We are given the history of the centre that was founded in 1973 and sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). We then walk to the feeding platform. On the way our guide and ranger sing their favourite song to the tune of Jingle bells:

Jungle trek,
Jungle trek,
Jungle all the way.
See the monkeys, see the monkeys,
In Bukit Lawang

I will now have that little ditty running around my head for the next 3 weeks!

The ranger goes up onto the platform as we are kept a suitable distance away and puts out some bananas. Some orang-utans appear straight away. Others hold back, rightly wary of human presence. It is amazing to see these beautiful creatures swinging through the trees with such ease and grace. Orang and Utan in the Bahasa Indonesia, the language here, means Man and Forest. In Borneo, some indigenous tribes actually believe them to be a different race of people, hence they are known as 'Wild Man of the Forest'. And they do have some very human-like features and human-like actions; a scratch of the head or armpit, a pick of the nose or pulling a face by stretching out their thick leathery lips. We watch them come in closer, sometimes hanging from one hand as they check us out, sometimes laying back lazily in a branch as if they don't have a care in the world. They wait for the right time to come to the platform and feed. We watch in awe and silence taking photos and feeling privileged to see such magnificent animals at close range.

...this has been allowed not by me, but by the orang-utan itself.

After about an hour we are told it is time to leave them to themselves and we walk back to the centre. On the way we hear a rustle in the undergrowth, we all stop and watch the area as a young orang-utan warily creeps out onto the path in front of us. It looks at us and then starts to move cautiously towards us. I crouch down and hold out my hand. It is nervous but curious. I stay still, slowly it comes forward again and touches my hand. It comes closer and after a couple of minutes allows me to pet him gently and have my photo taken with him. What a feeling I have, this has been allowed not by me, but by the orang-utan itself. We don't stay long here as the animals are really being nurtured away from human interaction so as the same fate does not repeat itself to them or their offspring.

We walk back to the centre feeling amazed at these animals, at the beauty of the area and of the good work of the Bahorok Rehabilitation Centre. It has released more than 100 orang-utans back into the wild since it started. We are also sadly aware of the reason that the centre is needed. Of how much we take our power as humans for granted, how we believe that the rest of the world is ours to do as we please with. How one day, there may be no more stories like this to tell.

 

 

 

©Ian Picken 2004