It was an early morning today as I had to get down to the orangu tan sanctuary by 9AM to see the feeding. I grabbed a quick bowl of noodles and cha siew (I like the taste of that much better than Alex’s haw siew) and a water and walked to the bus station. After hopping on my bus it was about an hour bus ride to the sanctuary. From there we walked along a pathway to where the wardens office and feeding areas are
At almost 9AM on the dot, you could hear the sound of branches cracking and leaves rustling as the orangu tans swung their way through the trees to the feeding pits. They eventually slid down and ate the fruit. A couple brave ones even walked around the pathway, only a couple metres from the people. We ventured to a few more feeding pits deeper into the jungle before the orangu tans disappeared back into the jungle.
After returning to town I grabbed a quick bite to eat at a food market and then went to the bus station to figure out my route to the crocodile farm. The lady at the counter mentioned the next feeding time was 3PM. Since it was only 12PM, I figured a good way to beat the heat was to duck into a Starbucks and wait out the hottest part of the day with an ice coffee. I then jumped on my bus and made my way on the 1.5 hour ride to Jong’s Crocodile Farm. The farm doubled as a zoo with many types of animals there. However, the vast majority of them were the huge salt water crocodiles. He had 4 huge pools with 8+ crocodiles in each one. The main attraction was when they would string food up on a line about 1m above the water and the crocodiles would launch themselves up into the air and snatch the food away.
The bus ride back from the crocodile farm was an adventure in itself. Just as I was exiting the farm you could hear the thunder overhead and see the rain clouds coming in (and there’s no such thing as a light shower here) so I asked the lady where the closest bus stop was. Ah wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here. First a little background on the bus system here. There are no assigned bus stops here. There are stops but to get on the bus you have to stand at these stations and flag the bus down before it passes you. This means, as the bus is coming at you, you have to read the bus sign quickly to make sure it’s the one you want and flag it down before it zips by you. Getting off the bus is even more chaotic. It seems like whenever you want or get off you hit the buzzard and the guy opens the door wherever he is (even if it’s on a busy highway) and you jump off right there. So I’m standing at one of these stops with buses flying by me when it begins to pour. I decide I’m flagging down the next bus and jumping on it. I finally flag a bus down and I walk up to the bus driver and say “Kuching city centre?”. There’s a moment of silence where he looked confused (which shakes my confidence a bit) but says yes and nods. I figure thats good enough for me and I take a seat. After a nervous 25 minutes where we’re driving through areas I don’t recognize at all from my ride out the farm, we eventually hit the main highway back to Kuching and make it back to the station. The bus itself was a piece of crap. Everything was shaking, the inside was wet because the windows didn’t close properly and looked like the old school buses from my elementary days. At least I know where all our old cheese wagons go now.
After getting back I’m planning on hitting up the top spot food court again for more seafood. As it’s October 31, I think there’s a Halloween party in the bar underneath it (no doubt for North Americans because no one else celebrates it) so I might check that out with a Dutch guy I met yesterday. Tomorrow I’m either cave exploring or going to another national park.
Daily Extra:
Good to see the Kuching branch of the family pharmacy is going strong.
Daily Double?!? I spoil you guys:
Probably the worst time to drive is when school ends (it seems like it’s at 1PM here). When parents go to pick their kids up they’ll drive their car in front of the school and just throw it in park wherever it might be . They then leave their car, even if it’s in the middle of the road.