On th trail of the wild man of Borneo

Hello from deepest, darkest Borneo

Gorrillas in our midst

We've just spent three days living in a hut, washing by pouring buckets of rainwater over ourselves, and it was absolutley fantastic. Why? Let me tell you.

We travelled to the far side of Borneo (six hours on a bus) to track down Orang-utans. Our first stop was cheating a bit because we went to Sepilok Orang-utan sanctuary. It was always likely that we'd see the beasts here and, sure enough, at feeding time they duly swung into view. They were still amazing and to see them in a semi-wild environment was great. They are very human and apparently share 96.4%of our DNA; in some cases (Andy) they probably share considerably more.

After Sepilok we embarked upon a jungle adventure. We wanted to see the apes in the wild so we went up the Sungai Kinibatangan river with 'Uncle Tan's tours'. It was cheap (40 pound each for 3 days) and basic (you live in a hut with no running water or showers) but they promise you'll see plenty of wildlife. They didn't disappoint.

As we moseyed down the river we saw groups of Macaques (thieving monkeys), Proboscis monkeys (God they're ugly) and the odd crocodile. At one point we got about 6 feet from the head of a big croc, fortunately he didn't appear hungry. We got to the camp alive but still hadn't seen the Orang-utans we'd come for; we hoped for better luck at the morning (6.30 am) river safari. That night we went on another boat trip where we saw kingfishers and eagles but the wild man of the jungle still eluded us.

The morning safari started ok; we went flying along the river when our guide suddenly shouted 'Gorilla!' and rammed the boat into the shore. We could see something in the tree high above and ran onto dry land to get a better look. Our guide 'Lan' was now a wild man himself, telling us that we were watching a large mature dominant male Orang-utan. He said that he might see an adult female twice a week but would only see a dominant male a couple of times a year (and he does this every day). It's no wonder he was so excited.

At this point you have to picture the scene. There were ten people gathered around the base of a big tree. In the tree, about a hundred feet up, was a fully grown 18 stone Orang-utan. They are at least twice as strong as a man and can tear your arms off if they so choose. As we watched and photographed the beast he decided that he wanted to climb down. He slowly clambered down to a point about thirty feet above us and proceeded to eat the fruit he found there (thank God they're vegetarians). We took photo after photo and were all lost in the moment.

After a couple of minutes the Orang-utan decided he'd had enough of the attention and began to climb down. We were all still so fascinated watching such a rare creature in the wild that we'd forgotten one basic truth; get too close to a wild animal and he might attack you. And we were far too close. It was only when Orangy (his name now) jumped to the floor less than thirty feet from us that I thought 'Oh S**t, if he runs at us we're in deep trouble.' Fortunately Lan had brought his rather rotund nephew along, I knew I only had to outrun the fat kid and I should be ok.

Luckily for all of us (especially tubby) the big fella decided to look for some more fruit elsewhere. He turned and lolloped off to another tree where he swung out of sight. We breathed a sigh of relief and felt very lucky; seeing such a specimen in the wild is very, very rare, and we were still alive to tell the tale. We returned to the camp where the other group told us how they'd seen loads of Macaques and the odd crocodile. We kept silent, we'd hadn't got the heart to top trump them with our sighting.

Over the next couple of days we saw another two Orang-utans and countless Proboscis monkeys. We even ended up fighting with Macaques (they looked so cute at first) that attacked us when we stopped them stealing our stuff. They had big teeth and were the size of a small dog but throwing sticks at them seemed to do the trick. The camp's tin of condensed milk did fall foul of a well planned Macaque attack; we watched as the biggest one leaped into the canteen and took it before we could intervene.

So, after three days in the jungle we have some incredible memories, fantastic photographs (I'll try to put them onto this blog soon) and desperately need a shower. We've made friends with another couple called Dan and Kerry and we'll travel to Kota Kinabalu, the nearest big city, with them tomorrow. After that we're going to enjoy our final few days in Asia chillin' on a beach.

Hope you're all well and we'll see you soon