More Orang Utans

Big Ritchie and some Babes

All these shots were taken at Semmengoh Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre. The centre is not far from Kuching. We walked from our hotel for about 20 minutes to get to the bus stop, climbed aboard bus No.6 and enjoyed listening to Malaysian breakfast radio at ear splittling decibel levels whilst being snap frozen by the turbo a/c for the 45 minute drive to the drop off.

The bus ride cost 3 ringgit each (about $1 USD) and we had to shell out another 3 MYR for entrance to the park. The walk from the entrance took about 20 minutes along a undulating road and as we approached the carpark some excited folk were pointing at a large lump in a tree top. This turned out to be a big male Orang Utan named Ritchie and to see the bulk of him high in the tree tops was fantastic. We were hoping he'd make an appearance at the feeding platform but he decided to just hang out on his own, not fussed with females and the bananas on offer. Though we'd been snubbed by the big guy we still had lots of action with the females and some youngsters.

As a matter of fact I completely forgot about Ritchie as I was to engrossed watching the others coming in grab a few bananas and climb back in to the forest. The keepers don't want the Orangs to enjoy a feast just enough to tide them over and they keep it bland so the animals learn to go in search of their own food and at this time of year there is plenty of fruit on offer.

The feeding hour goes very quickly and what I find interesting is the number of people that make the effort to show up and stay long enough to get some happy snaps and then go. Good for them but better for us. On this occasion once feeding was done the tourists began the amble from the feeding area back to the waiting cars and minivans but we noticed a keeper calling up into the trees, yelling out to Ritchie. Would he grace us with his presence or would he remain aloof? There was no way we were going anywhere until we were either kicked out or the big guy showed up.

Then crashing through the trees he came breaking branches with his weight as he swung towards another small feeding platform and within minutes there he was right in front of us and let me tell you that being stared down by an Orang Utan that has been described by the staff as "bad tempered and angry" is intimidating. We had seen photographs of human limbs that had a run in with Ritchies teeth and it didn't look like a whole lot of fun.

Ritchie