Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary

This was our final day here at Sandakan so we thought we'd go to the Orangutan Sanctuary. I had read a lot about this in the Lonely Planets book plus on-line and wasn't really expecting to see that many orangutans but we managed to see 3 adult ones and a baby one. It was very cute and they were directly above us so it was really nice being that close to them.

The park rangers fed them a huge bucket of bananas and other fruit and we spent about half an hour watching them before they disappeared back in to the jungle.

Since we were here and weren't really ready to go back to Sandakan just yet, Zaheer decided we should do one of the trails they have here. I thought it would be OK because if they have trails mentioned in the brochure then there should be a structured path and all that right? Not in this case. It was pretty much off road. We let the staff know we wanted to do the short Birders Walk and they warned us that since it had rained the previous night, there may be leeches about. We thought, 'yeah we've heard this before' and thought nothing of it as we had never up to this date seen any leeches in the Bruneien or Malay Rainforest.

It was pretty muddy and our feet were submerged in the puddles and I do remember thinking at one point, 'what if these puddles are full of leeches!!??' but carried on anyway as out of sight is out of mind right?

Anyways so we're walking along a particular narrow path with ferns all around us when Yusuf decides to lift his T-shirt up and wipe his nose. Five minutes later he's like 'Mummy, I can feel something underneath my T-shirt'. I'm thinking' 'It's probably an ant that's crawled up there' because that happens a lot in the rainforest so we lift up his t-shirt to find this:

A LEECH!!!!!!!! The blood drained from my face and I think I started hyperventilating and in my head I'm thinking, 'THIS IS THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAVE POSSIBLY HAPPENED TO US!!!!!' The scene from Aliens came to mind. You know the one (I was going to insert the picture here but it was far too gross- just google Alien chest scene on images). OK maybe it wasn't as dramatic but still! I panicked beyond belief and I'm ashamed to say I ran like hell because as you looked up, the tips of every single fern in that narrow path was covered in leeches! They were hanging on the ends trying to attach themselves to us! It was disgusting!

(Yeah OK no where near as dramatic as the Alien scene....)

We tried and tried to get the damn thing off but it was going nowhere. Yusuf was bawling his eyes out, I felt like doing the same so we ran as fast as we could back to the centre. Thankfully there was a woman there who knew what to do. Apparently you have to put your nail under the leeches mouth and get it off like that as they can't attach themselves to the nail. She got it off and fed it to the fish. Yusuf was quite happy at this stage.

After our ordeal we decide to go to the restaurant and eat while we waited for the bus to arrive. As I'm sitting there eating, I feel something between my toes and thinking its a bit of mud, try and push it through. As I do, 2 black tiny balls of something fall to the floor and as I look, they start to move! My toe is bleeding like crazy because surprise surprise, I had two attached to my FOOT!!! Nearly screamed, cried, hyperventilated etc and ran out of the restaurant as fast as we could. Yusuf is traumatised at this point and screaming like crazy. The bus arrives and we jump on it thinking 'Thank God we can leave this place behind!'

The bus journey back was pretty uneventful and we get back to our hotel. Zaheer decides to wash his trainers and surprise surprise, (I should stop saying that...) gets a leech attached to his finger! He screamed (made me feel slightly better) and flung his hand around like a crazy man before pulling it off and flinging it out of the window. At this point in the day we were all on edge. I think we stayed like that for a good few hours until we realised that was the last of the leeches and not every little bit of thread, fluff, mud was a leech. It was a horrid, horrid day. Probably the worst of my life. I think I would maybe deal better next time but I'm really hoping there is no next time!

After all that trauma we decided to end the day and our time here in Sandakan by going to a nice restaurant with a view of Sandakan Town Centre.

We flew back to KK the next day and then back to Brunei the day after. We really enjoyed this holiday and were glad to have had the opportunity to do it. Another one ticked off the list!

Our next holiday is to Thailand where we will be staying in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket for two whole weeks! I am soooo excited about this holiday and will be posting lots of photos on that.