I look deep into Hope’s eyes, and she looks back into mine. She smiles and I
smile too. She reaches out for my hand, and I reach for hers. But just as we
are about to touch, a uniformed gentleman with a truncheon sternly reminds
me of the no-contact rule, and Hope is led away, her big brown eyes brimming
with sadness, and her knuckles scraping the floor.
It’s a tragic, Romeo-and-Juliet story of a love that couldn’t be, of a couple
who shared so much but were divided by that age-old barrier: she was from
one species; I, another.
If I’m honest – and that’s important when a relationship ends, isn’t it? – she
probably only ever liked me for my spiffy new Nikon. ‘Orang-utans love
small, shiny objects like digital cameras or iPods,’ says John, chief warden
at my Malaysian hotel’s on-site nature reserve, fingering his truncheon
thoughtfully. ‘They’ll steal anything like that.’ Surely Hope couldn’t be
that shallow,
I think, but when I look over to her, expecting a picture of inconsolable
yearning, she seems to have cheered herself up pretty effectively with a
banana and a stick.
She’s got no shortage of admirers anyway. On the viewing platform around me,
there are more zoom lenses than if Prince William was kissing Britney on the
steps outside Sienna’s house. That’s largely because orangs are so
irrepressibly photogenic – and they’ll stare right into your camera, as
curious about it as you are about them; they’ll hang upside-down by their
toes to make their hair stick up like mad professors; they’ll cuddle each
other for comfort; they’ll make hats out of anything because, despite living
in the rainforest, they don’t actually like rain, and will sit there
balefully with a leaf or bag (or iPod) on their heads until the shower
passes.
But this phalanx of photographers is also evidence of just how easy and
effortless and pleasurable and unrugged and pina-colada-filled a wildlife
holiday in Malaysia can be. Trekking? Cagoules? Long-drop toilets?
No need. This particular orang-utan sanctuary, in fact, comes with its own
three-kilometre white-sand beach, two huge freeform swimming pools, three
restaurants, four bars, 18-hole golf course, water sports centre and spa
(for human use – although, since the orangs aren’t caged, I suppose there’d
be nothing to stop them swinging by for a quick Rejuvenating Aromatherapy
Facial).
Given those facilities, it might sound as if Shangri-La’s Rasa Ria Resort, a
few kilometres outside Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, is actually a nice
posh hotel with a mini nature reserve attached; once you’ve spent an hour
watching those stumpy, scraggy, furry, orangey-brown baby apes loping and
lolling and loafing around you, however, it feels very much the other way
round. The pools, the bars, even the beach, begin to pale.
I want to see more orangs, and since the specimens at Rasa Ria will all
eventually end up 200km away in the (semi-)wild of Sepilok Rehabilitation
Centre, that’s where I’m headed, too. Here, among trees as tall as
tower-blocks, their tops cottonwooled in milky cloud, I join a small wet
cluster of humans watching bits of fruit sit on a wooden platform.
The orangs at Sepilok are free to roam the rainforest, so there’s no guarantee
they’ll join us for dinner – which makes it all the more thrilling when five
do. Quietly, cautiously, contemplatively, they emerge from behind banana
leaves as big as they are, and start munching mango.
As adults, orang-utans are solitary animals; but infants are among the most
dependent (ie, cuddly) and intelligent (ie, playful) in the animal kingdom.
They monkey about with trees, they throw things, they roly-poly down slopes,
they stick their tongues out, they chase, they bicker, they kiss, they act
big, they act small, they scare off (and then get scared off by) troops of
macaques – and then they just disappear back into the bush, leaving no trace
of themselves except the day-long smiles on all our faces.
After a quick spin round the town of Sandakan and one of its temples – a
colour riot of firehouse reds, golden dragons, jewel-bright flowers and
birds and stars – I too vanish into the jungle. In fact, I feel like I’m in
Apocalypse Now, on a slow boat dragging itself effortfully upriver through
mangroves and palm plantations and thick, inexplicably threatening
rainforest into what feels like the absolute magnetic centre of nothing, the
official Middle of Nowhere. Which makes the sight of Sukau Lodge especially
welcoming: sitting on stilts over river and boggy bank, its warm lights
turning furry in the evening mist, it’s a tiny speck of civilisation in the
vast, ranging rainforest that covers more than half of Borneo, the world’s
third largest island.
In the morning, I’m woken early by a treefrog chorus as loud as an alarm
clock, and I watch day rise through the window. The forest canopy means I
can’t see the sky lightening, but the greenness outside gets more and more
luminous as the minutes pass. The mists dissolve, but my eye still can’t
pierce more than a few metres: the layers of jungle – creeper upon vine upon
shrub upon tree – form a solid wall, like the Hampton Court maze, but 500km
thick, stretching from here to the Celebes Sea.
