With another day in Sandakan with no plan whatsoever, I figured it was a good idea to give Abby a seedling of an idea for a movie. Usually, that's all it takes before she goes into creative mode. She's really taking to this movie thing, and I've been trying to gently steer her in the direction of putting a little planning into it to make the end products a little more.... Engaging. It all started in Dalat with the Mudford girls, and I have to say, though the "films" are not Hollywood level productions, they do sometimes provide a good few hours of harmonious "working together" time for the kids.
Craft services, in the form of an awesome Indian buffet was on hand. I love these places and it reminds me of our last trip to Malaysia. You grab a bunch of food, the guy kind of scans the plate over your shoulder and comes up with a super reasonable bill at the end of the meal. Mmmmm....
So between meals and doing more homework today, we managed get the raw footage for the next Tyndall Productions movie, which hopefully I can post when Abby is done the editing. Oh sure, we did witness bouts of creative differences and emotional outbreaks from the headlining actress (Robin) who was bossed around a lot by the writer/producer/director/cameraperson (Abby), but that's normal in the movies (I think???).
Travelling with kids for six months is so different than short vacations... You really have to put in some unplanned time in the schedule, however, by not wanting them to get lost in Minecraft or Instagram, it means we have to get engaged... Which is good for us too :-). We are really (90% :-) ) enjoying this time with the kids. They are great kids - so relaxed and able to roll with pretty much anything we do. They continue to thank us for every experience, every meal, and even every taxi ride!
Beth half-laughingly says "so, when the Versly leave for good next week, we have no planned visits from anyone.....". When we look back on this trip in the years to come, I'll bet we will not regret ANY of the days - the good, the not so good, the boring, the busy, with company, without. They're all good.
It's funny how the (female?) mind can meander with lots of time on hand...we are having a 'trIal separation' as Alex put it, with the Versluis family. We meet up again tomorrow on the flight to Kota Kinabalu where we will spend 6 more nights together. Yay!
The last 3 days have been super relaxing and reasonably "productive" if you can call it that. We got 5kg of much overdue laundry done, finished Robins grade six language homework for Sept-Nov and polished off a few units of math each. Too much sitting around for my back, so I managed to wander the streets for a few hours and purchase some silver bracelets. Why not!? Oh, and a spa treatment each day too.
Couple of observations and thoughts from the last few days...
1. We have had way more than our cumulative 15 minutes of fame. Pretty sure we are now on multiple Facebook pages in Malaysia, adding to The other countries we've been too. Robin just got her photo taken again while doing math homework at McDonald's. The girls find it really strange, but then we remind them that we take photos of the locals all the time...driving a motorcycle to work, sitting outside a shop etc. Hardly riveting photos but interesting to us. I'm sure they think we are odd.
2. It is polite to burp in Malaysia. Out loud. No apology or embarrassed looks. After the 3rd public burping session (by locals, not me), I decided to google it. Yes, it's A-OK. Robin took this as another 'when in Rome moment'
3. The people of Sabah and Sarawak are seriously friendly. Lots of smiles, welcomes, help, kind service. Are Canadians this hospitable with tourists? I sure hope so.
3. The nationwide travel advisory in Nepal has been lifted. This is what we had been hoping for, and also confirmation that the Annapurna region was unaffected and now deemed business as usual. Of course, the Canadian government had an "exercise extreme caution" warning for nearly all the countries we have and will be visiting, but the advisory is the one to watch for. We aren't going until October, but this should reduce my googling safety alerts. Nothing to do with Malaysia or Borneo but that's why it's random!
4. At home I'd go mental with 3 days of essentially doing nothing, and would manage to fill it with stuff. Here, I don't feel guilty for being unproductive so watching 2 back to back movies, reading, wandering is all good. That said, I AM looking forward to doing stuff this next week and having Kim and Alex back!
We have two full days in Sandakan with no plans, and no real desire to tackle anything too involved. We did want to get some homework done - the girls have not done a whole lot since Vietnam and its more about keeping them in touch with some notion of schoolwork than worrying too much about progress. The carrot for progress is that they can get rid of pages in their textbook once they've reached a good level of proficiency.
