Thursday 8 October 2015

Day 355: A welcome sight

We were up late this morning. After dropping by Sam's for breakfast we went back to the Garden Inn to get some directions to the Bat Cave. Said directions took us downriver, across a bridge, further downriver, through an ecolodge, where they were building a huge sail-like longhouse restaurant, through an outrageously colourfully decorated orphanage, through some rubber and palm oil plantations and finally to a little shelter beside a little gate. In the shelter were two disreputable-looking locals who asked us to hand over the nominal entrance fee and tried to sell us their services as guides. We politely declined and headed through the little gate and down into a little gully, where we found a series of rickety wooden ladders that took us up through a narrow ravine and to the cave entrance. 







 The air was thick with the smell of bat guano and dripping with moisture as we made our way inside what proved to be quite a large cavern. Small bats hung from the walls and ceilings. We walked to the end, where there was a large rockfall, through which we crawled, ducked, climbed and weaved until we came out the other side into a vegetation-filled open area. We then had to clamber over slippery rocks to get to the next part of the cavern. This section was even more impressive than the first, and was populated by large numbers of a larger species of bat. In addition to the bats, there were swallows nesting in the caves and every now and then one would fly in, making a stuttering staccato chirp to help it find its way around in the darkness. 










When we reached the end of the caves we found a large group of Brits, Australians and locals sitting down chatting in an area that was open to the sky and we joined in for a while before we all headed back out. On the walk back to Bukit Lawang, we were hailed by a local guy who asked if we wanted to buy some of his sticky rice – opening up one of the little paper-wrapped parcels to show us. We were expecting a savoury treat, but the slightly yellow rice came with a mixture of brown sugar and shredded coconut. We figured we had to try it and bought a packet (at the same time fending off his attempts to convince us to hire him for a massage – the other arm of his business) – and delicious it was. When we got back to the village we took a different bridge back over the river and discovered a little covered market area where Kate and the girls bought some colourful sarongs and Zoe got some banana fritters. On the walk back, Sarah also got a new swimming costume, which she immediately put to use as we went for a swim in the river. 












After lunch at Sam's we went for another swim and then headed upriver along the little path I had started exploring yesterday. Now, I should probably explain that we've come to Bukit Lawanh because it appeared to offer us our best chance of seeing wild orangutans; we weren't keen on doing the rehabilitation-centre thing and the options in Borneo looked either too expensive or too difficult. From people we've spoken to here, our chances of seeing the apes look good – indeed, we've heard that one was seen from the village yesterday. There's a feeding platform at the national park office that's visited fairly regularly, and several orangutans live in this general area, so as we walked along the path, we stopped at every break in the vegetation to scan the forest on the other side of the river. After a relatively short walk we reached a rather nice looking lodge and stopped briefly outside it to once again scan the trees on the opposite bank. I saw a branch move. I watched. And watched. And then I saw it move again. We were all watching closely by now – me through the lens of my camera – and we exclaimed as one as we caught a glimpse of something large and orange in among the thick vegetation. We watched and watched some more and then, suddenly, there she was – a great big female orangutan, swinging by one arm from a tree with a baby attached to her side. We let out a collective sigh of joy and relief – the pressure was off, we had seen an orangutan, and we had even managed to see it ourselves, without having to have it pointed out to us by a guide. Seeing an orangutan in the wild has been a dream of Kate's since childhood, and as it finally came true, she got a little bit teary. We stood and watched the pair for some time – the female sitting quietly on a branch, the baby frolicking about in the trees around her – before finally tearing ourselves away and going back for one more swim.






 


In the evening we went to Sam's for beer and chips, and then dinner. Back in the room, Kate stayed up reading with me and, unfortunately, spotted the mouse as it ran across the piece of wood that runs around the walls. Suffice to say she didn't sleep too well after that.

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