Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, Kuching, Sarawak

Ah... the orang utans at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. I was so looking forward to visit this place. This is a rehabilitation centre and if I remember correctly, we were told that initially there were only 12 orang utans here, but now they have multiplied to 24.

The entrance fee was RM3 per adult and there were no charges for the children. Our van driver told us that we could purchase the tickets cheaper as a group. The entrance fees for a group of 5 adults cost RM10 (meaning RM2 per adult) and the 6th adult had to pay the normal price - RM3.

From the car park, we had to walk quite a distance to where we thought the orang utan would be. It's not that far actually, but one of my aunts who had knee problems thought it was too far for her and she said she would wait for us at the car park.

The dos and don'ts.

We were told that the feeding time was at 3 - 4pm. We reached here at 2.30pm. So what we did was to look around. There was an exibition of some sort. I wasn't too keen on that and didn't take any pictures of them.

We saw the crocodiles again. Aunt Chris said that she had never seen a real live crocodile before, and she finally got to meet some of them here.

We saw some orchids and pitcher plants.

The kids were getting restless. It was almost 3pm and they were wondering when will the orang utans make their appearance.

At 3pm, a park personnel asked us to congregate in another place. He gave us some rules to observe. Among them were no flash photography, no feeding the orang utans, be quiet at all times, keep away food and water bottles out of sight from the monkeys and be prepared to have a sudden hot shower (a.k.a pee from the orang utans). Naturally as we entered the jungle, all of us were looking at our surroundings, not wanting to have hot showers from the orang utans. Oh... the park personnel also said that we may not see the orang utans if they were not hungry and didn't want to come out and grab a bite from where the food was prepared for them. He asked us to be patient and not go off in a huff after waiting only for a short while.

We were told to go into the jungle to the feeding area, about 200 meters from the roadside. Going inside the jungle reminded me a lot of climbing Gunung Datuk, the only thing was, here the ground was flat with the occasional tree roots patterning the ground.

We reached the feeding area in probably 3 minutes or so. We waited and waited.. and scanned the trees above us (you know, just in case..) and looked at the feeding area. The kids were waiting patiently too, and I think it was harder for Sze-En because she loves to talk and it was so difficult for her to keep quiet for too long. Just before the trip to this place, we told her that the orang utans won't come out and she would have to call out to them by speaking their language. I guess she was also all prepared to make her monkey's call but that was before we knew that we had to be quiet.

After waiting for 10 minutes, the park personnel (he was on a walkie-talkie with someone) said that the orang utans were at the car park area.

So off we went out of the jungle to the carpark. Aunt Chris phoned Aunt Annie to tell her that the orang utans were seen at the car park area. Aunt Annie said yeah, she was looking at them now. Gosh, the amount of walking we did (actually not much, but we were all so tired by then) and all along we could have waited for the orang utans in the car park area. Aunt Annie was laughing at us. She thought she gave seeing orang utans a miss (because she had knee problems and couldn't walk fast and far) but in the end she was the first one who saw them.

Here's the orang utan, posing for the camera. My camera wasn't good enough to take nice shots and the sky didn't cooperate either. We could hear the thunder and the sun hid behind the clouds most of the time. I had to zoom to take this shot. There were so many people wanting to take a look at the orang utans. So many cameras were focused on them. Knowing the weakness of my camera, I left the scene so that others could have a better glimpse of the monkeys and probably get some good shots of them with their DSLRs.

There were 3 orang utans. We even saw a mother with its baby.

While we were in the jungle, Aunt Annie made friends with the taxi drivers and they told her how a pepper plant looked like.

Here's how they looked like. They were planted along the roadside. The taxi drivers also pointed out the orang utans nest to her. When we reached the car park, she told us that she made the right decision of staying in the car park area.

I really enjoyed this visit very much and would highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Kuching. Nothing beats looking at wildlife animals without them being caged up. :)