It has been my dream to see orangutans out in the wild since I was little.
They are my favorite animal, period. They only exist in the wild in Malaysia and Indonesia and Chad agreed to come along with my dream and head to Borneo. Malaysian Borneo is a fascinating place. You could literally spend months on the island exploring everything from coral to caves to jungle. We had 2 weeks to explore the island and given Ramadan was coming to an end, and with it a 3 day celebration, we had to plan out everything well in advance (an anomaly on this trip as usually we only book activities only a day or two in advance).Our first task was a 10 hour bus ride from Kota Kinabalu in the west to the town of Semporna on the far eastern side of the island. Semporna is not much of a town, but it is famous for it’s world class diving. Off the coast lie a handful of islands that have arguably the best diving in the world. Since neither of us are PADI certified we could not check out the scuba diving, but we did book a one day snorkeling tour of the area. We spent an entire day under the water at multiple sights, dodging jellyfish, checking out multi-colored coral and fish, and best of all - swimming with sea turtles as they scrounged for food an surfaced for air. It was amazing and only the beginning of our Borneo adventures.
Back to the original reason we included Borneo on our trip, orangutans. The island offers the unique opportunity of seeing some of the last remaining wild orangutans (less than 45,000 left in the world!) by staying near their natural habit, far from any major town or city.
The lodge we booked was located on the Kinabatangan River, 500+ steps up on top of a hill surrounded by dense jungle. It was a small lodge, only 4 guest rooms, and as we hiked up the stairs I joked that hopefully an orangutan would show up outside of breakfast. The very next day that happened. Apparently the lodge sits on a orangutan family feeding route, amazing. That was not our only encounter with a wild one, we also found a mother and baby on one of our daily boat cruises. She wasn’t as happy to see us as we were to see her and starting throwing large branches down at us. They are very territorial. Not only were we treated to orangutans, we also spotted hundreds of proboscis and macaque monkeys heading to their water source at the river. It is truly amazing to see the animals out in the wild when we have spent most of our lives only viewing them in zoos.We weren’t done with the orangutans yet. After 3 wonderful days in the
jungle which included 2 boat trips up the river and 1 jungle trek for ultimate animal spotting, we headed to the town of Sepolik to visit one of only 4 orangutan rehabilitation centers in the world. The animals at the rehab center are usually brought in as babies, orphaned when palm oil plantations tear down the jungle and kill or separate them from their parents. Palm oil plantations are a major problem in Sabah, the northern section of Borneo. Borneo produces 47% of the worlds palm oil, an ingredient that goes into everything from cooking oils to sunscreen. Given the recent economic 
hardships, the government and landowners have turned to the dependable revenue generated by these massive plantations built on clear cut virgin jungle land. As always, money rules and unfortunately these plantations are taking precedence over the environment and wildlife. The WWF is doing it’s best to buy up land and save the animals but it is a never ending struggle as the land is essentially a patchwork of alternating plots of palm plantations and protected land with no corridors linking sections. We saw the destruction first hand from our hill top lodge and nearly everywhere we traveled around the country, it is heartbreaking.We decided to stay out by the sanctuary to maximize our orangutan time and spent one entire
day watching these amazing creatures in their refuge. There are 2 feeding times for the public and most people attend one of these, watch for 20 minutes and then take off. We went to both and were able to see about 10 different orangutans wrestling, playing, eating and swinging gracefully around the jungle. Between feedings we decided to use the hiking trails in the sanctuary. Apparently we are the only people who have used these lately as the trails were all over grown and they locked us in! Our exit consisted of climbing over fences, crawling through locked gates and one extremely scary face off with a troop of about 30 macaque monkeys. They were not interested in letting us out and we fled running and terrified in the other direction as the alpha male chased us with his massive teeth out.
Seeing the orangutans in the wild was even better then we had expected. It also exposed us to the fight to save the lives of so many different species and the virgin rainforest. But Borneo is so much more than just animals, and we have loved every second we have spent on this beautiful island. We are leaving with vivid memories and a renewed environmental consciousness.
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