While we were waiting for the feeding area to open three orang-utans obliged us with an early visit. One juvenile, who plainly enjoyed showing off came crashing through the trees and was swinging around from branch to branch and hanging upside down. A mother with a tiny baby clinging to her also came along and the three of them came quite near, no further than 10 meters away and at one point were more or less overhead. Although later one of the park rangers piped up with this warning, ‘If they throw a small thing this is lucky, sometimes they throw a branch, sometimes they throw a snake, sometimes they throw a beehive.’ Thankfully, nothing was thrown.
After mother and baby departed another mother and baby came along and gave us a second photo opportunity. We were then allowed into the feeding area where we had to walk a couple hundred meters into the jungle. In there we found another young male who was greedily gobbling up fruit. At one point he had an entire bunch of bananas stuffed in his mouth and a mango in each foot. There were only about two dozen people there but easily must have been at least $50,000 worth of camera equipment. Needless to say it was a pretty special experience and amazingly only cost $1.00 each.
After the orang-utans we went Anna Rias which is a traditional Dayak village which welcomes visitors that sits right on the Indonesian border. On our way the gas tank suddenly dipped to near zero and started flashing. With no other option, we pulled over at a shack that had a motor services sign (no gas pump in site) and asked the barefooted, bare-chested proprietor if he had any petrol. I’m pretty sure he thought we were as strange as we found him. From nowhere he produced about five 1.5 litre Coke and 100 Plus bottles that had been refilled with gasoline. After Ian took a quick sniff to confirm it was indeed petrol, the man began emptying the Coke bottles into the gas tank and we were on our way.
We went and had a wander around the village and were offered a sample of their homemade rice wine (it was surprisingly good). The entire village is more or less on giant, rambling longhouse built about 15 feet off the ground and the floors made of strips of bamboo lashed together. The village was an odd collision of worlds, plenty of people were sitting around milling grain and weaving baskets and rattan mats whilst the place was dotted with astro satellites, children were running around with their Nintendo DS in hand and there was even a banner announcing their presence on Facebook.
We then returned to Kuching and had a delicious dinner of crispy soft-shell crab, Thai-style tilapia, midin which is a local jungle fern that looks like a bit like samphire but tastes like a slightly more bitter version of spinach and some rather boozy margaritas. Dinner was delicious and our lady-boy waitress took a very keen interest in Ian. She wouldn’t even look at me. We then had a few birthday beers and calling it a successful day, made it home in the pouring rain.
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