We arrived in Tuaran on Saturday - a local town about 45 minutes out from the main city Kota Kinabalu. We are on a nine day placement working at the Nature Interpretation Centre, Rasa Ria (which is part of a 5star resort). As we are staff we aren't living in the hotel but are staying in an apartment in Tuaran, a ten minute drive from the resort. The apartment from the outside looks like a cell block as it has a cage door and padlocks galore. We need 7 keys to get in every day. We are the only white people in the town so everywhere we go people look at us. We went to a night market for dinner one evening and I asked if something had vegetables in it and they started laughing and before I knew it, the whole market was laughing at me :-( (they didnt understand), however I have not learnt how to say vegetables in malay so next time I should be ok.

The town is quite small, it is one big block and you can walk from one end to the next in 10 minutes. Nobody really speaks English and as the restaurant menus are all in Malay, dinner has become toast and cereal. It can be quite a buzzy town at times though and I have tried lots of interesting and lovely food in the market, smelt lots of interesting and not so lovely smells, jack fruit being one of them. It is nice to be somewhere where you can get a real feel for Malaysia and the local people.

We get up for work at 6 every morning as we start prompt at 7.30. The rangers we work with are called Zino, Dino, Melvin and Kelvin - so I never forget their names. Every morning we chop up thousands of fruit and veg for the chickens, ducks, 2 tortoises, - Margaret and Gertrude, the goat - Lulu and all the orangutans. We also make up all the orangutans drinks in bottles every morning. We then go on our rounds to feed all the animals. The tortoises wouldn't like to admit it but they like to be hand fed, it takes them a while to accept you but they appreciate the effort. Lulu is a male goat, and sorry to be crude but has balls the size of watermelons. He is very excitable and at the sight of us, he comes charging. I seem to get a leg massage from his horns digging into me every day. They also have 3 deers at the centre, 2 males and 1 orphan baby who is less than a year old - she is gorgeous. Lastly it is orangutan time. Every morning when they see us, they all squeak and get so excited. We give them bread and drinks, with hands being held all over the place. There are 7 orphan orangutan babies here, ranging from 2-3 years old. They are in the first stage of their rehabilitation here and once done here, will be moved to Sepilok where I am working the rest of the time, for further rehabiliation, before being put back into the wild. We clean the area that they sleep in every morning before doing 2 hours of enrichment and training with them. On our first day we gave them all a coconut to try and open. In the wild they will have to find their own food so it helps to teach them how to open them. It took them a while but once one orangutan dropped the cocount by mistake and it cracked open, they all caught on eventually. Another day, we hid all the food, under branches, in a bamboo stick, in trees etc. and they had to try and find the food. Today we had a rubber snake and we hid it in different places and when they found it we had to act scared, so that they will learn to be afraid of them and be careful. It was a really fun exercise. We also gave them fresh branches from the trees for them to make nests out of. Orangutans build nests in the jungle, high up in trees to sleep over night. Therefore it is really important they have practice of building the nests. Our lunch breaks are quite long due to the heat. We eat lunch in the staff canteen and then sunbathe on the beach for the rest of the time. It is so nice to be able to do it. In the afternoons, we have a similiar routine to the morning but we also get to bath all the babies. Usually it only ends up a little bit wet when an orangutan jumps on you as it is scared of the water. However today I bathed an orangutan that is new to the centre and is very spoilt. He wouldnt let go of my leg the whole time so I had to bath myself whilst bathing him. I was wet to say the least. Bath time is great though. The orangutans are called Afiq, Katie, Chinta, Jaya, Reg, Sargo and Gambira. Katie is the smallest one but also one of the most confident, she is quite quiet and likes to be on her own. She is an amazing climber, she is great at opening coconuts and also builds the best nests. Reg is the one I bathed and wouldnt let go of my leg...very spoilt and screams and throws a tantrum every time you leave. We took him for training and the first day he didnt let go of me for 2 hours, I was really worried about him but the second day of training. he was so much better. He only came back from time to time and was off climbing and playing with the others I guess its like their first day of school. I am biased but Reg is gorgeous, he has long hair and a mohikan...so cute. Chinta is amazing, she loves to hold you hand but when it comes to training, is really confident and a great climber. The others are all great too but the 3 above are my favourite. The training with the snake was funny, they were all really scared, my acting was pretty poor, I was screaming and jumping all over the place but it seemed to do the job. They all kept a watchful eye on it the whole time. Working here is an incredible experience, when I see the work that goes on here to rehabilitate the orangutans, it is a great cause and I am so happy to be a part of it. All the orangutans here have been rescued from oil tree plantations, where their mothers have been killed. It is really sad but they are all at different stages and with continued training will be allowed back into the wild - having more of a chance to survive then they ever would have done. They are the lucky ones to have been rescued, but we are also lucky to be around some incredible animals.

It is not all work, as we are on a beach resort, we tend to have cocktails on the beach in the evening, go jogging at sunset and basically just relax. I am having a wonderful time.