We started our day off at the
Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, a
Sabah Government initiative (and supported by
Orangutan Appeal UK) started in the 60s to address the dire situation faced by the animals (especially orangutans) of Borneo's diminishing
rain forests.
The primary function of the Centre is to rescue orangutans from things such as poaching and starvation due to the fact that most of Borneo's forests have been taken over by palm oil plantations.
We had heard from other travellers that this centre wasn't that great to visit because so many tourists go there to get a glimpse of the "Man of the Forest" (the meaning of Orangutan). While this was true we were so happy to be able to support such a noble cause and see these amazing creatures up close.
As most of these gentle giants have been rescued (or born here) they are learning to live in the wild again, this means that they get fed twice a day to supplement their jungle diet. For our money we got to walk along a boardwalk under the jungle canopy to the feeding platform where we witnessed about 8-10 orangutans from infants to adults swinging in the trees or plodding along the forest floor.
When you look at the face or even deep into the eyes of one of these creatures up so close, you can see how they're one of our closest cousins - they share 96.4% of human genes.
Some of the orangutans here choose not to totally immerse themselves back into the wild and so come everyday to the feeding platform - but most who come to eat are mums with their babies. The rest of the orangutans in the huge (4,500 hectares) primary rain forest reserve are lost to the shadowy leaves and survive in the wild without further assistance from the centre.
After lunch at Uncle Tans we left for the jungle on our 3 day adventure with the other 9 members of our group. After an hour on the road we hit a junction where the local villagers ferried us down a bumpy road through the palm oil plantations to the Kinabatangan River. At the river we jumped in a couple of boats and though we expected only a 5 minute ride to our accommodation we were treated to an hour of boat safari along a tributary where we got our fill of excitement by seeing lots of wildlife!
Our eyes struggled to absorb all the animals around us: delicately perched white cranes snapped at the fish in the waters while the hornbill squawked from the tree tops. We were entertained by silver monkeys and long-tail macaques swinging from tree-to-tree and performing death drops to ridiculously small branches.
And then adrenaline flooded our veins as we caught a glimpse of the native Proboscis monkey with its distinctive colouring and unique nose that's so ugly it's almost cute!
Our photo of the proboscis isn't so great so we stole one from the Net, here you go, check it out:
After getting our fill of wildlife we rode over to the Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp, where we were shown to our "room" - 6 people sleep on mattresses on the floor of an open hut, but we do have the protection of mosquito nets during the night!!
Once darkness had engulfed the jungle we set off again in the boat to experience the Kinabatangan River by night.
Our master guide has amazing skills in animal detection. Spraying his spot light from side to side we were amazed at the things he could spot: a baby crocodile snapping at the waters edge; macaques getting ready for sleep (or being slightly irritated after our spotlight woke them!); a wild cat; and 3 beautiful wise owls staring at us with moon-sized golden eyes. 
All this was complemented by the clear night sky and the stars that sparkled all around that left our necks aching from staring skywards!!
We could hardly sleep due to the excitement of our jungle adventure - and the fact that there were animal wars going on in the jungle around us and insects and birds playing their personal musical instruments through the night.
Adlibing the jungle.
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