Louis and Frankie - jungle rangers for the day!

There is a Nature Reserve attached to the Rasa Ria Resort near Kota Belud, in Sabah, Borneo where there are four orangutans living in the semi-wild.  This means effectively that they live in the wild forest, but can come to the feeding stations if they like, where they can then be observed.  And why wouldn't they, it's a hearty meal. 

We read  that a couple of lucky kids can get up close to the orangutans by being rangers for the day.  The drawback is that you have to be resident at the hotel, which is no great hardship really, as it’s highly luxurious, providing you can afford the cost.  Well it was way beyond the budget but we figured for one night, if it helped the boys have a special and memorable experience, then we’d make the sacrifice.......

We weren’t disappointed - but that’s enough about the incredible dinner and breakfast buffet. The boys had to take a medical in order to ensure that they wouldn’t be passing any dodgy diseases onto the animals, and were delighted to be given a clean bill of health. 

Frankie getting a clean bill of health

We headed to the Nature Reserve and saw a video all about an Orangutan called Cinta who had been rescued when she was very small and nurtured there for four years before being returned to the semi-wild at Sepilok.  We realised that we had met Cinta when we'd been up at Sepilok a few weeks ago, so it made the film all the more real for us. 

We saw the boys go past with the Head Ranger, they were wearing their new green ranger t-shirts and matching caps, looking very professional indeed!  Their first task was to prepare the food for the Head Ranger to give to the orangutans.  

Jules and I walked for about 10 minutes to get to the orangutan feeding platform and noticed a little orangutan already on a distant tree making his way there, he was small and very cute and we got a much closer view than we did at Sepilok. At one point he was no more than 3 metres from us. He did lots of tricks on the ropes which included falling off a couple of times and rolling a little way down the hill!

Oops.  Now I've got to climb back up again!

We had hoped the boys would get closer than we did, but, in fact, as they arrived later than us with the food, this wasn’t the case.  They did join us on the platform though and got a very good view too.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Louis explained:  “We gave them lots of chopped up fruit and vegetables such as, carrot, lychees, aubergines, beans and lots lots more!!!!!!!!!!

Frankie added: “Greedy orangutans! I chopped up at least 75 carrots! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I thought that we would get to sit on the platform with them, but we didn’t, which was very frustrating.   But at least we saw them and it was closer than the ones we saw at Sepilok, even though there were nowhere near as many.  Afterwards I was very excited to be feeding the goats, ducks and fish too.“

We like our new outfits!

Boys with their Ranger Certificates