giant cesspool from all of the garbage that had been dumped into it over the years. Plastic bottles, broken flip flops, and discarded toys created a dense covering of flotsam.