Muddy feet

My last day in Borneo and I went back to the Sun Bear rehabilitation centre for the morning. I was the only one there for the first 20 minutes. I watched a Sun Bear climb a tree directly in front of me. It was still raining a little when I arrived and it seems Sun Bears like the rain so they were very active for a while, digging for worms and insects. Then later most of them climbed trees and had a snooze. Kala, the young bear that I mentioned before, who paces around because she was kept in a cage, isn’t confident with tree climbing yet so she had a rest at the bottom of a tree. This is her as she tried to get comfortable.

The staff have a couple of telescopes that they use so visitors can get a really close look at the bears. I took the first photo in the extras by putting my phone against the telescope. When the staff threw fruit into the enclosure some of the bears came down from the trees to get it and some stayed sleeping in the trees like the one in the second extra (taken on my camera and cropped a bit).


Borneo has been amazing. The wildlife is incredible. This evening I flew from Sandakan back to Kuala Lumpur. Today is the first day of Ramadan and on the way to the airport this afternoon the traffic was really busy. The driver said it was because everyone had gone out to buy food to prepare for breaking the fast. Apparently in Malaysia at Ramadan, there are more road accidents in the late afternoon when people are hungry and tired, than at other times of year. I did wonder whether just before the end of the fast was a good time to be getting on a plane. I don’t know what air safety regulations say about fasting. At least air traffic control staff would have had plenty time to eat before my flight got to KL!