The Man of the Forest - Borneo

Slipping, sliding, occasionally sinking. We had wanted to get off the beaten track and after 3 hours along a track deep in mud we were. We are in Borneo. Sabah to be exact, the northern region. For those not in the know Borneo is the world's third largest island and is divided between Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny sultanate of Brunei. We are in Malaysian Borneo and splendid it is too.

We had arrived at an eco-lodge adjacent to a huge river and barely 15 minutes after collecting our stomachs we were aboard a narrow boat looking for the local wildlife. Over the course of 2 days we were extremely fortunate to see many of the forest's jewels including the "man of the forest" itself, a wild orang utan hanging from the branches of a giant tree overhanging the river. Detecting our presence she slowly climbed down behind thick vines to peer out at us from behind the foliage. We were extremely lucky.

When not being poached these awesome apes are suffering from habitat loss. A combination of logging and the planting of palm oil plantations to be used in the cooking and cosmetics industry is depriving them of much needed forest in which they can thrive. We later visted a rehabilitation sanctuary where orphaned orang utans are taken and released into a protected area of forest and helped back to health by regular feeding before eventually (6-10 years) being released back into other forests in an effort to boost wild population numbers. Did you know that the orang utan has 96.4% the same DNA make up as humans!

As well as the apes we saw long tailed macaques and the comical proboscis monkey. Native only to Borneo, this monkey has a nose that must be seen to be believed!!! Another treat was to see a herd of 20 wild asian elephants tearing up vegetation on the river bank - these animals eat around 200kg of food every day! Completing our wildlife showcase, 4ft long monitor lizards, freshwater crocodiles, hornbills, a sea eagle, wild boar and a big hairy spider. And that was in the toilet!

Two days later we visited Turtle Island to see .... yep, turtles! Green Tutles to be exact. We witnessed one huge female (shell over 3ft wide) lay 87 eggs which were then collected by the park ranger to be incubated safely away form predators such as monitor lizards. We then witnessed around 20 hatchlings be hand-released into the ocean under the cover, and safety, of darkness. As it was night time and flash photography was permitted unfortunately we cannot share any photos of this with you!