When Orang Utans Attack

Slight exaggeration, but it worked for Fox.

I had a blast today getting up close to Orang Utans at a recovery center near Kuching, Malaysia. The spelling may seem wrong, but since we use the Malay word (meaning "forest people" or "man of the forest"), it's only fair to spell it how they do. I'll let the gallery speak for itself there (captions coming shortly, along with the link, though you can probably figure it out).

Tomorrow I'm heading to Bako National Park for a few days, before returning here to Kuching. It's supposed to be an amazing spot to see many of the rare animals of Borneo. Several of us staying at the hostel here went in together to rent a 4-bed room at the Forest Hostel inside the national park for a couple nights. We'll explore the trails during the day and see what we can see:

http://www.sarawakforestry.com/htm/snp-np-bako.asp

Other than a few hours seeing the Orang Utans, today was spent trying to get ready for the next few days (buying food, getting a proper tropical rain poncho, etc.).

I'm currently staying at by far the best hostel I've ever seen:

http://www.singgahsana.com/

It really is like a 4-star hostel, if there was such a thing. At $10, the price is about double that of others in town, but it's still a bargain. It probably helps I was in a bit of a dive before, but this place has the nicest beds (better mattress than I have at home), hottest shower (the other place only had cold), powerful A/C, tasty free breakfast, and super friendly staff. They don't even screw you on the extras like most places (free wifi, cheapest beverages around, etc., which is how most of the "cheap" hostels make their money). It's easy to believe that other travelers have gotten stalled here for over 2 months.

I'm planning to make several more day and overnight trips to nearby sights so I can enjoy this place more before moving on to the other half of Malaysian Borneo or Brunei (haven't really decided yet).

I did promise to explain the whole Cat City thing, but it's late, and we're supposed to catch the bus to the boat to Bako in about 7 hours. I should have a lot more animal photos to add when I get back, though I'm really hoping very few of them are poisonous snakes (word from other travelers suggests I should have a nice collection of those too).