Hotel Lutana Sandakan

... how absolutely mesmerised we were by these incredible creatures. This is perhaps a worrying testament to how detached we've become to all this "wild"life. There must have been a time, many years ago, when these were simply our neighbours.

Batu Puteh
After a few days in the wildlife lodge we went further upriver to visit the Trekforce project I worked on 5 years ago and was delighted to see it has become a great success. The oxbow lake that was once ...

... been on the UK orang utan diaries series I think) in time for the 10am feeding. This followed the same routine as the feeding we had seen at Rasa Ria with an information video and then a short walk into the jungle to the feeding platforms. Around five orang utans came to the platforms but these were bigger and older than the ones we saw as Rasa Ria. The group viewing was bigger than at Rasa Ria and the feeding platforms were further a way so ...

... enjoyed another rare sighting when we spied a gibbon swinging his way along a phone cable. One evening we took a night cruise, which was excellent fun! Motor aside, it was absolutely quiet, save for the lapping of the water around the boat and at the shoreline, and absolutely dark save for the spotlights shone by the guide in search of creatures of the night. There was something quite eerie but somehow exhilarating about sitting in the front of ...

... and they charged us only a tenth of the price the tour company had wanted. There were a few people at the centre but not as many as at the Orang- Utans. The platform was a smaller better set-up too, it was more like looking out from a private balcony. There were Silver Leaf Monkeys and Proboscis feeding when we arrived, the Silver Leaf ones coming onto the balcony to take the food straight out of peoples hands. The Proboscis kicked up a racket now and then, when ...

... We think a garden flying snake ..... fortunately sighted on the morning we left.

The staff were lovely and very accommodating and dropped us at the orang utan sanctuary and picked up again later in the day which allowed us to attend both feeding times. In between we walked to the Rainforest Nature Centre 2 km away, despite the day being extremely hot. It was well worth attending both feeding sessions at the sanctuary. The morning was more crowded with tour buses ...

... ex**cise and rough it! Having spent the last 12 years doing it for free and getting paid by the queen for the privilage, but still the camp felt cosy and I was keen to see just how shelley would react to h** new surroundings.
When we arrived by boat we had our first sighting of Probiscus monkeys. They are endemic to Borneo and are one of the strangest looking creatures I have ev** seen with th**e big fat dangling noses and fat bellies protruding. they lounge around the trees ...

... driven to our accommodation, dropped off our bags and checked out our surroundings, which included a short jungle trail that we attempted until it began to rain. lots. dinner time came and we welcomed some new canucks to the folds: nila from vancouver and olivier from ste foy. next morning we ate our brekkie and headed off to the urang-otan park down the road. saw the feeding and returned to the B&B to wait for our next driver...

We flew into Sandakan on the first morning flight which was only 40 minutes in comparison to a 5 hour bus trip. Close to KK the views has been of Jungle but as we neared Sandakan it was just rows and rows of palm oil plantations. On arrival we stopped into the sales office and got tickets from KK to Semporna (The jump point to Sipadan and other diving). We then hopped in a taxi ...

... to go to hospital to get something stronger since I couldn't sleep and couldn't stop itching. Luckily all the drugs eventually knocked me out and I ended up having to miss the bus I'd booked and paid for do I could go to the pharmacy where I got something even stronger so fingers crossed no more bites! Bought another bus ticket and heading to the national park.

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