Today has been one of the most memorable days of this journey. I woke up at 7am in Sepilok, in a small guesthouse kind of thing. Had some breakfast and at 9am there was a free transfer to the Orang Utan sanctuary. I was so excited about it! So we arrive at the sanctuary and the first thing I do is try to squeeze some information about the bus situation from the receptionist. In Borneo no-one seems to know when the buses come and go, not even the bus drivers(:
So I got some useful info and went to drop off all of my stuff to a locker and watch a little info movie before going to the feeding place. The info film about the sanctuary brought tears to my eyes. When you see the Orang Utans, especially the babies, it is so obvious how close relatives we are to them. Orang Utan babies have to be taken care of just like human babies. If their parents die and they're left alone, they die too. This Sepilok sanctuary rescues orphaned Orang Utans and rehabilitates them to set them back into the nature. Some of the Orang Utans live just in the sanctuary area, but on an occasion one of them is set to back to the wild - for example a huge and very masculine Orang Utan was set back into the wild because it would most likely attract female Orang Utans and be able to reproduce. The little baby Orang Utans need a lot of time, care and teaching. Just like human babies they need to be taught how to master all the skills they need to survive in the forest, like hanging from the trees and using tools etc. and it takes around 10 years for them to be able to learn everything they need for survival - kind of like human kids do too.
I walked into the rainforest, following a group of people, and suddenly we arrived to a wooden terrace with a view to a wooden platform around a tree, which was easy to figure out to be the feeding station. So we wait in almost complete silence until the feeders climb up to the platform to out up the food. That's when I hear something in the bushes. "They're coming", whispers a little girl next to me. I get very excited and when I see the first Orang Tan hanging from the tree I can't but smile(: They're such amazingly cool creatures! So they start arriving one by one, and in the end there's one small Orang Utan, around 4 years old, an older orangutan with a baby hanging on her belly and another one with a baby that's no more than the weeks old! I could've watched them for hours. When they finish their food they start slowly disappearing back into the forest, but the 4-year-old stays a little bit to monkey around with the robes(: So cute!
After the feeding I walked back ut of the forest and was happy to realize the receptionist had told me the bus should come at 11am, so I was right on time! I sat down at the bus stop and waited... And waited, waited and waited. At 12:15 another girl joined me and told me she was told the bus would come at 1pm. Brilliant. So I had to run to the restaurant to use the wifi and send an email to my home stay in Sukau that I'll be at the Sukau junction an hour later than we originally planned, because they would come pice me up from there. So we waited and waited some more and finally at 1pm the bus arrived! The girls working on the bus said they have to use the bathroom before we go so they went and came back like 10 minutes later... and then went the driver and stayed another 10 minutes. At this point I wasn't sweating just because of the extreme heat. Finally we were on our way to Sandakan where I would have to try to catch a bus from the express bus station latest at 2pm to make it to the Sukau junction at 4pm. So we were driving and driving... and suddenly one of the girls working on the bus jumped up and yelled something. A little later she told me and the other girl that we had just passed the express bus station a while ago and were on our way to downtown Sandakan. "Shit", I thought to myself, but suddenly she yelled at the driver to stop, indicated to another bus going to the opposite direction and told us to get our bags! Then we crossed the busy highway with all of our luggage and hopped on another bus that she paid for us from our previous bus money and she apologized and sent us on our way. That's what I call quick thinking! So I got to the express bus station 5 minutes before 2pm, found a bus to Lahad Datu instantly, threw my bag in, ran to the toilet and to buy some water and to the bus and off we went!
On the road we got stopped by the police again. He didn't spend more than a second on my passport but for some reason he was very interested in the papers of the lady who was sitting in front of me. She had to go with him and when she got back she was devastated. This old lady with three teeth told me that the police had made her pay a fine of 50 dollars, everything she had, for not having a passport. She told me she's from Mindanao, Philippines, but has been living here since 1984. She was sick and had to take asthma medication and she seemed so hopeless that I couldn't but give her 20 US dollars that I always carry in my purse for emergency. She refused at first but then took the money and kissed it and pressed it on her forehead before putting it into her ragged bag. She smiled at me when I left the bus and said thank you... when I replied "sama sama" (you're welcome) she bursted into laughter.
I jumped off the bus and immediately saw a few cars waiting on the other side of the big highway junction. I made my way over there and there was Ahbam waiting for me. He greeted me and told me to jump into the car. It was a big silver car and seemed a little pompous to be honest... I know people in this area don't have much so it was kind of funny to be in this big car, driving past the palm tree plantations (that's pretty much all it was all the way from the junction to Sukau). We got to Sukau and I realized it is a tiny tiny place along the river Kinabatangan with small shack houses and nothing else. Wow. Then we got to his home and by the local standard this guy is doing really well. They're just doing renovations to make the house bigger. Well, they have 8 kids and they run a home stay, so there can't really be enough room anyways(: Actually when we were having dinner with the family he told me they had 9 kids but one passed away just 5 days old, he was born prematurely and they don't have the means to help those babies here. The rest of the kids are brilliant. A couple of them speak English, but even the smallest girl who isn't even in school yet communicates well with just pointing and smiling or grabbing my hand and trying to show what she means. That's golden. So there's Ahbam, his wife, her mom, their 8 kids and me under this roof right now(:
I went for a little walk around the village, wanted to go book a boat trip on the river for tomorrow, and I walked past the houses that were nothing more than a few pieces of wood put together as a floor and some kind of walls, usually quite see-through, on high sticks off the ground, to create a cool shady place under the house. Every single person said hi to me, smiled and a little boy just walked up to me and gave me a jasmin flower: they're considered to bring good luck and are very spiritual flowers around here, it's a great honor to have someone give you one. I was so touched, moved even. The village teenagers were playing with a kauko-ohjattava car on the street and setting off a few small fire works, just being teenagers. They were chasing me with the car to make me laugh, they succeeded(: The people here just seem so happy and so genuine and they have absolutely nothing when it comes to material things. The house doesn't have wifi and tried to go to the only Internet place in the village but it was closed today, I tried asking from people and they told me it should be open tomorrow(: So if I get this thing posted on the 3rd, it was open.
It's been an eventful and somewhat emotional day. Everything I've seen today has made me appreciate everything I have so much but also boosted my First World Guilt to a point where it's starting to feel heavy on my shoulders. I'm just going to try to be as sweet and helpful as I can and learn from these people as much as I can.
And with a song that's started to become my theme song for this whole journey I and this day and lay my head to rest until tomorrow and new adventures.
This is my message to you. Don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing is gonna be alright...<3
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