Breakfast was the usual mix of foods for Malaysia - a mix of Malay foods like beef rendang and fried noodles and rice, to Abby's favourite - the ever present coco flakes!
In the morning, we just walked and walked. We got the occasional "where are we going" questions piping up from the peanut gallery, but in general the place is an interesting walk. We found the central market which as really big, and again, just like Kuching, amazingly organized and surprisingly clean. We saw the same kind of prepackaged (or unpackaged), exact portions of spices, fruits, meats and vegetables.
We picked up a bunch of spices that are usually hard to find at home and that were ridiculously cheap here.
The fees food section of the market is separated from the rest of the market and is the biggest we'd seen since probably Tsukiji in Japan (though obviously not even close to the same size, usually the seafood sections we'd seen to date have been a few dozen stalls).
Upstairs, above the central market, was a huge food court with dozens of different "restaurants". Even though we came here around 10:00am, the smells were triggering our stomachs.... Nope, too early! We continued to the third floor where we encountered some tourist trinkets and many stalls selling all kinds of clothes - it looked more geared to locals. To be honest, we haven't found much appeal in most things for sale in Borneo to date. Whereas you could spend hours looking through markets in Hoi An, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Luang Prabang, Hong Kong, Singapore and Siem Reap (and we did.... Hours upon hours..... Upon hours...), the shops and small markets here have been..... As the kids would say, "meh". Maybe Kota Kinabalu will be different.
We had to get some laundry done, and we eventually tracked down to place called Dobi (which actually meant "laundry"). It felt a little sketchy. We walked up a really dirty set of stairs to an outdoor second floor, past a bunch of men with sewing machines (?)'and found this little window in the wall. A sign next to it, hand written on a piece of lined paper said "it is ugly and small, but we provide good service at a fair price". Lol. Mi looked in and saw an elderly Indian couple sleeping on mats on the floor. With an "ahem" they noticed us and jumped up - "yes sir!?". Too funny. Sometimes you just get a good feel for someone despite all other signs saying "noooooo!". We weighed our laundry bag (almost 7 kilos!) and promised to be back tomorrow to pick it up. Nice people!
The people. They are super nice everywhere we've been in Borneo so far. Lots of smiles, lots of "hello, hello", lots of people engaging us in conversation. Whenever we've gone to stores and the people obviously can't speak English (which is actually pretty rare), they laugh in embarrassment (we should be embarrassed did not speaking Malay to be honest) and still do their best to help. We get plenty of stares, and rightly or wrongly, Beth tends to feel a little uncomfortable with the stares, particularly from the big groups of male teens, which seem to be everywhere. That being said, we have felt very safe... But I like to stay close to the three girls to make sure the groups of "men" know there's a Gaiginzilla attached to them :-).
Some of the city blocks in Sandakan appear quite modern, but then there are steam punk like blocks that look like they've been uprooted from Kowloon and dropped in the middle of the city. Very cool.
In the afternoon, the girls went down the street for manicures and pedicures. They are in their element when they're in the spa...
Robin has been giggling every time we go to the grocery store. We'd be looking for some essentials or snacks, and you'd here "Abby come here....... Tee hee hee". I swear she has a gift for finding inappropriate humour in almost any setting.... I'm not sure where she gets it.
We left the girls in McDonalds (a good, safe base with great wifi and comfortable seating!) to do some math, and Beth and I went to find a seamstress to add to the girls patches. We found a really nice Chinese family right near our laundry dude who was nice enough to help us out. The girls are going to need bigger bags soon!
So you may have heard - Robin rescued a baby turtle. It seemed like one of those things that parents would pay money for to set up a "kid saving the turtle on a seemingly casual walk" experience, but no, this was just blind luck.
