Live From Onboard The Azamara Quest: The Primates Of Borneo

Back in 2009 when I was still trying to visit every country in the world (in fact, every territory in the world), I went bopping around Borneo for a few days. That seems like a lifetime ago and earlier today when I landed at Sandakan onboard the Azamara Quest in the Malaysian state of Sabah, I was excited to be back! I was most excited to do the Primates of Borneo Azamara Shore Excursions tour that I had signed up for. I love monkeys, of which there are several kinds in Borneo, they're always awesome to watch! 

When you arrive in Sandakan port, you are surrounded by industry. Right next to all the mills, etc. is a really cool stilt village that reminded me of the famous one in Benin, West Africa. Also from the port you can see a pretty cool view of the city of Sandakan in the distance. Sandakan is Sabah's second city after Kota Kinabalu.

We took a tour bus to a place called the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. It was a really nice place deep in the jungle, surrounded by some of the coolest and tallest trees I've ever seen. In typical Borneo style the weather was hot, humid and overcast. In the jungle the lighting was bad for photos but I managed to get a few good ones!

They have an orangutan feeding each morning at 10am and they have a platform on which they are fed. The orangutans themselves are fascinating to watch in person. They act like people. In fact, humans share 90% of the same DNA with orangutans.

The feedings are fun to watch but the set-up itself to watch them is poor. You watch from a viewing platform that makes it tough for photography, especially when there are many people crowding the smallish platform. The orangutans are about 100 feet from the platform in the middle of the jungle.

After the orangutans, we headed out to the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. This was easily the highlight of the excursion and just fantastic in general if you're into monkeys.

The proboscis monkeys jump all over the place and are fed in front of you and come into the crowds of people. It is really exciting when they jump into the crowds and people did freak out a little bit but it was always fun and funny!

I could sit there for hours watching them play with each other and watch how their hierarchy works within the group. It is fascinating. The primates of Borneo aside, perhaps the coolest thing I saw was this Oriental Pied Hornbill. It is perhaps the oddest bird I've ever seen and it was kind enough to come right up to us for a photo opp!

We did a brief tour of Sandakan itself on the way back to the ship, but there really isn't much to keep your interest in town. Visit Sandakan to see the monkeys at the reserves.