We head further upriver by boat, and we see the set: orang-utans, truly wild
this time; proboscis monkeys, unfailingly funny with their pot-bellies and
absurd noses; tiny yellow-bellied puddle frogs; bright scarlet Diard’s
Trogon birds; flying fish; and, just when I was convinced this Lost World
landscape must yield a dinosaur, something just as primordial-looking – a
crocodile, one malevolent yellow eye raised above the waterline, its skin
(crust?) so tough and warty it looked as if it personally had been around
with the T-Rexes.
I’m afraid I also yelped excitedly at my fair share of ‘logodiles’, the croc’s
floating wooden cousin (crocodilus touristicus ignoramus falsus), but in a
jungle that’s home to leopards, rhinos and a walking contradiction-in-terms
called a pygmy elephant, anything seems possible.
I didn’t see any of those, but I did have a back-up plan: next stop on my tour
of Wildlife Reserves That Are Located Conveniently Close To Places Where You
Can Get A Decent Cocktail was the elephant sanctuary at Kuala Gandah, a
couple of hours outside the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. I was actually
en route to Langkawi to pretend to look at aquatic animals and lie on the
beach, but since my internal flight went via KL, I broke my journey there –
and spent a day with the elephants.
These critically endangered giants have been rescued from around Malaysia
(when not being shot at, the big sillies have a tendency to sit on roads
because the Tarmac is nice and warm). After a bit of training, they’re
re-released into one of the country’s national parks – an operation which
apparently involves not just a very big truck, but also a man whose job it
is to flap the beast’s ears to aid circulation, and another chap who’s in
charge of touching its trunk every few seconds to ‘make the elephant more
co-operative and relaxed’.
Meanwhile, at the sanctuary, visitors can handfeed, ride and swim with the
charismatic residents – all surprisingly thrilling (meaning slightly scary)
activities. Most beautiful of the bunch was Suria – sweet 16 years old and a
svelte 2,000kg – but I stayed true to Hope and resisted Suria’s schnuffling
advances.
On Langkawi (which is the Malay word for ‘island of the perfect honeymoon’ –
or should be, if it isn’t), I saw Bambi-faced deer; soaring, wheeling
brahmin kites; kingfishers the exact, delicate blue-and-white of Delft
pottery; a moray eel as thick as my thigh; spooky, sparkling shooting-star
flashes of bioluminescence as I dipped my foot in the sea; a caveful of bats
(don’t like them? Well, bear in mind that each one eats around 1,000
mosquitoes a night); and, permanently loitering outside my hotel but never
daring to enter, a swaggering gang of monkeys (I asked the manager how he
kept them out – the Four Seasons being far too elegant to have anything as
vulgar as a fence – and he showed me an enormous water-pistol).
But my favourite sighting was the easiest to come by. Lounging on a huge swing
in the hotel’s seductively Arabesque Rhu Bar (big lanterns, slouchy daybeds,
soft-singing fountains and the sweet, smoky, apple-y scent of the shisha
pipe), I thought I might be dreaming when I first saw them. But no, the
gentle whisper of sea breeze had kept me awake. And there, just in front of
me, as if specially choreographed to suit the position of the sunloungers,
was a pod of wild dolphins, leaping out of the Andaman Sea, and smiling that
strange smile of theirs, as if to say ‘You take it easy, now. And why not
have another Mojito?’
GO INDEPENDENT
Malaysia Airlines (0871 423 9090, www.malaysiaairlines.com)
flies from Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur from £569, with internal flights around
£55. Or try Qatar Airways (020 7399 2577, www.qatarairways.com).
Shangri-La’s Rasa Ria Resort (0800 028 3337, www.shangri-la.com)
has doubles from £81, room only; the Four Seasons Resort Langkawi (00800
6488 6488, www.fourseasons.com/langkawi)
has doubles from £275, room only.
GO PACKAGED
Audley Travel (01993 838000, www.audleytravel.com)
can tailor-make itineraries across Malaysia. A 10-day trip including three
nights at Rasa Ria, two nights at Sukau Lodge, one night in KL, four nights
at the Four Seasons Langkawi, all flights and transfers, B&B, costs from
£2,380pp. Or try Kuoni (01306 747002, www.kuoni.co.uk).
per person based on two sharing. 8758 4758, www.sunvil.co.uk) offers
tailor-made packages; one-week self-catering starts from £490pp, including
flights and transfers. Or try Simpson Travel (0845 811 6500, www.simpsontravel.com)
and Simply Crete (0870 166 4979, www.simplytravel.co.uk).