We got up a bit earlier than we needed to, around 5:45am, because Robert told us if we walked the beach when it opened to guest access at 6am, we had a chance to see mother turtles returning to the sea. When we got to the beach, all we saw initially were tractor marks in the sand everywhere - actually the telltale signs of a lot of mother turtle activity.
It was crazy how many tracks there were. We eagerly awaited the stats board to see how busy the island was last night. We started walking around the island on the beach as the sun rose and lit up the sky.
We looked around for any trace of living turtles. The only thing we saw initially was a foot long monitor lizard taking a morning dip. I love the way these things move - they seem so prehistoric.
Suddenly, Robin exclaimed that she saw a baby turtle in a hole about 8 inches deep in the sand. We took a look and it didn't appear to be moving. Robin said she saw it move, and then we saw it flap one of its little arms.
I told Robin she should pick it up and help it along. She reached down and gently picked it up - I reminded her to put it on the beach before the water so it could imprint on the beach.
As soon as Robin put it down, it scrambled quickly towards and into the water.
It swam away so fast that we almost forgot what had just happened - it was a little magical! We couldn't really explain how a rogue turtle could hatch outside the hatchery, but it does happen - a missed nesting, or an egg that wasn't collected during a nesting.... No matter - we had Robin Turtle Saver on hand!
When we made it back to the main building for (the shitty) breakfast, they had posted the stats for the night: 31 landings, 20 nestings, 1526 eggs laid and 111 turtles born.... Quite the production!
At 7:00am, it was our time to leave the island. The boat ride was bumpier than the way out, and it took twice as long, as one of the outboard motors was on the fritz... However, I'm not sure any of the kids noticed how long it took....
When we got back to the jetty, we said a tearful goodbye to the Versly family.... Wait, no, not this time... this was only the first, temporary goodbye. Team Versly is recuperating on a getaway island resort, while Team Tyndall will be chilling and hopefully getting some homework, blogs and vlogs done. We will resume our eightsome on Saturday when we head to Kota Kinabalu.
Turtle Island was amazing. When we arrived at the island by boat, I could already tell it was going to be quite the experience. The water was this beautiful crystal clear blue and the sand was white and soft, glowing from the sun's rays. I loved it already. When we got onto the island, our guide explained to us some rules and stuff like that. You know, the usual. We got our rooms, which were okay but not the best, and headed straight to the beach. Our guide said that the best place to snorkel was on the north side of the island, so we picked up some snorkel gear and headed to the gorgeous water. The water was really nice, refreshing and warm at the same time- but not the soupy, gross warm, the nice warm. I jumped in and it was so clear, that I could see my hand underwater perfectly! It was so beautiful and relaxing that I just wanted to swim in it forever. My dad and I put on our gear, and headed out. We saw so many creatures and coral. We saw rainbow fish, clownfish (Nemo fish), electric blue fish, blue and orange fish, black fish, green fish, brain coral, sea cucumbers, sea stars, sea urchins, water snakes, bright blue and pink coral, and so much more! It was really nice! After lunch, we swam some more and than dinner rolled around. We were in the middle of playing a game of 8 man president, when our guide shouted, "the turtles are here!"! So we ran out and went to the beach as fast and quiet as we could. Right in front of us, was this mother turtle! I was a bit shocked that it was so close to us in the wild, and then it started laying eggs. It was weird, but cool. The guide told us after she was done, that the mother turtle had laid 63 eggs! Some turtles could lay up to 200 eggs! Woah! After she had laid all of the eggs (the guide took the eggs out to put them into the hatchery to keep them safe), she covered the hole up with her feet. It was really neat. Next, we saw the little baby turtles make their way to the water. It was so cool! The turtles were super cute and so small! It was really awesome to see the turtles waddle their way to the water. When they reached the ocean, they were naturals! Their little arms were flapping in the water and it was really cute! I really liked turtle island and it was so cool to see a close-to endangered species being protected and safe.
