A bug bite on my arm has swelled from a normal looking bite into a 4 inch by 6 inch monster. It is burning hot and itchy and beat red. I didn't think much of it, but the locals who run the hostel wanted to take a look so I showed them. The looks on their faces were not good. Apparently it is NOT normal lol (big surprise, my skin does things that aren't normal) and they urged me to have it checked out. I'm glad I did because the doctor seemed to share their opinion and wasn't very good at hiding his surprise (OH! WHAT is that?). Anyway, I saw the doctor and got a bunch of meds for only $20. Good deal.
Grabbed a bus from KK to Sepilok, near Sandakan. Took about 6 hours, but we got a really nice air conditionned bus so the ride was quite enjoyable (except for the horror flicks that were being played at max volume...not sure what that was all about). We're now staying in this incredible hostel set in the jungle. The dorms are all on stilts and are beautiful on the inside (filled with bunk beds with clean white sheets framed by walls made of screened slitted deep brown wood with the jungle down below). The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre was well wroth the effort involved in coming out here. They take in orphaned and injured orangutans and nurse them back to health and prepare them for jungle life. The morning feeding session was pretty good, about 6 orangutans swung down from the trees to pig out and play a little, but it was nothing compared to the afternoon. After lunch we enquired about the trails that we had heard about, but not yet seen. Because they are so poorly marked there are few people who actually go down them. So we started off on this path and barely made it 100m when we spotted our first orangutan. It was a medium sized (maybe the size of a fat 6 yr old...) and had no fear. It came right out of the trees and up onto the boardwalk. I'll admit I was a little scared. It wandered down an area marked NO ENTRY so we continued on the path. Not 3 minutes later we spotted a macaque in the trees. Two came up on the boardwalk and we were happily taking pictures, when a third and then four and then fifth, etc, etc. came up. Soon we were surrounded by about 20 macaques (of all sizes). We were a little freaked out, but got very scared when they started charging at each other and showing their teeth. Not wanting to end up in the hospital with monkey bites we backed away down the path. Another amazing life experience I guess! From there we went back to the feeding platform for the afternoon feeding. The macaques had made their way there (they weren't at the morning feeding) and were dominating the food. An irritated looking orangutan was swinging by his feet and knocking the bananas off the platform in what I assume was an attempt to get them away from him. As the other tourists wandered off a bunch of orangutans showed up and were all over the boardwalk. Rangers were following them around and telling people to back up. I watched as a very nervous looking mother tried to keep a death drip on her small sons arm as he tried to free himself.
On our way out the park we came across more orangutans hanging out in the trees and bouncing around on the roofs of the boardwalks. Overall a very cool day and well worth the $10 entrance and $3 camera fee.
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