Rasa Ria
We said our goodbyes to the rest of the group at the rest house, and made our way to the airport for our short flight back to KK. We were met by Danny who drove us to Turan where we would be staying during our placement. The apartment is a bit like a cell but it does have a semi automatic washing machine (Luxury)!!! So first thing we did was washed all our clothes. After 4 months of hand washing they don’t always get as clean as we hoped.
With the washing drying we decided to go on a tour of Turan. We were clearly the talk of the town, 3 westerners wandering aimlessly. We stumbled across the night market which was good fun. Lots of food with nice smells, but I wasn’t ready to try fish head curry so we got some fruit and swung by the super market before head back to the cell block.

In the morning we were picked up at 7am by Maddy who had the smallest car in the world but he was very nice and polite. We arrived at 7:20am at Rasa Ria Resort. Just enough time to walk to the nature reserve centre to start work.

First job was to prepare all the animal food. As well as Orangutans there are 2 giant African Turtles, 5 Ducks, 6 Chickens, a goose, fish and a goat called LULU. Once everything was ready we fed the animals before heading to the orangutans to feed them. On the walk it was fun trying to avoid LULU’s horns butting your butt. After feeding we needed to clean there night enclosures and sweep the tourist platform. We then used fruit in their exercise enclosure to get them to climb and forage for food. We would sit with them in the enclosure and monitor their progress. 11am we went to lunch in the staff canteen and started our 3 hour lunch. We spent this time on the loungers by the beach. This made it very hard to head back to work at 2pm, the thought of bathing an Orangutan was good motivation. However first we had to feed all the animals again. Once everyone was fed and watered (not the fish they don’t need watering for obvious reasons) we headed up to the Orangutans to give their enclosures another clean then bath the 3 that had been taken to exercise in the forest. Bathing an orangutan is very funny. They typically don’t like water, but when they are wet they look even more adorable than usual. Give them a quick dry then tuck them in for the night with a load of fruit…

After work we hung around the resort for a bit, had some food and walked or jogged on the beach as the sun went down. Very beautiful and it was a shame when we had to leave at 6pm. From 6 – 8 was taken up with washing. Funfunfun…

Rasa was fun but it was nice to come back to Sepilok where everything is a little less dressed up…

When we arrived back at sepilok we had 1 day before driving to Mt Kota Kinabalu for a 2 day hike to the top…