BORNEO

24 hours of taxis, a plane, buses, tuk tuks, vans, 4x4s and boats found us floating to our destination on the Kinabatangan river in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The accomodation claimed to be basic. Spartan doesnt even cover it; Unsanitary is a far more apt description. Wooden sheds with no sides, windows, or doors containing a mouldy mattress on the floor, linked together via a series of low lying boardwalks a foot above a swamp with riverwater for brushing your teeth. Good job it wasnt the luxury accomodation we came for!

Our first expedition out on the river found some rare Proboscis monkeys, with hilariously phallus-like noses, along with what seemed like hundreds of Macaques and more rare birds than the enthusiast in our boat could spot. He was pretty good at finding one particular bird, much to the amusement of the guide - leafbirds aka leaves aka nothing-at-all-so-stop-making-us-stop-the-boat-you-idiot.

Early morning pre-breakfast river safaris are the best thing in the world. Why? Because thats when we saw wild Orangutans! An absolute dream come true hearing our guide yelp and turn the boat and point to a ball of orange fuzz cluthcing a fistful of figs up in the treetops. In total we saw 9 Orangutans in 3 days, including a large male, and a mother-with-baby. All just hanging out finding some breakfast and wondering why there is a large hollow wooden thing floating in the water with 8 odd looking scruffy primates staring up at them. Sadly of course, there is a reason the wildlife is so easy to spot here, as the edge of the river is simply a thin stretch of secondary forest. The rest? Yep, youve guessed it; Palm Oil planatations.

Not yet aped-out we also visited Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre for Orangutans homeless through habitat loss, or taken from morons who thought it was a good idea to shoot a mother to gain the baby as a pet. Wary after a not so great "rehab" centre in Bolivia where nothing was ever released we were delighted to find this was truly a great conservation and rehab centre with many genuine success stories. It also gave us some amazing up-close photo opportunities!