15. Malaysia @ Borneo - Sibu + Bintulu

After Kuching we took an overnight bus to a town called Sibu, almost 450 km and eight hours towards northeast. 

We got to Sibu really early in the morning. The bus driver dropped some people to the center of the town and when we asked if we are in Sibu, he said no. So we stayed in the bus. About seven minutes later we were in the bus station that's, well, seven minutes drive away from the center.

After some cursing and waiting we got a local bus back to the center where we had earlier been. Markus went to find a hotel for us to stay and he found a really nice one with a decent price: 60 MYR / 15 € or 110 dkkr.

This is our hotel in Sibu. The name of the hotel is Li Hua and it's own by Chinese people whom there's many in Malaysia.

Our hotel was situated near the harbor and the Rejang Esplanade in Sibu, which is not the most beautiful we have seen.

There was a big swan statue in front of our hotel. The swan is the emblem of Sibu town. One of the nicest things there is to offer in that town.

Tua Pek Kong Temple & Goddess of Mercy Pagoda is the Chinese temple in Sibu and was a place worth visiting. The temple is over 100 years old and we got to climb up the pagoda (added in year 1987) and had a nice view from there. One of the temple workers opened the gate for us to go to the top floor.

The view from the Chinese temple. People in Sibu are mostly Chinese, Melanu (indigenous people), Malay (Malaysian people) and Iban (Indigenous people).

Another view from the temple of Sibu which has a little less than 300.000 inhabitants.

Sibu town is not very beautiful and has not much to offer. And we only stayed for 2 nights.

The weather was ok. It did not rain, but it was cloudy most of the time. It was still very very warm and the humidity was high.

Sibu has a big market, where they among everything you can think of sell live hens rolled in news papers. Borneo-style chicken wrap!

The market had a huge vegetable department. But fruits and vegetables are relatively expensive in all of Borneo. Fresh fruit and fresh juice are something that we really miss.

Bintulu is another little town about 200 km. or 4 hours drive from Sibu. 

We only stopped here to break the trip further east. 

It turned out to be a good idea to stop in Bintulu town, because

we then got to see the Borneo International Kite Festival 2014 in Bintulu.

Carina's favorite kite.

There were many cool kites and this festival saved the town from really really boring. We stayed in Bintulu for 2 nights and then we took the bus to the town of Miri.

14. Malaysia @ Borneo - Bako National Park

Bako National Park opened as a protected area in 1957 and

is Sarawaks oldest, but one of the smallest national park in the region.



Bako National Park is situated north from Kuching on the tip of a jagged peninsula. It is special because it has beaches,

cliffs and

rainforest.

The walking trails are very hard, but luckily it is not a must to walk very long to see the different attractions in the park. An overnight visit to the park shoved us a lot of different types of animals plus different types of landscape. We walked a little and went for a boat ride.

We saw wild boars, long tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys and three different types of snakes.

To get to Bako National Park we first had to take a local bus almost an hour. After the bus ride we took a boat from a tiny fishing village.

The little fishing village "Kampung Bako" had only the jetty and some small houses.

After about 20 minutes in the little boat we arrived to a jetty from where we walked about 10 minutes to our very basic lodge.

The pathway from the jetty to the lodge, but also the way to where the rain forest treks begins.

The long tailed macaques are probably the most fearless monkeys in the world.

They steal everything they can get hold on.

And they really like soft drinks altough they still have some learning on how to use the can...

They are the same monkeys as we saw in Bali in the monkey forest.

But sometimes they are just cute and

look so innocent.

Bako National Park is home to approximately 275 proboscis monkeys found only on Borneo.

The male is an odd-looking creature with a huge pendulous nose and a large pot-belly. The average male weight about 20 kg.

The monkeys are mostly arboreal, moving about the forest or mangroves in small groups and feeding on young leaves, shoots, sour fruits and seeds.

Markus saw the first monkeys on a trail where he went alone, but the monkeys also came to the part of the rain forest where our lodge was.

We both saw them early in the morning while we were having breakfast and before all the day tours arrived in small boats and scared everything away from the forest around the lodge.

The Bornean bearded pig is Bako's largest mammal.

It is distinguished from other wild pigs by prominent bristles on either side of its snout.

Markus saw these boars on the trails, but they were also around our camp. We saw many of them and some of the had small piglets. They were really ugly, but cute in the same time. :)

We saw many brownish/greyish skinks or sun lizards scurrying away from the paths. These small fat lizards are many places around in the different parks and reserves in Borneo.

