One short flight and I have arrived in Kuching, Sarawak on the Malaysian island of Borneo. Kuching is Malay for cat. I am unsure of the significance of the cat but the city has some noticeably plastic cat statues donning roundabouts. The city has a nice waterfront, some nick nack shops and an interesting, if a little dated, museum to look around. I also walked around the Sunday market which was huge and full of food, including a lot of stingray, souvenirs and even pets. It was about time I found some proper cake and I have discovered the local version of angel cake. It is very dense, sticky but very delicately put together with thin layers of different coloured cake making a stripy pattern is really tasty!
I have come to Borneo to see the wildlife. Just outside of Kuching is Semennggoh orangutan sanctuary. My attempts at getting there weren't too successful as the local bus didn't turn up and the tours wouldn't run with just 1 person. I'm pretty gutted not to have seen the orangutans but I will hopefully have another chance in Sabah.
Borneo is also indigenous to the Proboscis monkey which can be seen in Bako National Park so that's where I headed for 2 nights. Hearing that the accommodation in the park was limited and quickly booked up I headed to the national park office first thing Monday morning to book a bed. I randomly bumped into Mike in the office. He and Alice were heading to the park also for 2 nights so we all got the bus and boat together. It was nice to have a catch up of the last couple of months and also some company.
The national park was fantastic though incredibly hot. We saw Proboscis monkeys from a distance deep in the jungle sitting in the trees. The monkeys are a orange and white colour with huge bellies to digest all the leaves they eat and the males have big and unusual shaped noses used to attract a mate. They leap rather than swing from tree to tree.
We also headed on a night walk, not seeing a huge amount, a few frogs and a red and yellow kingfisher until the very end where right by a room, a flying lemur that actually flew, was sighted. The highlight was the big tree frog hiding behind the toilet door though!
The next day we went on a longer walk through the jungle and up a hill to an area which was completely different as it was very arid. The only wildlife we saw was a millipede so we were very excited to see Silver leaf Langurs up close near the park HQ. I did a bit of Proboscis stalking on the beach and the monkey wasn't bothered as I sat about 8m away as he pulled his dinner off the plants. There were also Macaques in the area but they were vicious and just stole your food and attacked you in the canteen area and also woke us up in the morning by running on the roof and fighting over the biscuits that we had put in the fridge to keep rats from coming in the room.
I feel incredibly lucky to have seen so many Proboscis' in Bako as there are only 150 in the park. A great experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment