Monday, January 29, 2007
Our Red-haired Cousins
Orangutans are now found only in Sumatra and Borneo (Sarawak/Sabah provinces of Malaysia, and Kalimantan province of Indonesia). Orangutans are the world's largest arboreal mammal, but despite its size, they swing through the jungle canopy with grace and ease. The word orangutan is actually an example of a word in English that's been borrowed from the Melayu language. Orang means people, and utan means forest. Thus, our red cousins are people of the forest!
9 of us met in Medan on Friday evening. Marius flew in from Singapore, Alexa, Vi, and Tom came in from Jakarta, and Graeme, Greg, Marion, Anu, and I from Banda town. We met for a wonderful dinner at Sushi Tei. Most of us had an early night in preparation for the 6:30am departure on Saturday, but 2 boys stayed out until past 4am.
We drove for about 3.5 hours from Medan. The road was rather bumpy, but definitely better than I had imagined. We checked into the EcoLodge in Bukit Lawang and left for our jungle trek before 11:30. On our trek, we saw 5 orangutans, including one cute baby as well as a couple of other monkeys. The orangutans we saw were all female and they had all lived in the rehabilitation center at Bohorok which opened in 1973 to help orangutans readjust to the wild after captivity or displacement through land clearing. The apes were really friendly and we came within inches of them!
The hike included steep uphills and downhills and we had to trek down a slippery river bank for about 20 minutes. Luckily, the rain held until after we came out of the jungle! After a quick nasi goreng and pineapple lunch by the river bank, we hopped into inner tubes and cascaded down the river to where we started our hike. As we got into the river, the sky cracked open and rain poured down. I also got bitten by a large black ant which has left a big red welt on my forearm.
Click here for photos from the trip!
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2 comments:
How fun! I loved the pictures, Sharon! :)
My officemate Mark told me about Balut before, and I was fasinated and disgusted at the same time. He said it's actually a delicacy in his country. And it was apparenty featured on an episode of Fear Factor. From your detailed pictures it actually doesn't look as hairy and liquidy as I'd imagined. Plus now I don't feel bad for eating chicken feet.
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