I’ve just been to Borneo and the land of sweaty and insect-infested jungle, rare and unusual monkeys such as the Probiscus or orang-utan and even (previously) cannibalistic tribal groups.

Mother and baby orang-utan, Semenggok Rehabilitation Centre

I’m in the process of updating photos to my website on this amazing region in East Malaysia. My favourite so far is this one of a female orang-utan with her baby. The baby was quite nervous about the watching crowd and shrank into its mothers hairy armpits but the mother drank milk and ate fruit without batting an eyelid.

At the rehabilitation centre the animals are fed twice a day because the forest simply can not sustain the numbers there. Some travellers felt the centre was little more than a glorified zoo because while the animals were free to come and go as they pleased they had also become dependent on the food provided. My feeling was at least they were safe from poachers and deforestation by staying near the centre. And the guaranteed opportunity of seeing a semi-wild orang-utan was too great a chance to pass up.

I’ll be uploading more images of Borneo over the coming weeks to this page.

——–

Feel free to email Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com