Sandakan Hotel

... us marvel at how much cool eco-stuff there must be out there. Sarah's friend, Vicky, for example, has a business making furniture out of driftwood. Being in this environment encouraged us to have a serious discussion about our eco-ethical commitment and we have some good starter ideas but it feels as though it will require some substantial sacrifices on our part. Having such an amazing wildlife experience in the rainforest at least gave us loads of motivation. <br ...

... at the island which was beautiful and went for a little explore to look at the hatcherty. Just as we were walking past I saw something moving in one of the pens and a tiny hatching had appear from the beneath the sand and was stuck on his back. This was fairly unusual as normally a large number from the batch of eggs hatch at the same time. We let the warden know and he picked the tiny turtle (now named Terence by us) out of the pen - they have ...

... behind, where until recently the sun had been shining, had turned an alarmingly dark shade of grey and the air around us was suddenly feeling much cooler. We had pretty much reached our turn-around point anyway, so this seemed to be a good cue to motor off towards home &#8211; which was unfortunately in the direction of the threatening sky and bolts of lightning that were now zig-zagging down. Rounding a bend in the river we could see the advance ...

... br>After the drive, we wound up at a small jetty, and waited for our boat to show up.<br>Getting on to these small, 8 seater boats wasn't the easiest when you had a huge pack on your back, but after three days of jumping on and off it got a hell of a lot easier.<br>On our trip to the camp, we saw two wild orangs in a tree! Sarah was very happy. Her trip had reached all expectations and had only just begun!<br>Once we made it to the camp, we got directed to our hut, and dropped our bags off ...

... than the surrounding peaks, but was covered in clouds during most of our stay<br><br>We went for a number of walks in the national park along several pretty but muddy trails . Most people do the climb to the top of the mountain, so we had the trails to ourselves. Lily took us to the Mesilau gate which is close to her home. She managed to get the key to the Nepenthes trail and took us to see the amazing pitcher plants. These look like beautiful but slightly bizarre jugs ...

... no in the prime location and not many people had noticed. The orangutan practically leaned ov** the barri** and was posing away! You could tell he was aware of his surroundings and he stared and followed you, looking at us with as much curiosity! At one point the park rang** had to tell him off for coming too close! Soon more people became aware of what was unfolding behind them and the scrum shifted. But for those all too quick moments, us few had the best show and int**action of ...

... but no sightings. until the sun began to dip, and then *boom* like out of nowhere, there were a dozen just feasting near the shore. unreal. leora was happy to see her pachyderms. we returned to camp to eat and then were given a short talk on the native primates by papa bear, the camp leader. follwed by a night walk into the jungle. it was time to make use of our leech socks, finally. unfortunately all we saw was elephant dung, and no slow loris. oh well. but ...

... so most of our gear was dry. Once it stopped we actally had quite an interesting time waiting for the bus to arrive, wondering if it was a good as they kept telling us, and buying our lunch at the stalls around the bus area. Fried banana, fried bread, waffles, bananas etc kept hunger at bay until the bus arrived and indeed it was very nice and comfortable, fully air conditioned. Our only one concern getting ready to go was Anna did not have her Padi final paper work, Nic the ...

... seeing them not even bat an eyelid at all of the onlookers flashing away with cameras whilst they ate. They have such a docile attitude and slow pace of life just ambling around and back off into the jungle. Even the chaos of the theiving macaques didn't phase them. Between feeding we saw a UK video about the life of a rehabilitated baby-tan and had a look around the information centre which shows all about the work involved and also the caring of many other orphaned ...

... photo . . . mais Rejean a eu un serieux avertissement du chef de bande. Rejean a vite compris (entre male il se comprenne) qu'il devait ME proteger. En p.m. nous sommes retourner au distrubuteur de bouffe a singe, nous avons eu la chance de bien les voir et plusieurs etaient present. Une maman ouran-outang, avec son bebe de 4 semaines, n'aurait surement pas passe les criteres de la dpj. Elle brassait pas mal le petit. Heureusement il etait bien cramponne. Un ...