A
little bit later - Day 2 continued ……….
Today
turned out to be a day full of mixed emotions.
Our
first stop was to the Orangutang sanctuary. This was great fun and the
orangutangs really turned on a great show for us especially one little guy
called Sen. As we were walking along the pathway, Sen jumped down right near us
and really turned it on - he had us all mesmerised with the way he was acting.
He was very comfortable with us all around and was quite the show off!
We
then went to the sun bears, which are the smallest bears in the world. These
bears are often captured by locals and killed for their gall bladders. The bile
is used as an aphrodisiac. Some locals also capture the cubs and keep them in
cages as pets. This sanctuary has now been set up to rehabilitate them and
allow them back into the wild, which can take years as often the cubs have
never experienced the jungle.
After
leaving here we made our way to the Sandakan Memorial park which incorporates
the original Sandakan POW Camp. Here we got to see where the Australian,
british and Japanese compounds were, sites where lots of POWs were buried as
they died from malaria, starvation, beatings, etc.
We
all formed a horseshoe around the sandakan memorial and spent some quiet time
paying our respects to the POW's who went through such atrocities at the hands
of the Japanese. It was very real and very moving.
We
left this memorial really well armed with lots of knowledge about the Trek we
are about to embark on.
No comments:
Post a Comment