Courtesy of: Sean Lucas of Chelmsford, Essex, UK

The King of the Swingers courtesy Sean Lucas

The [Sumatra Orangutan Sanctuary] is also host to many other mammals, birds and reptiles and a nice green pit viper was sleeping in

a tree over the top of one of the walkways. Macaque monkeys were flying around making a menace and the whole place is full of the traditional jungle sounds of birds and insects. Unfortunately I didn't get to see any of the hornbills that live there. [The Orangutans'] feeding time was short and straight after it the vast majority of people there jumped straight back into their tourist buses and headed off to the next point of their tour.

I'd paid for a days entry so decided to do some of the parks jungle walks while waiting for the second feeding of the day was at 3pm. I got a pass back at the reception centre to go on a 4km round trip to the Sepilok Water Hole (just after I said I wasn't doing any more trekking). The woman gave me lots of warnings about what to do if I met any macaques or orangutans but I was a lot more worried about meeting any of the vipers that wasn't having a siesta.

As soon as I got into the real jungle the heat and humidity were unbelievable and with the deafening insect noises and monkey calls it really did feel like being completely in the wilderness even though I was only a couple of km from the main road. Halfway to the water hole was a sign for the Birdwatchers tower and I'd just passed the turn when it started raining. Strange rain, I could hear the rain falling for about 5 minutes before water actually made it through the canopy and down to ground level. By then I'm managed to make a tactical decision that the "birdwatchers Tower" probably had a roof and would be a good place to head. I got there and stayed relatively un-rained on although of course once it stopped raining it was a long time before water stopped falling from the canopy. more...

Courtesy of: Myles Dickinson of Calgary, AB, Canada

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...Myles stumbled upon a bird singing competition already in progress, where he met its founder, Mr. Khor. Mr. Khor invited both of us for breakfast, which quickly turned into a whole day affair. After an

extensive eplanation of the judging scheme (showmanship, repertoire, melody and resonance)we left in his van to check out some sights in Kota Bharu. The bird, a red-whiskered bul bul, is endangered in the area, and you must have a licence to own one. You are allowed 10 birds per household, so Mr. Khor has two houses. He has participated in many competions since 1964. more...

Coming Soon: MemoryBook by MyTripJournal

I am pleased to report that we are in the final stages of programming. Our system will provide all travelers with an easy-to-use Wizard to convert their Trip Journals into a beautiful, bound, and printed coffee table book.

Here is a rough outline of what it will look like (but all books will be hardcover and in landscape format). We are all very excited that this new feature, which has been requested by so many of our travelers, is finally coming to market. Best of all, even if your trip happened in the past, so long as you haven't asked us to remove it from our system, you will be able to convert it into a MemoryBook.

More details to follow soon...