Goodbye Borneo

I arrived back into Borneo on Sunday evening and basically had dinner and went to bed. The next day (Monday, 23rd August) I was up early to go and see orang-utans.

There is a rehabilitation centre at a place called Semaggoh about 20km away from Kuching. The centre rescues orang-utans that have been orphaned (for whatever reason) and then enables them to live in semi-wild conditions in the National Park. The Park is not large enough to sustain them, hence there are two supplementary 'feeds' a day, one at 9am and one at 3pm. I think there are around 20/25 orang-utans currently living there. They range from 29 year old males, including 'Ritchie' the dominant male to a female baby of only 1 month.

I went for the 9am feed.

I think we were very lucky as quite a few orang-utans came down that morning including the sizeable Ritchie and other mothers and babies and adolescents. There were a lot of people there and I couldn't help but feel a bit sad that their existence amounted to this. I'm sure it's better than a zoo, but being stared at twice a day whilst you try to feed can hardly be enjoyable for them.

In the afternoon I mooched around. I went to some museums and then sat in some gardens for a while, quietly perspiring in the heat. I then went for a drink and resigned myself to souvenir shopping.

I decided what I was going to by and came back to the places later on after I had showered. It was particularly hot on Monday.

One of the places had all sorts of indigenous souvenirs and the shopkeeper, who is of the Iban tribe, personally writes a statement of meaning to accompany every gift you buy.

Whilst I was waiting for him to write my statement they offered me a beer and I sat down and started chatting. Three hours later and I was still there (the shop had now closed) and I was getting increasingly spooked by all the shaman faces and war masks bearing down on me.

I was very hungry so we left to get some food.

They then invited me to a karaoke bar. I'm loathe to turn down an opportunity to sing in public and Asians love their karaoke, so off we went. Someone's brother drove us. I've know idea where we went but it was about 25 minutes out of Kuching.

The place was dead on arrival, so our party of four took it in turns to sing. I was treated to Malay and Indonesians love songs and then sang some of our own favourites - the Beatles, Wonderwall, Backstreet Boys etc.

At about 1am the place started filling up. Remember this is a Monday night. Everyone was well up for singing and vying for the microphone.

Word got around that it was my last night and I was constantly plied with drink. The bar owner personally said that I would not go without a drink that night.

And everyone got down. Malay people can bump and grind. Great fun. The first time I have been able to bust some of my own moves in a long time!

We left about 4am and I got back to a locked hostel. Several minutes of banging later and I was in. I 'slept' for about 2 hours and then left to get my flight to Singapore.

The 1.5 hour flight felt like hours in my fragile state. But, what a great way to leave Borneo!