close encounter with tim's kind

so today we got up and went into town to see the sarawak museum. it was approx. 789 degrees in the sun, so by the time we got into the museum, we were quite literally wanting to make out with the A/C. the museum was great, with all kinds of cool stuff like a watch and a giant hairball with human teeth that were removed from a croc that was blown out of the water by hand grenades, and a replica of an ibah longhouse with about 30 human skulls hanging from the ceiling. rad. (we're going to stay in a longhouse tomorrow, but tim thinks that they prob won't have human skulls there b/c they are not head hunters anymore, but i should be worried if they start fondling the mullet.)

from there, we went to the post office to catch the AWESOME 1960's green and cream school bus lacking any kind of A/C whatsoever to the orangutan sanctuary. before we got the bus, we picked up some water and some cheezy-weezies (twisties, or cheetos to those of you unfortunately unrelated to me).we got on the bus and ate about half of them on the 45 min journey.

at the sanctuary, we had a LONG walk in the HOT sun to get to the monkeys, but when we got there, we were happy to be in the shade. we walked down to cage 1, which had a depressed looking croc in a depressed-looking cage. depressed, we turned around to walk to cage 2, when who should lumber around the corner but MAMA MONKEY with her baby girl. let me tell you: orangutans ain't small. this one was about as tall as i am (she had bad posture, just like me) and she was scary, up close and personal. tim said for us to get off the walkway and pretend not to see her (as if that was possible), so we did, but she wasn't to be deterred. she grabbed tim's plastic bag of cheezy-weezies and tried to take it. he resisted briefly until i wailed, TIM, GIVE HER THE BAG (as i cowered under a bush), so he did. she opened the bag, took out the empty mentos box, threw it away, tossed the water bottles, and then took out the delicious cheezy-weezies. she grabbed the baby, and climbed the first tree she could.

of course, a ranger immediately came out and gave us the stinkeye. dude, how were we supposed to know orangutans were going to be running around out in the open?! the german couple from our bus started taking pictures, and then were told to get away from her because she could get aggressive at any moment (these friggers clearly hadn't been to the ubud forest of doom). all standing at a distance, we told the germans about our encounter, and the wife said, 'i thought it was funny she was eating chips!'

tim of course was very distressed that he had fed such bad junk food to what could be his twin sister--and his niece, but i think mama monkey was ok with it. soon after, her son came swinging over, and eventually, the rangers gave us bananas, sweet potatoes and papayas to feed them (but no cheezy-weezies). tim has a great old video of me trying to toss the food to the son, to no avail. note to self: papayas are hard to throw--and catch! there was a polish duo on our bus too, who was sitting around eating fruit, and it took no time at all for mama to come over and demand their watermelon. monkeys are FUNNY.