The Semenggoh WC is easily one of most popular attractions for visitors to Kuching. Located only 40 minutes drive due south of the city along Jalan Puncak Borneo, this is the place where the orangutans free-range in habitat that resembles their original homes in the deep interior.
Form the viewers' platform looking to the feeding platform
The main viewing platform in the jungle
Visitors who take public buses and tour coaches will be dropped off at the entrance of the centre, whereby it is a 20 minutes sweaty trek into the viewing area, or hop on to shuttle vans for the short ride in. Those who have private vehicles drive the narrow road straight in to the inner car park and walk the short slope down to the viewing area. The actual designated viewing platform is another 5 minutes walk inside the secondary jungle. With reasonable tree canopy to shield the sunlight, the wooden viewing stand is on one side of a ravine while the feeding platform for the apes is about 50 feet away on the other side.
This female orangutan and her baby is on the walkway of the centre looking for food.
There are about 26 orangutans here ranging in ages from 1 to 40 years old, and everyone has a name. The celebrity here is the dominant male named Ritchie, a monster of an ape with long flowing mane on his hand and large cheek pads. Audible gasps among the spectators can be heard when he makes his dramatic appearance. Then there’s Delima, nicknamed Hot Momma, not because of anything else but her propensity to claim a victim among the viewers with her bite “at least once a year”, according to the park warden.
Orangutan feeding on tree buds and wild fruits.
Wounds from orangutan attack at the centre, never fatal, are documented in graphic details at the viewing area and a mandatory lecture by the warden to this effect is given to the spectators before they are let into the feeding platform.
Female orangutan and her baby picking up trash bags
Orangutans are fascinating creatures and have actions and demeanors very much like human being’s. Their limbs holding fruits and peeling them are uncannily human-like. They can drink from bottles, smash coconuts against tree trunks to drink its water, and even catch coconuts and other fruits thrown at them! Their fluid movements among the trees and tree vines are so graceful compared to the jumps and leaps of other smaller apes especially the macaques.
This pair seems to say "Show's over, folks! We're going home!"
The are two feeding times daily, at 9.00am and 3.00pm and usually last for an hour after which the park rangers will politely usher the crowd to return to the entrance. It is amazing how the apes materialized from nowhere among the jungle’s tree canopy daily at the appointed time and almost punctually take their leave after finishing the meals an hour later. Morning time viewing is cooler than the hotter afternoon session, besides there is often the threat of thunderstorm in the late afternoon. However chances of seeing them are the same in both sessions. During fruiting seasons, usually towards the end of the year, fewer apes may come out to the feeding area as fruits are readily available inside the forest, in fact there are occasions when even after an hour of waiting, none turn up at the appointed time.
