Craig was asked by one of his doctors to come and watch an operation taking place on the east side of Borneo in a town called Sandakan. Because it's 7 hours away we decided to stay for the weekend and go to a place called Sepilok- one the most famous places in Malaysian Borneo. When you arrive at Sepilok you feel like you have finally arrived in Borneo. The hostel was surrounded by a rainforest and you almost feel like the Brits that first colonized this place. Apart from the fact that the hostel served American breakfast which is basically an English breakfast wannabee. Having breakfast at the hostel surrounded by the jungle The pathway leading to the pool Our room for the night Anyone for a BBQ later? There is no shops around, just a rainforest and a famous orangutang rehabilitation center. The rehabilitation center known as a sanctuary was created in the 1960ies mainly to rehabilitate orphaned orangutangs that were either kept illegally as pets or the baby orangutangs that were orphaned due to poaching. The sanctuary is really impressive. It lays on an area as big as 43sq km most of which is a virgin rainforest. When the sanctuary gets an orangutang, it is usually in a poor state and all the effort goes into making it better so in a few years it can released into the sanctuary to live free.What the tourists are allowed to witness, is the feeding of those orangutangs that still rely on the food from humans. Even though you are not allowed to touch them or to feed them yourself, the sight is still pretty impressive. You watch silently together with 200 other people how they feed,and it really makes you realize as to how much they are like humans. Maybe that is why orangutang in translation means ''the man of the forrest.'' Spot the third monkey 100 % humans fascinated by the 97 % humans Me and Craig in the sanctuary With dogs dressed up in clothes, it was just a matter of time for them But actually maybe they are not as similar to us as we think. Orangutangs are endangered species wit only about 30 000 left of them in Borneo and a part of Sumatra. The reason why they are endangered apart from the poaching is one thing- Palm oil. Their natural habitat is being destroyed or deforested to make room for a palm oil plantations. Palm oil is the cheapest oil, used in cheap chocolate, soaps, cooking and millions of other things. This morning I got breakfast at the hostel in Sandakan which consisted of pancakes with palm sugar which looks like maple sirup. I have decided to try the palm sugar to see whether the taste is so exquisite as to justify taking the orangutangs natural habitat away from them and whether it is worth endangering a species for it.I have tasted it and decided that it is really not worth it.