Adventures from Vietnam: See ya Saigon! Hello Borneo!

We had one week off for Fall Break... and I'm happy to feel that I made the most of that week's vacation!

Riki, Saleshni, and I took a flight from HCMC to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was just over an hour flight... I love that!

Below is my very first photo(s) of the trip, taken at the KL airport...

We spent the night (well... we were there for 5 hours) in a hotel near the airport, the Concorde Inn... it had a fabulous buffet breakfast! I can already tell you that you'll read more about buffet breakfasts from this trip - there were many, they were all fabulous, and all contained foods from around the world.

I was able to get to Malaysia from Vietnam in just one hour, but our domestic flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sandakan, Borneo (still part of Malaysia) was 3 hours long.

We arrived in Sandakan and checked in to the "resort" - we stayed at the Sepilok Jungle Resort.

The grounds were beautiful - our rooms were not, haha. The room was fine, actually -- very basic, no AC, and the shower was one of those that is just the shower head and it goes all over the bathroom. We were IN the jungle... and only a 5-minute walk to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center -- the largest in the world!

We went to the orangutan rehabilitation center for the afternoon feeding time at 3:00pm. There are no gates, nets, or fences around the center -- it is part of the natural wild and the orangutans have the freedom to stray as far as the jungle goes.

Bug spray no bueno for orangutan.

So many sounds in the jungle... (video below)

It turns out that we were very lucky on our trip to see the orangutans! 5 orangutans were hanging out in the main area the entire time we were there. (Riki and Saleshni went back the next morning but said that only 3 orangutans were there for the feeding... they ate with their backs to everyone and then went off into the jungle... and that was it.)

I loved the spunky spider monkey that was hanging out too. He was pretty funny... at first the orangutans were chasing him away but then they seemed to just put up with him. He would sneak up to take some fruit and then run with it back to the corner of the platform to eat... if this were made into an animated movie, he'd have stolen the show!

Ha! ...No shame.

Video below:

I loved this moment...

At one point, two of the orangutans climbed down a tree... and a few minutes later, they came up onto the walkway where all of us were standing to view!

Video below:

The oldest male orangutan that we saw that day spent quite a while walking around the viewing deck... all of us with our cameras would back up as he came around to us... but we also wanted to follow him.

Quick clip...

The workers told us that it was very rare for this to happen and that we were lucky to have seen it. Not only that... but these two orangutans also walked those of us who were left at close out along the walkway. Very, very cool.

Riki and Saleshni went back for the orangutan center's night walk. I decided to head into town and I'm glad I did - Sandakan is a cute little town and it was nice to see this side of the area as well. The cab driver dropped me off on top of a hill at the English Tea House... the bread pudding was delicious, as well as the view... :)

(English Tea House)

I took this trail down to the town of Sandakan, Borneo.

I thought this guy looked pretty cool -- until I got a bit too close and he jumped at me!

Downtown Sandakan.

These girls were playing hopscotch at the bus station next to a market. I played with them for a bit and taught them the word, hopscotch, in English. :)

I'm also glad I went into town instead of on the night walk because there were apparently leeches everywhere... hanging off branches and all... and the walk strayed from the wooden walkway and went right into the jungle. Lesh got a couple of leeches on herself... but they loved the walk -- they saw a pit-viper snake, a really cool/colorful bird (a type of kingfisher), and more.

The next day, our final day in Borneo, we went to the Rainforest Discovery Center.

The bright pink ones were pretty cool. We were salivating over the thought of them being cupcakes (as I type that, I realize how much they don't resemble cupcakes... but at the time, we were totally into it!).

We went on the jungle canopy walk and were hoping to see some cool birds (a big bird watching event had just finished the day before) and flying squirrels! We ended up spotting some hornbills but not much else.