So yesterday we went to turtle Island. We took an hour to go to turtle Island. So when we arrived there we dropped our bags down and went to the beach and on the way we bought some snorkels. As soon as got to the beach we snorkelled the water was so nice and warm. After swimming at the beach we went for dinner and the dinner wasn't the greatest but whatever. Lol. After our guide told us to wait for the mommy turtles hached there eggs. The wait was about 45 minutes long. So then our guide finally said "TURTLE ", so we went to go see them and we saw a mother turtle lay her eggs. The next morning I spotted a baby turtle in a hole and It was on its back, it was so cute, so I picked it up and rescued it, I picked it up and I put it in the water. I can not believe I saved a baby's life.
We have had Turtle Island on our itinerary for about as long as we'd had the Gibbon Experience penciled in. Turtle Island has been touted as "the" way to experience the turtle life cycle firsthand, and everyone was pumped about going. That said, we'd read a pretty negative write up about it in Lonely Planet, and we went in with guarded expectations. The gist of the LP article was that the reserve seemed to be only for show, and wasn't actually achieving its goal of conservancy. It seemed to me to be a little disjointed, not really making an effective argument and trying to make connections that didn't seem to be connected. I was hopeful, anyway.
You have to book Sepilok Turtle Island through a travel agency. The island and the conservation efforts are run by the government, but the facilities and food are run by a subcontractor. Turtle Island is not cheap - it's about $1000 for a family of four for just 24 hours from start to finish. The island has limited capacity to just 50 people, and they all follow the same schedule:
9:30am Pick up from jetty - one hour speed boat ride to island
10:30am Check in and free time
12:30pm Lunch
Afternoon - free time
6:00pm Beach closed - congregate at main dining hall / information sessions
7:30pm Dinner
Evening - wait for a mother turtle to start laying eggs, then the turtle program starts
6:00am Beach open again to walking
6:30am Breakfast
7:00am Boat back to Sandakan
It's a fairly rigid schedule meant to shuffle people to and from the island - you can only stay the one night. There's also plenty of downtime, so we were all looking forward to that (the kids, having shared a room for the last two nights were a little short on sleep!).
We arrived to the jetty on time and joined a bunch of other small groups as we all loaded into two speed boats. The jetty had a lot of activity from local fishing ships, which are right out of Mad Max meets Waterworld.
Not five minutes into the boat ride and the kids were..... Out!
We hadn't really known what to expect from our booking, but the eight of us would be guided by a great guy named Robert throughout the turtle island experience. He really added to the experience and was a great resource to ask any question we could think of. Robert quickly got us sorted and took us to our chalet. Chalet may sound higher class - the rooms were very basic - fairly neat but not overly comfortable, though they had AC which would be nice for sleeping.
We rented some snorkelling gear for the eight of us, as well as some beach mats and headed to the beach. Selligan an island is a nice, white, sandy island (perfect for turtle landings, of course!) and as we walked to the snorkelling area we could see large craters that looked like the remnants of some WWII beach landing - evidence of turtle landings!!
The snorkelling was pretty good, but the tide was fairly low and continuing to go out. Before long, it was time for lunch!
Our afternoon was free time, which was great. We all did our own thing - blog work, walking on the beach, backgammon, snorkelling and making short movies - you'll have to guess who did what!
The island really is beautiful, as are the Canadian moms seen walking up and down the beach....
We all got cleaned up, then before dinner, the four kids and I threw the disc around on a shaded football field. It had been about three weeks since we'd played in Ho Chi Minh City, and the rust was showing.... Hopefully hoops won't have suffered by the time we get back! The four kids even played their twisted version of 700UP that they've developed over the years with the Norseman gang called "Jacker". They missed Phin's evil genius but Robin was a fine stand in for him.
By 6:00, we were starting to get antsy. We met Robert in the main building and went upstairs for a briefing. Kim and Beth loved Robert for his constant repetition for the schedule to come, as well as setting expectations. We learned a lot about the operations on the island, as well as the lifecycle of the male and female turtles - it's not good guys.... The male turtles look pretty bad - during mating they almost drown the females by hanging on to the back of her shell for hours at a time (while other males egg him on and sometimes try and butt in to the proceedings...), and they they pretty much float away and are gone from the picture. You could almost feel the eyes burning from females throughout the info Center, as if we were somehow responsible or in any way related to such boorish behaviour.
