Meeting Ritchie the Orang Utan

Mother Delima ( 23 years old) with young Selina (4 years old)
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Monday 11 August 2008

Kuching

Orang utans -their long gangly arms and legs dangling all over the place are an unmistakable feature of these wonderful animals.

The day began with a fairly uninteresting City Tour during which we viewed the South and North City Town Halls and a temple or two. We saw some fairly tall modern buildings and others under construction. Of note, is the impressive and architecturally challenging new Parliament house which is under construction but due for completion later this year – oh yes, maybe! Kuching is not a big or bad city but at the same time doesn’t have a lot to offer. There are several photos on Google images… just punch in Kuching.

Just hanging around waiting for dinner.
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One place that is quite different to other cities is the Cat Museum dedicated to the common moggie. Yes, you read that right. Not a museum to the big cats of Africa and Asia but to the common household moggie. In fact Kuching is known as the city of cats. There are statues of cats all over the place. They take pride of place in the middle of roundabouts and on prominent street corners. And, strangely, the moggies I saw wandering around only have short tails, often with a distinct bend at the tip, a la Laos. Their tails look like they had a door slammed shut a nanosecond before they were fully through it! Just as I learnt in Laos the story goes that there was a big dominant Tom Cat with a moth-eaten tail who passed on his genes. He must have had a whale of a time because I didn’t see a cat with what I would call a full length tail.

Poster for "Cats" the musical in the city of cats - Kutching
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In the afternoon Nathan, Amanda and I decided to pay RM25 each, a bit less than AUD10, to visit an orang utan park, a 40 minute mini-bus ride away. The park is run by the forestry department ( www.sarawakforestry.com and follow the links) as a rescue, rehabilitation and relocation centre. Orphaned, abandoned and illegally kept animals are brought here to get used to their new surroundings in a natural uncaged environment. At regular times the rangers feed the orang utans, much to the delight of the onlookers.

Sanctuary for rescue, rehabilitaion and relocation of Orang Utangs
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‘Ritchie’, who is 28 years old, is the dominant male and he showed up to watch over the feeding and to have some bananas for himself. A dozen or more other animals came for a feed too, including a 23 year old mum (Delima) and her four year old offspring (Selina) who walked passed me no more than a metre away. There were other juveniles and babies all cavorting in the trees and swinging on the ropes placed in them for the purpose of getting from one place to another without coming down to the ground. Their long gangly arms and legs dangling all over the place are an unmistakable feature of these wonderful animals. It was indeed a privilege to be in their company.

Big Ritchie, 28years old, the dominant male in the park
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We arrived back at the waterfront at about 16h30 and walked the short distance back to the hotel. During our city tour earlier in the day we noticed that a food fair was to take place that night near the South City Hall, around a thirty minute walk from our hotel. It was a unanimous decision that we would return for dinner.The ‘food fair’ turned out to be a trade fair as well but, as we weren’t in the market for cars, trucks or such like, we made straight for the food stalls. There must have been 50 outlets all serving small sized portions of all sorts of delicacies, both savoury and sweet, each at a very cheap RM2.50-3.00 (that’s less than an AUD each). We bought and shared and tasted and had a whale of a time. The stalls were set out in an ‘L’ shape so we walked along one side with full intentions of doing the other side on the way back. At the end we decided to sit down for a while to let what we’d already eaten settle for a bit and to watch the world go by. The whole time we were there we didn’t see another ‘paleface’.

A storm started building on the horizon with big black threatening clouds so we moved under cover just in case. The locals didn’t seem to be bothered much until the first bolt of lightning and crash of thunder put some urgency into their steps. Tables under cover were much sort after and soon the area became very crowded – all good fun. The locals even offered us some of their food to taste and we felt very ‘included’. The rain pelted down …and kept coming, and coming. We had hoped that as it had come in a hurry, it would clear just as fast, but this was not to be. Only one of us had a coat or an umbrella so a taxi seemed a wise choice for our journey back to the hotel. Of course, everybody else in town thought the same and taxis were as rare as hen’s teeth. We were told there was a hotel on the other side of the busy road some 200 metres away and that there were usually taxis available there. On the way there we managed to hail a cab but it was allowed to take only four passengers, we were five! ‘OK! No problems,’ said the driver, ‘all the windows are fogged up so no-one can see in anyway!’

His taxi was the size of a small car and with Amanda in the front; that left four of us in the back. I travelled most of the way levitated towards the roof…there was just not enough room between the armrests on the opposite doors to accommodate four sets of Western thighs. It was a cheeky affair! A couple of extra Ringgit were added to the fare to make the driver happy… and we were happy to be back at the hotel not much worse for wear and only a total of RM13 between us, lighter in the pocket.

What we did miss out on though was the other side of the ‘L’ at the food fair. What delights we passed up we will never know but if they were half as good as the side we managed to sample, it was our loss. Mind you, none of us were going home hungry so perhaps it was better we didn’t have the chance to stuff ourselves further.

More anon David