1. What is Semenggoh and where is it?
The Semenggoh Nature Reserve (sometimes spelled as Semenggok) is on the island of Borneo near Kuching, and is one of the few places where you can see semi-wild orangutans near a city, without having to do a hike in the jungle. It is mainly an orangutan sanctuary, where they train orangutans who have been rescued from captivity, how to survive in the wild on their own.
Do you want to see orangutans in the wild? Try Gunung Leuser in Indonesia – see my detailed guide here.
The park is home to about 20 orangutans, some of them babies. Most of the orangutans have already learnt how to find food for themselves and how to survive in the jungle on their own, but the park still provides them with food twice daily. These are the only times when you can see them if you visit the park. Feeding times are at about 9am and at about 2pm (see the photo below).
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2. Why visit? – Semi-wild orangutans in Semenggoh
If you are lucky, you will be able to see a few semi-wild orangutans in the park, if and when they come to grab a few bananas during the feeding time (9am-10am and 3pm-4pm).
Keep in mind that you may not be lucky, and prepare for this to avoid huge disappointments. When I was there, the park guide explained that most of the orangutans don’t want to use the free lunch (and breakfast) any more, and they, the carers are more than happy with this. Because this means, that the orangutans don’t need to depend on humans for food, they can find their own themselves in the jungle. He also said that the previous day there was not a single orangutan coming for lunch, so tourists had to leave without seeing them.
Should you be there on such an unlucky day, you can perhaps visit the next day, too, if you have time – the price is not that high (see below).
When you arrive at the park entrance (a good 20 minute walk from the bus stop), you will be given a briefing by the park guides on how to behave and what to do when you go to the actual feeding platform. One of the most important rules is that you should keep silent at all times so that you shouldn’t scare the orangutans (away). Now in my group of 20 or so people, there were quite a lot of small children, too, who just couldn’t stop talking or even shouting. If you have small children, I suggest that you should prepare them very well before you go and during the visit, too.
3. Getting to Semenggoh from Kuching and back
There are numerous tour agencies who offer you organised tours to Semenggoh, for good money, of course. You can use them if you are not travelling on a budget and if you don’t want to organise anything yourself – although you will still have to call them, write to them or visit them personally to book the tour. Now this effort will also be perfectly enough to organise it yourself. Actually, all you have to “organise” is getting to the park and back to Kuching. Here are your options for that:
One easy option is calling a taxi – in my case, the taxi in Southeast Asia always means Grab or Gojek where it is available. Both will have either cars or motorbikes, and in all cases, they will me much cheaper than a regular taxi. Download their app to use them.
An even more budget friendly option, especially for solo travellers, is the public bus. You will need the K6 bus, which leaves from near the wet market and the large mosque in the city centre. For the morning feeding, take the 7am bus, for the afternoon feeding, the 1pm bus. From the bus stop at Semenggoh, you will have to walk up a hill for about 20 minutes. There is a road, no need to hike in the jungle. You can wear shorts, you will only have to walk very briefly in the forest to the feeding platform.
I went for the afternoon feeding, and when it was over, I had to hurry to catch the bus back to Kuching. The bus costs 4RM one way. You will also have to pay for the park entrance, the fee is 10RM per person (for foreigners).