Turtle island itself is very successful at getting mothers to lay eggs on the island. They have dozens of "landings" per night (the record is over 180 pregnant females turtles landing in one night), and many of those females follow through by laying eggs. During mating season, a female turtle could revisit multiple times over several weeks until the eggs have been depleted.
After dinner, the waiting began. Sometimes people have to wait until the wee hours of the morning to see any activity, but Robert said the combination of it being high tide in the evening and it being prime egg laying season meant we most likely wouldn't have to wait long. Sure enough, at around 9pm, a guide came joggin in "turtle time!!!!". We had a fairly big group to look at just one turtle (they really minimize the interaction with the turtles and are very strict in behaviour - no lights or flashes and absolute quiet), and we all filed excitedly on our way to one of the beaches on the other side of the island.
When we go there, we saw an amazing sight. A huge female turtle had done the one hour climb to the nest area (somewhere,far enough from the threat of water washing the nest away) and had dug her egg laying hole - she just started laying eggs.... So beautiful. When they are laying eggs, they are in a trance state, so anything that could possibly wake her up (lights, noise) is not good - she could stop the process and retreat to the water. Every few eggs, another ranger would carefully remove the eggs and put them in a bucket for use in a later step. We watched for 10 minute in awe while she finished up.
When done, she woke up and the ranger explained that they would now check the health of the mother (for barnacles or injuries), measure the length and width and, with this one since she had never laid eggs on this island before, apply a tracking tag onto each front leg in order to keep statistics. While they did this, the mother used her back legs to cover up her eggless nest. After a rest, she would head back to the water.
As we were leaving the beach, we could see other mothers up and down the beach in varying stages of the egg laying process. A couple were climbing up from the water, and nearby, one was digging her nest - flinging sand all over the place. We were then hustled over to the hatchery for the next step in the process.
The eggs that were taken from the mother's nest are taken to the hatchery, carefully buried and surrounded by a green mesh, labelled with the date, the number of eggs (ours laid 63 tonight) and the mothers ID. This step is to ensure that baby turtles born 8 weeks after they were laid, are not eaten by monitor lizards, crabs or birds.
Next! We were ushered down to a nearby beach and were able to watch the release of babies that were hatched eearlier that evening [fun fact - if the temperature is on the low side during the first four weeks of gestation, the eggs are more likely to be male (Men are COOL). If the temp is slightly hotter than usual, the eggs are more likely female (Women are HOT).
When the baby Green turtles were released, most of them quickly made it down to the water, but a small group looked exhausted and weren't going very far. The ranger eventually had to help one straggler find his way down the beach and into th water. They don't release the babies into the water, because they need to imprint themselves onto the island. Once this is done, the turtles have the ability to find their way back here years later (perhaps 30 to 40 years later) when they're ready to lay eggs of their own.
What a day, and what a special experience for the kids. Turtles are one of our favourites: like a lot of people, elephants and turtles have a weird, special place in our hearts. It was really amazing to see them up close, giving life to a new generation of turtles. It made us think of the elephant sanctuary we'll be heading to in Thailand, but that's for another day....
We had a bit of Griswold's day planned today, but if it all worked out, it could be a good one. This was the only full day we have together with the Versly in Sandekan, so we wanted to make sure we did the must-dos together. Fur us, the must-dos were to see Orangutans and Probiscus monkeys up close.
The kids had a great night last night. When we checked in, we decided to check on altering our original booking from two family rooms to two double rooms and one family room for the kids. We totally did it for the kids... Yup. Strangely, the three rooms were slightly cheaper than the two family rooms, so it was a no brainer. When we got up to the third floor, we told the kids they'd be sharing a room and they were quite happy.
