A trip to Yowie Land.

For those who don't know, much of my childhood was spent collecting toys called Yowies. They were little figurines of different animals from around the world, and they came in animal shaped pieces of chocolate- nature's answer to a Kinder Egg if you like. My collection was (and still is) my pride and joy. Every time we had roast chicken on a Sunday and I conquered one of the weaker members of the family on the snapping of the wishbone (sorry Laura), I would wish that my Yowies would come to life. Now I'm sure you're thinking "you just told us your wish so it will never come true now!".  Wrong my friends. Borneo just so happens to be the home of a whole host of Yowies! So far I've only scratched the surface, and I'll be honest a lot of these were in a Wildlife Centre, but you have to start somewhere. 

This is the Hornbill- Borneo's national bird. Number 90 if I'm not mistaken (each Yowie had a number at the bottom- I spent a lot of my time memorising these numbers. Spouting out an animal at the sound of a number was my primary school playground party trick).   

The Malaysian Sun Bear- the smallest bear in the world. I reckon even I could beat it up. I once buried my  Sun Bear Yowie in a flowerpot for camouflage purposes as part of a wider game and I ended up spending a good hour looking for it. What can I say, it was good camouflage.

Reticulated Python- not strictly a Yowie, but I had another type of python that I believe to be number 67. It's a snake, I'll take it. 

Craig the Croc (yes, they all had names as well, and all of them were alliterative)- number 36, could be wrong. Found Craig at the Crocodile Farm. There were many Craigs. None were as lively as my Craig back home, turns out real life crocs don't do movement.   

This is a skink- not my favourite Yowie but worth a mention.

Visual evidence of my amazement after seeing so many Yowies.

 The wildlife centre is actually quite close to home, but Hugo and I had our eyes on the main prize- monkeys. More specifically, orangutans. Sandakan, on the east coast of Sabah, is the home of the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre as well as a Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary so a few days there was an absolute must. We managed to see almost all there is to see in the area, including a moving War Memorial commemorating the Death Marches, a crocodile farm, a Buddhist temple, and the Rainforest Discovery Centre. But certainly the orangutan sanctuary was the highlight. We got there for feeding time (this unfortunately isn't the kind of feeding time where the cute orangutans come and hug your neck while gently taking food from your hand, life just isn't that good), and soon enough the apes were swinging in one by one, joined also by macaques, but it became swiftly apparent that the two species don't get along too well. The orangutans dominated for a while but the macaques soon chased them away to get their share of the food. All in all, it was great to see some monkeys in their natural habitat, and it has whetted my appetite for some serious Yowie hunting.    

You try doing that with your leg!

With orangutans having hands for feet, it means they're very good at the circle game, so this particular ape owes me a punch when he gets the chance. 

Absolute poser. 

This macaque got bored of the feeding area and decided to come right up to where we were standing. It was all I could do not to go and give it a hug.

This fine specimen is a male proboscis monkey. Can't get enough of that nose. Nature is jokes.

Just to show just how close I came to these monkeys! The silver leaf monkeys enjoyed the shade of the observatory so they were milling around with us watching the proboscis monkeys. You'll go a long way to find a pose more awkward than what I've produced here. 

This is a giant squirrel that I spotted in the Rainforest Discovery Centre. It is just a big squirrel, if it wasn't the only live thing I saw in the Centre it wouldn't have made the cut. 

This is a view from the canopy walk. 

A sample of the views we had on a bus ride. Behind the clouds is Mount Kinabalu, one of the highest mountains in South East Asia, but I'll have better pictures than this after I climb it in March.

Completely unrelated picture to anything that has gone before. This is from  a Cultural Evening at the Monfort Centre where the boys dressed in their tribal gear. That's what I plan to look like when I step of the plane next August.