is that an orangutan i see before me?

On our first day in Kuching (which is bhasa malaysia for cat - yes i was excited too) we started with a trip to Semenggoh. Semenggoh is an orangutan sanctuary so all of the orangutans are wild and don't interact with the humans running it; they are just kept an eye on and provided with fruit handouts at feeding platforms - though they rarely go to these during fruit seasons due to their own ability to find their own. As it is only a protected area sightings are not guaranteed so we felt very lucky to see a mother and child pair just before the entrance gate, well. we saw them from there, they spend most of their time in the trees. Given the ease and grace with which they move this isn't hard to believe. At one point the child orangutan was moving along a horizontal vine with just its right foot and right hand in contact whilst it hang down; it was hardly surprising to find out they are seven times stronger than humans of equal weight. The baby slid its foot towards its hand until they touched then let go with its hand and grabbed further along, repeating the action until it caught up with its mother who carried him on her tummy as she climbed somewhat more sensibly. This was the first indicator of the interchangeability of feet and hands. The second was when the same monkey held a bamboo shoot on with side of it with its hands - at a casual twenty five feet above the ground - whilst feeding itself with its feet.
Given the fact that they were wild, the only place you could reliably see these people of the forest was the feeding platforms. After a short walk through the dense rainforest we came to another clearing from where you could see another feeding area, but this time it was occupied by a male. Now the males weight twice as much as the females and this fella was big. With his enormous pile of fruit though, i couldn't help but think of King Louis from the Jungle Book. and with a Disney-esque sense of humour and timing another child orangutan snuck down a bamboo shoot and took some bananas which it ran off with in its foot fingers. Our attention was immediately recalled to the male as we heard a loud bang. A war cry? A threat to this tiny primate? No. Coconut opening time! The large male stripped the outsides with his teeth before thwacking the coconut against the platforms and opening it in just two blows. Now anyone who has ever won a coconut at a coconut shy - or had a dad help at one and get some of the un-won ones afterwards (guilty as charged) - will know how hard coconut shells are. Just another exhibition of the apes' immense strength, just a teensy bit less playfully demonstrated than the child monkey's philosophy on gravity: "Upside down? No Problem. Gravity only chooses which way I fall (if that ever happened) not the direction or the angle that I climb."

If you fancy reading non-travel stuff i have a selection of poetry and discussions on gender, identity and eco-graffiti amongst other topics at alexleclez.blogspot.com