Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre Trip, Orang Utans!

December 8, 2007

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On the first day of my trip to Kuching, we went to Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre to see orang utans. Semenggoh is about 40km south of Kuching and can be reached using the Green public bus owned by Sarawak Transport Company. We knew this from the free tourist guide we got from Matta Fair hehe.

That’s me waiting at the bus stop for that green bus to arrive. I looked jaded due to the midnight flight and only a few hours of sleep. Notice the different colors of signs? Each represents a bus company and their buses’ numbers that will go pass this stop. We were waiting for bus 4A which never came! I was damn sure we weren’t late because we were waiting since 7.45am and the bus was supposed to reach at 8am.. Luckily there are be a lot of taxis in Kuching so my advice is take it if you could. Kuching taxis are not the usual Proton Iswara we have back here in Peninsular, theirs is a van lol. The fare is at most RM1-2 more expensive compared to taking a bus and it’s definitely worth it. It’s faster, more comfortable and they send you to the destination’s doorstep. I didn’t take a single bus in Kuching.

Thanks to the late bus, we nearly missed the orang utan feeding session. It starts at 9am and we managed to reach Semenggoh Wildlife Centre 10 minutes earlier. After paying for the cheap entrance fee we ran towards the feeding area which is like 1-2km from the entrance. While running I was thinking to myself “These orang utans better be worth all the running, I came all the way from Penang to see them!” LOL! And what’s worse, there were so many tourist vans going for the same place and they didn’t even offer to give us a lift! They just zoom pass us like we were invisible! OK enough of my rantings..

The entrance to the orang utan feeding area is on the right while the forest reserve is on the left. I was tired and sweating like hell from all the running so I didn’t check out the forest reserve. More hiking? Thanks but no thanks!

It’s pretty much a common sense not to feed the animals, still a kind reminder for those who don’t know.

Ahhhh, a orang utan finally! We were so excited to see her, but it is pretty obvious she looked bored.. what la.. I flew all the way from Penang and you show me boring face, sienz :( Maybe just woke up? Perhaps some breakfast will wake you up!

There, have a banana. Can you spot the banana? The ranger is throwing one at Seduku (the orang utan’s name) The ranger is a very friendly person and he told us a lot about this wildlife centre. Semenggoh Wildlife Centre was Sarawak’s first forest reserve in 1920 and now serves as a rehabilitation centre mainly for orang utans and other animals. Abandoned or injured Orang utans are rescued from the wild, rehabilitated then released back to the forest when they are deemed fit to survive on their own.

Seduku is the oldest around and also the mother to many other younger orang utans. She looks calm on the tree but when she gets to the ground you better keep your distance. Because they might be interested in your stuff and they want it too lol. According to the ranger another orang utan, Delima snatched a tourist’s backpack few days before our visit, it was even reported in CNN news. She looked really happy now with a banana, don’t you think? Seems like smiling leh..

Then there were two cute baby orang utans playing. They sure don’t become as active when they grow older.

This is a list of the orang utan in Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. Their house name, date of birth, age and mother are displayed. Wow, Seduku is 36 years old, that’s 12 years older than me!

Besides orang utan there are a couple of crocodiles being kept in a cage.. Nothing else really interesting except the souvenir shop. You could donate some money to support the centre and sign the guestbook after that. I flipped through the guestbook and found most of the visitors are foreigners. All of the comments were good and many enjoyed the experience.

In my opinion there are two ways to see Sarawak, either the nature way or the sightseeing way. Nature way would be visiting the national parks like Bako, Gunung Mulu, Kubah.. etc. There are like 26-27 forest reserves in Sarawak and it usually takes at least one to two full days to explore each. So it’s imposible to visit all in a few days.. But if you are going for sightseeing purpose, this is one of my recommended places to visit. Anyway if you are visiting Sarawak without seeing any orang utan you might as well not go at all lol. A trip to Sarawak would not be complete without orang utan.