B Is for Borneo

Sunrise at Mount Kinabalu -- if I remember correctly -- which I did not climb

One of my favorite trips, and one of my trips least documented by photographs, was a trip to Sabah, one of the states of Malaysia. Sabah, in the Northern part of  Borneo, and Sarawak are Malaysian states. They share the island with several Indonesian states and the Sultanate of Brunei. 

Unlike many of my trips, my visit to Borneo was not a long time dream. One of my friends saw an advertisement for a relatively last-minute trip that included a visit to the orangutan sanctuary in Borneo. It was literally, buy one trip and a guest travels for free. It piqued both of our interests and we signed up. Unlike Antarctica, there wasn't a decade of reading, planning and dreaming. Off we went on a trip of 9,142 miles from New York City via Los Angeles to Taiwan to the capital of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu. 

Though the date in the bottom right corner of the photograph is is September 2002, I'm reasonably sure that I went to Borneo in 2000, and I know I definitely wasn't there in 2002. If you remember those long ago days of 2000 we didn't have smart phones with cameras that are really tiny photo labs. I went to Borneo phone-less, armed only with my digital camera. Besides taking a number of very blurry pictures, as demonstrated above, the film-using camera malfunctioned during our visit to the baby orangutan sanctuary. I was heart broken to lose all of my baby orangutan pictures.  

Though most of the photos were lost, what remained from this trip to Borneo was my interest in the orangutans. I was fascinated seeing them in their forest environment and learning how orphaned orangutans are rehabilitated so that they can return to the forest. I also learned that as more and more of Sabah is developed, the future of orangutans is endangered. During my visit I adopted Rosie and more recently I adopted Joyce from International Animal Rescue's Borneo Orangutan Rescue. 

My adopted orangutan, Joyce

My hope for Joyce and her orangutan companions is that they will soon be able 

to leave the sanctuary and return to life with other orangutans in the forest. 

I spent most of today getting through a number of indoor errands. I got to serious kitchen cleaning, bill paying, decluttering and shredding. It was great to cross a number of things off my list. I also spent time sorting through boxes of photographs looking for ideas for blog posts later in the month. We've only just begun our Blogging Around the World from A to Z  challenge. 

As ever, thanks for visiting and take care. Much love and wash your hands!