This morning, Beth and I woke them up, gave them their marching orders and headed down to the breakfast area. Five minutes later, the kids marched into the restaurant - all packed and ready to go for the day! They'd beaten Kim and Alex to breakfast by 10 minutes.... Very impressive. It's almost like they had put together a plan to show how organized they could be so they might be able to continue having a kids only room! Hmmm....
We'd negotiated a private mini bus (a quote unquote "14 seater" which was predictably laughable) to be our transport for the day, rather than booking a group tour. Our first stop was about 45 minutes away: Sepilok.
When we got to the parking lot, we were not surprised to see a ton of tour buses - we'd read that the hoards arrived in the morning for the 10am feeding, so we planned on going to both fedings today - 10am and 3pm. We got our tickets and started out on the boardwalk for the 10 minute walk to the feeding station. There was nobody there, and a park,ranger told us to proceed to the nursery, another 10 minute walk through the jungle. When we got to the nursery, I was immediately disappointed. The crowds, though expected, were jammed up against the glass and were being completely disrespectful of the oft posted rule of being completely silent. I could see the looks on Abby and Robin's faces and they seemed a little down to.
There were 4 Orangutans in the nursery area - all fairly young and pretty entertaining. However, the fact that we were behind glass and being drowned out by really annoying tourists (2 older Aussie women, dressed in khaki, full body and hat safari outfits were stand outs who would end up haunting us all day - laughing and talking really loudly, even after a normally shy ranger shouted for everyone to be quiet...), it seemed no different than the Toronto Zoo.
Like clockwork, the hoards exited, on their way back to the feeding platform. We arrived back there in 10 minutes, and waited for some action. The crowds were very loud again. I found a slightly open space and tried to make my elbows stick out as wide as they could to save room for and Tyndalls or Versly who wanted to squeeze in. After a few minutes, a ranger came by with a basket of food. Shortly after, we saw the ropes in the background starting to bounce up and down - a telltale sign of one of the Orangs coming to the platform out of the forest.
All in all, three teenagers came out for the feeding. They were very playful and totally entertaining. It was really cute to see them interacting with the Rangers - one hung upside down and stared at a ranger from 6 inches away from his face, another was doing handstands on the food basket.
At about 10:45, we walked back to the parking lot and hopped in the van. Our next destination was to visit the private Labuk Bay park which had a Probiscus Monkey sanctuary. The monkeys in the "true" wild, are very shy (as we'd witnessed in Bako National Park), but this reserve was a huge enclosed forest where they've apparently got the monkeys on a regular feeding schedule. We had the same discussion with the kids that we usually did when we visited zoo-like places: is it good or bad for the animals. There is no definitive answer to that question, but we were going with our eyes wide open to see what Labuk Bay was all about.
We got to the first viewing platform for the 11:45 feeding. The staff were making monkey calls and dumped foods on three different platforms. Twenty minutes later, we saw a dozen Probiscus monkeys moving through the forest canopy - probably 40 meters in the air. They would expertly jump from tree to tree, then sit motionless waiting their turn for the monkey in front of them to be on. The last in the line was a mother with a baby clinging to her stomach. She made the last jump, maybe 3 meters wide and Kim got a great shot of them with her super zoom lens.
That first group we didn't see again - they passed us in the canopy, about 100 meters away from us and that was it. Then we saw another group on our right, also approaching the platform. They got closer than the first, but then they just sat motionless, seemingly watching or waiting for something. Beth eventually asked one of the Rangers what was going on, and I guess they'd had a scare with a dog in the morning and the monkeys were being ultra cautious.
The Rangers let us know that they were trying to get other monkeys at a different platform, so we got back in our mini bus and drove the 3km to platform B. When we arrived, there were monkeys already in action.
The Probiscus Monkeys have very interesting faces - they kind of look like trolls, or very elderly lifelong alcoholics that have suffered nose elongation.
The monkeys got really close, often jumping up on the viewing platform to cross over to the other side. The Rangers were feeding them some kind of thick sweetbreads - I'm not sure if this has become their primary diet here or if it's just a snack, but I don't think it resembles young leaves and berries that are their diet when they are in the "true" wilderness.
