Orangutans, super-sized noses and the loss of some pretty dreadful pictures...

Extremely disappointingly this is the only surviving photo of my diving experience. I even did an underwater photography course and took some rather appalling snaps of coral and fish and even one of myself swimming along. Some goon at the diving shop wiped the memory before I had chance to copy them. Arse!
Pauline, Daniel, Marie (our instructor), Jeremy and the ice-cream monster.

Seaweed and 'stuff' for sale in the market, Semporna.


Parrot fish

Sea gypsy floating house.


Smoked fish stall.

On both journeys I took by road it was shocking to see miles and miles of palm oil plantations. I don't think anyone seeing this could claim that palm oil is a great answer to the world's environmental problems. This has killed huge swathes of rich eco-system and hardly any wild life survives there. In addition it's mostly owned by huge multi-nationals.

We went to a big cave where people collect birds' nests for soup (why??). The place was crawling with thousands of cockroaches. Good job I don't mind creep crawlies.

Pauline planning her climb to the top of the cave. She always was a beggar for Emperor-style grub.

A floating toilet on the Kinabatangan river at Sukau in the middle of the jungle where we did some wildlife spotting. Among other things we saw a wild female orangutan, proboscis monkeys, long tailed macaques, stork-billed kingfisher, crown hornbill, snake bird, crocodile.

My little (and very hot) house.

The orangutan tree. Orangutans can't swim so the wildlife department have tied a rope across the river from this tree to help them get access to more territory.

Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre