Ginger Monkeys

At the beginning of our trip, back in July, we'd intended to spend some time at an orang utan sanctuary in Sumatra. When we discovered there was an orang utan centre in Malaysia however, we decided to visit that one instead of making the long ferry journey to Sumatra. This was a good decision, as a ferry to northern Sumatra was sunk by a cyclone around the time we would have been travelling there.

The orang utan is not indigenous to peninsular Malaysia, and the people at this sanctuary are developing a breeding programme. Here are two of the babies, still in intensive care but doing very well.

These are 'teenage' orang utans, youngsters who fend for themselves within the confines of Orang Utan Island. (The island lies on a large lake, not in the sea.) These youngsters were by far the most interesting age group to observe, maybe because their antics reminded us of our own children.

This is the king orang utan, the big daddy who's not to be messed with. (Kids, don't fight back and say who HE reminds YOU of.)

We liked this sanctuary because the animals were free to roam across many acres, and the visitors viewed them from a fenced walkway - it made a change for the humans to be the ones in the cage.