Bako National park is home to a number of snakes, most of which are harmless. They are well carmouflaged, and often slide off into the undergrowth at the first sign of danger or distubance.

We saw some snakes.

We saw the grass green viper snake. It has pencil thin body and has a long snout.

The only poisonous snake we saw is the Wagler's pit viper.

We recognized it by its broad, flat triangular head. This snake was green and not more than 30 cm. The only reason we found it was that a guide for tour group showed it to us. It was in our camp and we were told that it was totally drained for energy and just sat there and waited for some kind of little "food" to come by and then it would strike.

It was only Carina who saw the third snake. It was in the forest, but snaked away as soon as it felt me. It was red and black, thin and long, but we have no idea what kind of snake it was.

In the evening we went on a short walk. But it took us more than an hour to climb the less than two km.

We walked to a viewpoint and when we were finally up there we were rewarded with a great view over out camp.

On our boat ride

we really saw some amazing cliff formations.

Millions of years of erosion of the sandstone have created a coastline of steep cliffs, rocky headlands and stretches of white sandy bays.

Wave erosion at the base of the cliffs has carved many of the rocky headlands into fantastically shaped sea arches and seastacks with colored pattern formed by iron deposition.

Bako National Park is famous for this (below) rock formation.

Also on the beach in front of the park HQ there was some nice rock formations.

And an example of a boat that we traveled with.

After two days and one night in Bako we went back to Kuching where we had booked a room from the Grand Supreme that we liked a lot.

13. Malaysia @ Borneo - Semenggoh + Matang

Now really exited we went to the Semenggoh Nature Reserve to see semi wild orangutans. The Semenggoh Wildlife Center was established in 1975 to care for wild animals which have either been found injured in the forest, orphaned or were previously kept as illegal pets. 

The orangutan is found in the rain forests of Malaysian Borneo, Indonesian Borneo and North Sumatra. And that is the reason for us to go to Borneo. We want to see the orangutans in the wild.

When we bought our tickets to enter the Nature Reserve we were told that it was not certain we would see orangutans due to fruiting season. 

Fruiting season is the season of the year, where there are most food to find for the orangutans in the forest. And because of that the monkeys don't need to come to the Wildlife Center and eat the food they there can get every day at the same time. 

This eating time would be the time where tourists can see them.

Orangutans are primarily fruit eaters and spend most of the day roaming the forest foraging for food. They are particularly fond of wild figs and the pungent smelling durian. Although fruit is their most important source of food they also feed on young leaves, insects, bark, flowers, eggs and small lizards.

And then we waited for the orangutans.

they never came...

Instead we saw this huge crocodile in a very little cage (sad) and a movie about the orangutans.

Because we did not see orangutans in Semenggoh Nature Reserve we went to Matang Wildlife Center.

Here the monkeys are in large cages and not in the rain forests.

The place is a rehabilitation center and this is the rehabilitation program of a new rescue:

When a rescued orangutan arrives at the Center, it is given a medical check-up and placed in a cage. The first stage of the rehabilitation process then begins. Like young humans the young orangutan have to learn how to survive in their habitat. Everyday the wardens take them to suitable places in the forest where they learn how to climb trees, swing on branches and forage for food. After two to four years they are able to fend for themselves and the goal is to release them in to the wild.

It is one of the world's largest primates, and is almost completely arboreal (tree living).

A mature male has large check pads and a pendulous throat sac.

Adult males can reach a height of 150 cm, weight up to 100 kg and have an armspan of 240 cm. Females are about three quarters of the height and half the weight of the males.

The word "orang" is Malay for "person" whilst "utan" is derived from "hutan" meaning forest. So orangutan literally translate to "person of the forest".

Orangutans have a low reproductive rate where females usually give birth to a single infant once every 7-8 years.

Females reach sexual maturity at 12 years of age, but generally don't have their offspring until two or three years later. 

Males reach sexual maturity at 15 years, but their cheek pads may not fully develop until a few years later.

The life expectancy of orangutan in the wild is unknown, but is thought to be less than in captivity, where some have lived to over 50 years of age.

This baby we were told is only 1 year old.

We also saw a gibbon.

It looks really cute, but it doesn't always like tourists. It threw food after Markus. He was lucky. They told us that the monkey sometimes threw shit after tourists.

They had some hornbills.

All the animals at the center were rescued animals.

And a leopard.

We got a bonus. We spotted some big squirrels in the wild outside of the cages.

We will get back to the orangutan spotting again later on our journey. It is Carinas birthday present to see them in the wild.