The way they talked to each other was pretty funny. I think Alex got a video of them talking and I got this short vid to remember....
This guy was very close - about 3 feet away from Abby and I. He was eating s big piece of bread while almost nervously looking around. I told Abby that I thought that he wasn't looking at humans but rather keeping an eye out for other monkeys. Sure enough, a minute later, we heard a huge slapping noise and another huge monkey charged through the crowd of people and went at our eating monkey. The skirmish didn't last long, as the Rangers make sure both got fed, but the sounds and close action made our hearts jump.
Our next stop was back to Sepilock for lunch. We had a few options as some wanted to see the Sepilock video before the second Orangutan feeding and others wanted to go to a Sun Bear display that was nearby. We all ended up with watching the video, and we were glad we did.
The 20 minute documentary explained how Sepilock works. They're main goal is to raise orphaned Orangutans and give them the skills they'll need to get back into the rainforest. Keeping or killing Orangutans is very illegal, but it still happens all the time. Typically they will get a call from a village with a tip that a baby has been found. They travel to collect the baby, bring him back and put him in isolation for up to 4 weeks to make sure he is not carrying diseases. Then, they slowly integrate the baby with the other orphans. It's a long process before Orangutans can be released to the wild - some 6 to 10 years and it involves everything from teaching them how to move and swing with their arms, to nest building, to finding food.
Our second time at the feeding platform was a little quieter from a crowd perspective. There were also long and pig tailed macaques in the area that added to the entertainment - they even quasi attacked our group wile walking to the platform (I'm sure after a few beers, the story will get duly embellished to a full on scene from Planet of the Apes).
A mother and baby slowly made their way to the feeding platform, and we were in awe just watching them move. The baby, for the most part, clung to her mother and the mother was very cautious and protective whenever she came near the Rangers. When the monkeys came close, we thought she would get aggressive with them, but she actually grabbed a rope above her head, and backed up and away from the platform while the growing group of monkeys attacked the food. The Rangers did nothing to deter the macaques, as I guess would happen in the wild. The viewing this afternoon combined with the documentary really made the day worth it.... We were happy we left with a positive impression of the Sepilock Orangutan Rehabilitation Center because it did not start off well.
Overall, Beth and I were really happy to have seen both Semenggoh and Sepilock - one of the reasons we came to Borneo was to see the Orangutans in their natural habitat. The girls and boys really enjoyed themselves which was great to see.
When we got back, the kids sequestered themselves in their room, while the four adults went to the waterfront to look for beer and potential foot massage places. We found both, so after a few Tigers, Beth, Kim and Alex went to the massage place while I headed back to do some blog stuff and recharge.
We have a pretty big, long anticipated day tomorrow - not like that's going to influence the kids getting to sleep any earlier, but hey - that's up to them!
...Is crappy wifi. Craig's blog posts are written but due to bandwidth issues and complexities that I don't understand, they aren't posting! Nevertheless we are safe and sound in Sandakan and will resume daily connection once we get to a hotel that has a decent internet connection :)
We had another good sleep. By the time I got into the cabin after the late finish of the tour, the family was dead to the world.
We got up in the morning and the adults quickly packed and headed out for a 15 minute walk to the treetop tower. The tower was a metal structure rising 6 or 7 stories out of a dense section of jungle, and it was set up primarily for bird watching.... We did spot a couple of birds there.... One middle aged Dutch lady and a small reddish bird perched inside the canopy, but it was just nice being immersed in the rainforest once again.
I read a cool graphic on how the water works in the rainforest. Each tree drinks about 1000 litres of water a day, which is transferred to the leaves, which then evaporates in the heat of the day. With all of the moisture rising into the air, by late afternoon or evening, it has to come back to earth, in the form of a down pouring of rain. We've witnessed this cycle for three days now, and it really makes you feel like they've done something right with protecting this area. With the bats at work throughout the night, there are very few insects that bother us (Beth, yes Beth Tyndall, has not worn bug spray the last two days..... No, I'm not kidding. Yes. Beth). I think we will be back here some day.
Breakfast was predictably good, but the girls were not - perhaps it was a little leaving day bickering, but it only lasted until they saw the Versly boys, then everything was back to "normal".
(Probir.... I caught Alex making use of your boot clips.....)
The adults opted to go on another river tour, while the kids opted to hang out on their own in the jungle. This time, we went down river for about 30 minutes until we joined in to a larger river system. The current was quite strong, and it wasn't even rainy season. I loved seeing the life of the river - the occasional long house, some derelict boats, the trees towering over the river's edge, and sometimes sharp limestone cliffs bursting out of nowhere to rise up at the bank of the river.
We turned the boat around in the larger, tributary fed river and chilled out in an eddy for five minutes, taking in the sight of the river, the jungle, and the two peaks of Mt Api and Mt Mulu in the clouds behind. Ahh.... On the river again.
When we got back, the kids were just arriving from the jungle - the four of them looked like they were little jungle explorers, with their day packs and the easy way they loped down the walkway between the trees. They are having so much fun.
Alex finally found the pitcher plants he'd been looking for. Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants that eat insects by trapping them in their little bowls... Most are quite large, but these ones are thumb sized....
We got picked up by our trustworthy "Kathleen" at 11:45 as promised and two quick round trips later we got to the airport and were checked in for our flight to Sandekan.
We actually had two flights, one to Kota Kinabalu (the capital of Sabah State) and then over to Sandekan. Although it was sad to leave Sandakan, we have a ton of adventure coming up over the next week and a half in Borneo. I can't wait.
When we got to our hotel, it was time to go check out the town before dinner. We walked down to the waterfront which is kind of nice. There is a large square and one street blocked off to pedestrians which always makes for some more street life. As it was Sunday, most stores were closed.
We strolled through the nearby mall, where Matt was accosted by two twenty year old girls who loved his white blond hair. It was pretty funny to see Matts reaction - he had no idea what to do or what was going on.... He may want to come back here in a few years.
Upstairs, the kids found a ping pong table in an arcade, then tried their hand at Segway-like "steps with wheels" where you control the motion by leaning back and forth. We drew quite the crowd in the mall. A couple of teenaged boys even said to Beth "Hello. Would you like to play tennis?". She took at as a compliment... though she was wearing a headband, tank top and athletic type shorts.... Ok, we'll chalk it up to a compliment!
I think for me, it's Mulu National Park. Not that I need to pin point one spot, but this place is perfect. No doubt enhanced significantly by doing it with the Versluis family. It is our last morning, and we have had 3 phenomenal days of caving, canopy walking, hiking and eating! We had signed up for a whole number of caves and walks and all were very tame from an "adventure" point of view. You can certainly choose to do serious spelunking trips here, crawling through crevices and water to explore the 200km cave system. But for the children's sake (lol), we chose family friendly tours. That said, we have seen some incredible nature and had a first with experiencing rain in a rainforest. Not to mention seeing the BIGGEST insects I've ever seen! You could put a leash on the crickets and take them for a walk.
The facilities here are first class. Not in a fancy kind of way, but it's like an upscale camp experience with your family. We stayed in a long house with two rooms side by side. Each room had 4 single beds so the feel of camp is definitely alive. Those who know me know how much I loved camp as a kid so being in this setting with my family and friends has been perfect.
The food has been outstanding and definitely exceeded all of our expectations. We have ALL (including the 4 kids) only ordered off the Asian menu (other than French fries used as poker chips by the kids) despite hamburgers and spaghetti as options...easy choice for the parents but we were impressed when the kids meals arrived.
In between the hikes, there's been a good amount of down and "chill ax" time. The kids have been producing movies, the most recent a 'Rom Com' that they tortured us with last night. Like a camp setting, they have had a significant amount of much needed freedom to run around and be together.
The setting is breathtaking. The pictures don't do it justice so here's to hoping my decreasing memory box will make room for these 3 days for the long term!
