Tag Archives: macaques

Malaysia Sarawak

Orangatans! Semenggoh Wildlife and Kuching Sunset Boat Tour

Semenggoh Wildlife Park

Just twenty kilometers out of Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia is Semenggoh Wildlife Park.  There are tours, but really?  It’s easy.  From my hotel I walked one kilometer, hopped on an air conditioned bus, paid three ringgit, (3.17 to the dollar) and rode on the bus for 45 minutes.  The tours will spare you the 1.3 kilometer walk from the entrance to the rehabilitation center.  I like walking.

Admission is ten ringgit for foreigners and five ringgit for Malays.  I had caught the one o’clock bus.  Feeding time is 3:00.  There noorangwasn’t much hope of seeing anything, the orangutans had not been to the feeding station for weeks as the fruit are ripe.  The tour vans passed me and everybody on my bus charged toward the feeding station.  I ambled and looked around.  It sure doesn’t take an hour to walk less than a mile.   I saw some branches rustling on a windless day.  I stopped and gazed, put on my telephoto lens and spotted some red fur in the distance.  In a short while a full female orangatan with baby came into view.  I started taking pictures.  The next tour van that came in saw me and the guide came out to look.  He called everybody out of the van and called the office to let them know that rehabilated orangtans had been spotted.  All the vans at the feeding station drove back and everybody that was on my bus started running towards me.  More orangutans appeared. Finally there were somewhere between five and seven.

IMG_0098I felt no need to proceed to the feeding station. The apes approached closer and closer and three of them crossed the road.  I would call this day a success.  Tomorrow I go to look for probiscus monkeys.

Full picture album

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset Tour

A quick walk back to the river front market and I met the soup girl I had met last night.  I convinced her to go on a sunset tour with me.  It was but an hour.  Fifteen minutes downstream, return and fifteen minutes upstream, then she had to work. Picture Kuching at night and sunset.  I was going to create some links, but it is going to take forever for those pictures to upload.

As always, all of my travel pictures can be found on picasaweb.