There's a lot to like about Kuching. It's surprisingly clean, for one thing. The river is a muddy river, of course, but after our trips up and down the Malacca Strait, we were expecting the same type of floating debris that we saw there, which was everything that could be tossed into a dumpster. When we were up the Klang River we figured that if one were poor and needed to dumpster dive, all one needed to do was to sit alongside the river bank for a day and everything that might be needed to furnish a house would float past. The Sarawak River has debris floating past, but it's primarily organic - logs (some of them very large logs), leaves, tree branches, etc. Almost no plastic or paper goods float by. It's true that where the fishing boats and large ships are berthed there's a lot of oil on the water, but we are now anchored well upstream of the commercial docks, in a small kampong called Pending, so we are fortunately free of that type of pollution. In the city of Johore Bahru, on peninsular Malaysia, we had difficulties finding a place to dispose of our trash, yet here just a short walk from where we tie our dinghy we have a choice of two dumpsters. Not to get too enthusiastic, though. Each of the houses along the river where we are anchored (shacks, really, many of which we are sure are squatter shacks) has no real plumbing. Everything is flushed into the river. We're not about to dig for clams along the river bank. 

We also went to the Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre about an hour's bus ride outside of Kuching, where young Orang Utangs, who were either orphaned or rescued from captivity, are trained to survive in the wild. It is located in the Semenggoh Forest Reserve. It is not a zoo, though there are many animals on display; endangered animals that have been confiscated from poachers and illegal traders. The highlight was seeing a semi-wild Orang Utan come by at feeding time, though he didn't come down to feed, just to visit. The goal of the Centre is to reintroduce these animals into the wild, and thus it is successful if they don't come back to the centre. Orang Utan is the Malay (or Indonesian) spelling: "Orang" means person, or human being; "Utan" (or "hutan") means forest, so they are thought of, in the Malay language, as forest people, or “man of the forest.” Native to only Borneo and Sumatra, there is tremendous pressure on their habitat to convert forest into palm oil plantations. It is so sad, because Sumatra and the majority of Borneo is Indonesian, which has too great a population to have much incentive to preserve habitat for an ape when people need more land. They are safer on the Malaysian side of Borneo, which has fewer population pressures, but even in Malaysia the land is being taken for commercial ventures, pushing the Orang Utans into smaller and smaller enclaves. 

During the fires in 1997 and 1998 many of the Orang Utans were driven out of the forests and were killed by villagers when they were caught foraging for food in the gardens. How many were killed during the fires is anybody's guess, but the experts said it was excessive and may have dealt a mortal blow to their chances of survival in the wild. How sad, they seem so.... human. 

Only the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia can protect these wonderful apes: by establishing large forest reserves for them, and by stopping the plantation owners from setting the dreadful fires that seem to rage out of control two years out of every three. 

The center is also a botanical Research Center, and the forest walk is most peaceful as well as educational. Orchids! Just growing all over the place! Exotic Pitcher Plants, and lots more. Eat your heart out, all you aspiring cultivators of exotic plants.
 

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