Orang utans

Even though we had all been to Semenggoh to see the orang utans, I thought it would be a nice outing combined with Siniawan Night Market (which my guests hadn’t been to). We left around 1330 and got to the park around 1430 for the 1500 feeding session.

After a somewhat lengthy introduction and safety briefing, we would led to the tiered viewing area where we could see the feeding platform. We saw nothing for more than half hour despite the rangers making encouraging noises.

Eventually, we saw some rustling in the distance and a youngish orang utan turned up. He grabbed a bunch of bananas and then grabbed a couple of other fruits with his feet, then climbed away.

We were then asked to return to the briefing area where we saw four other orang utans including the alpha male. I seem to recall the same thing happening last time where we didn’t see much at the viewing area but the main activity being at the briefing area.

The low turnout for the primates was due to the fruiting season. As they have plenty to eat in the jungle, many are self-sufficient. Looking at the “attendance” chart, there were some that didn’t turn up at all during the month of August while some had turned up roughly every second day on average.

I guess the low turnout means that the rehabilitation centre had done a good job in teaching the rescued apes their life skills in the jungle (rather than relying on human feeding).

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It was a short ride to Siniawan Night Market where we met my niece Angela. We were all very hot and sweaty and Kim was feeling rather unwell from the heat. I cooled down with an ABC before we wandered into the main drag to survey the food offerings.

We sat down and slowly ordered various snack before getting the main course of grilled stingray with sambal on top. Awwwh! It was so delicious with the creamy flakey flesh. It was the first time I’ve had it with the cartilage layer removed; the man had split the fish to remove it.

Time to head back to the apartment to return the car to Mum and prepare for our early morning departure. The Kuching stay had gone too quickly but I’ll be back in November.