Today we were up early to follow the buses leaving at 0700 with the fleet guests to Kuchbing and then onto the Orang-u-tan rehab park which is about 650 hectares of jungle and they try to re-establish captured and confiscated Orang-u-tans to live in the wild again. They have about 34 on site and they are totally free but some come to the centre for feeding. About half the primates are wild animals that choose to live in the proximity and the others have been confiscated from poachers, illegal zoos etc and are being retrained to support themselves.

Today was the lucky day as some days the visitors see no orangutans but today we had many including the mothers and children, others and the Alpha or dominant male or the area, a huge and majestic primate with a pristine red coat that appeared perfectly groomed and shining in the early sunlight. He devoured bunches and bunches of bananas and stripped and smashed and ate a coconut as if it were an M&M on Sunday morning.

By 1000 all visitors had to leave the park but we had been up close to these large and beautiful primates. The rangers always ensuring the animals were not threatened and herding us away when the large male moved from feeding place to feeding place as he could have swotted us like a fly!

A magical experience as we were so close to these animals who were not restrained or constrained in any way.

Then on to a pottery area and to the museum and back to Kuching waterfront.

We spent the afternoon visiting four customs "Kastom" offices trying to get our clearance papers and none of them could get it right, it ended up taking 3 hours driving from customs office to customs office and even being escorted from the second last office to the last, but still the incorrect one, by a customs officer over a distance of maybe 15 kilometres. We nearly gave up in despair!!!!

Back to Charmar for the evening after a long but rewarding and interesting day (customs aside!!!!)