Day 1



I arrived at Uncle Tan’s base camp last night after a 6 hour bus ride from KK. I was lucky to be able to get on a bus at all on account of the fact that tomorrow is the end of Ramadan and everyone is traveling to their homes to celebrate.

This morning we woke up and went to the orangutan rehabilitation center. It was pretty much what I expected--slightly better than a zoo. The orangutans are free to come and go as they want but twice a day they are brought food to the feeding platforms in the park, this naturally keeps them from wondering too far. It was cool to see them up close and personal even if it was a set up.













After the rehabilitation center and some lunch we embarked for our jungle dwelling. The trip to get here was a safari in and of itself. After driving for about an hour and a half we jumped on small boats that carried us for about an hour and a half up the river. On the way here we saw lots of macaques, exotic birds, and even a (real) wild orangutan mother and it's baby. Pretty cool. I only wish I had a better lens for my camera so I could have gotten some better pics.





The camp here is pretty sweet. It's right on the bank of river in the middle of the rainforest. The land hasn't been cleared of trees at all so you have to follow a series of boardwalks to get to the different huts. Our sleeping accommodations consist of open huts on stilts with six small mattresses laying on the floor and a mosquito net for each. The electricity comes from a generator and is only turned on between the hours of seven to midnight each night. The only running water is pumped straight from the river which means it's a very murky brown color.









After arriving at the camp we had a quick orientation session and then sat down for dinner. As we ate, the staff entertained us with a live concert of a mix of local and American music. It's nice how everyone is so chill and just hangs out together. There's a pretty good group of about ten of us here and everyone is nice and accepting of everyone else.








Day 2



This morning we broke up bright and early for another boat safari hoping to catch the animals as they came down to the river to drink. Unfortunately we didn't see any orangutans but we did see a few groups of gibbons along with a few different species of hornbills, more macaques, and quite a few crocodiles.































After the cruise we came back to the camp for breakfast and a break before heading out on our morning jungle trek. I didn't sleep very well last night on account of the fact that it was freezing (in Carrie terms of the word) not to mention the jungle is SO loud!! Awesome at first but kind of cumbersome after a while, needless to say after breakfast I just went back to bed for a while.

Our morning jungle trek wasn't really embarked on in hopes of seeing animals since by that time of day it’s too hot and most the animals are taking their afternoon naps. Instead we embarked with the goal to learn more about the local area and see some of the different kinds of plants including learning what is edible and what isn't. I may or may not now be able to survive a couple of days in the jungle if I had to :) Even though it wasn't really our goal we did see a couple of small animals including a huge brown owl, a lizard that looked like a mini iguana and some pretty cool bugs.














After the morning trek it was lunch time. They feed us so much food here!! I must say, Malaysian is my least favorite of the foods I've had here in Southeast Asia. I just can't seem to muster a taste for the spices they use, they are just too strong, that and I've gone back to not liking meat. I'm a picky eater when I'm allowed to be but I am more than willing to suck it up and eat it if it comes down to being rude or offending someone.




Since lunch we've just been chilling around the camp. It's just so peaceful here, you could easily forget the rest of the world even exists. Right now I'm sitting on a bench overlooking the river enjoying complete solitude. Funny but it's the first time in weeks that I've been able to focus enough to actually sit down and study for my insurance exam (that's a good thing). I love just sitting here and listening to all the sounds. The most dominant are the sounds of the cicadas and what must be a hundred kinds of birds. Every once in a while you can hear some sort of animal jumping around above you in the canopy. Probably monkeys, they are everywhere. There's a whole pack of them that likes to hang around the camp restrooms.

On our evening cruise up the river we didn't see much other than a bunch of monkeys. I was hoping to see the proboscis monkey but no such luck. It started raining pretty hard in the middle of it so we had to come back early. Really it was ok though because we ended up just coming back and having a party. Today is a huge Muslim holiday celebrating the end of the month of Ramadan. For the workers working here it's like the equivalent of having to work on Christmas. To cheer them up the base camp down in town sent them up a bunch of different kinds of cookies. They invited us guests over to share and then as an afterthought out came the rice wine and bong to help the celebration along. They use the bong to smoke this stuff that comes in different flavors--It's hard to describe--sometimes they put tobacco in with it but tonight they just had the flavoring. I'm not going to lie, after checking several times to make sure it didn't have tobacco in it I gave it a try. It was like inhaling flavored smoke, it was actually kinda cool. I know, I know, avoid the appearance of 'evil' but it was part of a cultural experience ;) While the alcohol (a local brew of rice wine) and the bong were being passed around the workers all pulled out their guitars and we had a nice little sing along.







In the midst of all of this I had an interesting conversation with one of the other campers. Earlier this afternoon upon learning that I was from Utah he had started talking about "those Mormons." I then politely pointed out that I was one of “those Mormons.” So tonight at dinner he started asking me all these questions about our magic under-garments and what it's like to be a 26 year old virgin. Ha ha, I always find it so hard to explain these things to people, I shouldn't, I should be used to it, it's not like we never got asked those questions on my mission. I dunno, being out of my Utah bubble and realizing that more likely than not I'm the only Mormon most these people have ever met I feel this need to show them that we aren't these crazy religious fanatics as is sometimes portrayed in the media, we're just like everyone else, trying to live our lives the best we can and trying to work towards what we believe in. The truth is that we aren't like everyone else though, we truly are a peculiar people and people either see that as a good or a bad thing. It's not that I'm ashamed if that, it's just hard when people don't understand it.



Anyway, the party lasted throughout dinner and beyond. By around nine the rain had finally died down to a light drizzle and so we went out for our night trek. Unfortunately the rain meant that a lot of the animals had gone into hiding but we still managed to see quite a few really cool birds and frogs. We even saw a mouse deer, the smallest of all deer. I was the one who spotted that one, just from my flashlights reflection off its eyes -- I could totally be an animal tracker.
























Day 3




On day three I was just too Lazy to write.