Sepilok is very close to
Sandakan on the east coast of
Sabah and the most interesting thing to be found is the
Orangutan rehabilitation centre. Being Dutch and thus having
historical
Indonesian ties, I am surprised about the English pronunciation of
this monkey species: it sounds like one word to me, "orengooten" or
something like that (Dutch phonetic spelling), totally ignoring the fact
that the two words "orang oetan" mean "man of the woods".
The centre has the objective to rehabilitate orangutans, which have been
captured or threatened. They are fed in the center and the idea is, that
they will go back to the jungle after a certain time lapse. Unfortunately,
many of them like the easy way of obtaining food and keep coming back to
the small spot, where twice a day feeding takes place. That does not
discourage the truckload of tourists, armed with big cameras. The
orangutan is said to be man's closest relative among animals, and that
becomes clear from the theater "man versus monkey", which is performed
twice a day at Sepilok. You may wonder if this is "people watching
monkeys" or "monkeys watching people" but in that case, the monkeys are
the lucky ones, as they get free entrance and breakfast and dinner as
well. |
