Before getting started, we want to apologize for the delay in our blog posts. I experienced a family medical emergency (no worries – it’s all turning out okay now) that forced us to catch a last second flight from Dubai back to the U.S., which threw an unexpected wrench in our travel plans (and, in turn, our upkeep of this blog). We’ll add another post after this about the remainder of our time in Borneo, which will mostly get us up to date. But we’re not done yet! Once we resume our travels in Jordan in June, then we’ll include a brief write-up about the couple days we spent in Dubai in that first post about Jordan. Again, apologies for the delay!
This macaque is as disappointed as you are that we’re so late on this post. We know; we’re sorry.
After leaving Penang, and after another boring layover in the Kuala Lumpur airport (we’ve been so spoiled by having Priority Pass access to airport lounges!), we finally arrived in the relative sleepy town of Sandakan on the island of Borneo in Malaysia. Our first order of business was to ditch our bags at our hostel, followed closely in importance by heading over to the Sheraton for our long awaited reunion with Jess’s parents! Given the lack of familiar faces we’ve seen during our travels, they were absolutely a sight for sore eyes (which was made even better by all the supplies they brought for us from home, including much needed Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups)! Our first 24 hours in Sandakan were mainly spent catching up with them and enjoying their company. On our second evening in Sandakan, we officially commenced our two week tour with an information session with our leader, Aldrin, and met the other tour group members. [Editor’s note: It was so great to see my parents after so long, and in such a new environment too! They were still understandably getting over jet lag from their long journey from Seattle, so we mostly just hung out and relaxed while we all caught up with each other. It’s also the first time I’m seeing my parents since Rorie and I got engaged, so it was fun as well getting to show off the ring in person and re-tell the engagement story. Hooray for family time! This next week and a half of the trip will be the only long, organized tour package we’re doing on our entire journey. It’s going to be nice not to have to plan anything, and to have all the details and logistics taken care of for us! On the other hand, we’re not used to following someone else’s schedule, and we’re not used to traveling in a group, so the experience might be challenging too. Our group consisted of 12 total people, the other 8 of which were from Australia, England, and Canada.]
Family reunion in Sandakan, Borneo!
The following day we set out for our first actual day of touring, which consisted of a gauntlet of sights in and around Sandakan. The day started with us visiting the Rainforest Discovery Center, where we got to see more about the plants, trees and birds that are native to Borneo. We also spent the day seeing some other random sights of moderate interest, including a water village (meh) and a pretty funky and colorful Chinese Buddhist temple (which was old news for me and Jess, but others were (justifiably) more interested in it). [Editor’s note: It’s really funny how these things seem to bleed together. Oh, another village on stilts…oh, another temple…. But of course, for everyone else on the trip these things are new and unique! It was nice to see it through their eyes, though Rorie was slightly more over it all.]
A super cool tropical flower/leaf at the Rainforest Discovery Center.
The water village, where all the buildings are on sturdy stilts and entire communities live along the coastline. I especially like the satellite dish on the yellow house.
Inside the Chinese temple – beautiful, if a little gaudy.
The view out of the temple, over the water. Gorgeous!
One sight that we all found especially interesting was the Sandakan War Memorial commemorating the WWII prisoners who were killed by the Japanese during the construction of airfields and, beyond that, in forced death marches as their odds of winning the war began to slip away. Given how it dovetailed so seamlessly with what we saw and learned about the WWII prisoners who suffered at the Hellfire Pass in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, we found it sincerely interesting and worthwhile.
The obelisk at the War Memorial.
Beyond this random smattering of sights on the first day of our actual tour, the real highlight that day was visiting the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. Our tour leader timed our visit to coincide with their feeding period, which allowed us to see these strange creatures in all their glory. Jess, of course, knew a bunch about these monkeys before we ever set food in Borneo, but I was flying blind. Hence, you can imagine my surprise to see these super strange looking creatures with large, bulbous noses (which are sometimes so onerous that they have to lift their nose out of the way to eat), awesome potbellies (these are my #lifegoals for my future (present?) dad bod), and red, perpetually erect…ummm…genitalia. [Editor’s note: These monkeys, while delightful to observe and photograph, should be no one’s #lifegoals physically. As an animal lover, even I consider them…not cute. That takes a lot to come from me, trust me.] Aside from getting uncomfortably close to them from time to time, it was cool seeing how they moved (they tend to have long, fluid movements, rather than the quick, frenetic ones of smaller monkeys) and the dynamics between monkeys.
This is a proboscis monkey. He has a large proboscis.
Rorie gets a close-up…
…But not too close! (How great is this sign?)
Tons of the monkeys on the feeding platform.
A male sits on the railing as a tourist family watches other monkeys from the platform.
The babies don’t have the noses yet, so they’re pretty cute.
An adult male pot-bellied proboscis monkey. Cool, but not cute.
The next day we were set to head towards the Kinabatangan River – which will be the topic of our next blog post – but first spent our morning seeing a couple more animal sanctuaries that were located next to each other. Our first stop was at the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, where we were able to get a closer look at the majestic creatures. We started at the adolescent portion of the center, where we watched the orangutans mostly just goof around – swinging back and forth on ropes while dangling from their toes, as well as playing games with the keepers. We then migrated to the adult pen for a feeding session, which was a bit disappointing since only one orangutan came out during the period.
The adolescent orangutan at the Sepilok Sanctuary, hanging out in the “kids section”. I couldn’t even get a decent picture of the other one.
Thereafter we headed next door to the Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Center to catch a glimpse of these bears – the smallest species that exists – from the awesome canopy bridges that they setup at the center. [Editor’s note: Given that orangutans are basically the entire reason people come to Borneo to see wildlife, and given that Sepilok specifically is known worldwide as one of the main sanctuaries, I was really excited to visit but left pretty disappointed overall. The adolescent area Rorie mentions just felt like we were in a zoo – there was glass between us and the apes, and they were climbing around on man-made playgrounds and ropes – so it didn’t feel special or like we were really seeing them in any kind of natural space. Then at the feeding, the single orangutan came for about 5 minutes and then ambled off, leaving us and a hundred or so other tourists sweating in the humidity with nothing around. The bears, too, were cute but felt like more of a crowded zoo exhibit than a wildlife viewing experience. I’m really glad the rest of the tour involves going out into the actual rainforest to look for these animals in the wild; I’d be pretty mad if this zoo-like experience was all I was going to get.]
A young sun bear foraging for food.
Relative to the rest of our tour experience, it is best to think of these Sandakan activities as an “appetizer” portion of the meal. We were able to see some pretty cool animals, but they were all still in relative captivity and, while that’s nice at some level, it pales in comparison to seeing them in the wild. To further extend the analogy (and provide a preview of our next blog post), our upcoming lodges are the “entree” in the meal since that’s when we were able to see wild animals in their natural habitat. The “dessert” portion was when we spent our last couple days luxuriating on an island, swimming in the ocean and catching some sun.
We look forward to passing along more details about the entree and dessert portions of our tour in our next blog post! [Editor’s note: I think Rorie might be a little hungry while writing this post, but it’s a fair analogy. Sandakan served as a “town big enough to have an airport,” a “town big enough to have a nice hotel,” and an easy jumping off point for the tour in general…and that’s about it. The next part in the rainforest is really why we’re here – that post will come very soon as we work to catch back up after our unexpected trip interruption. We’ll see you shortly!]
Here’s a selfie of the entire group in a safari vehicle – I’m pretty impressed we all managed to get into one photo!
