Amy of the apes

The veterinary nurse has returned from the hot and wet jungles after spending two months working in an orang-utan clinic eight thousand miles from her Burgess Hill home.

Despite illness, discomfort and a close encounter with a deadly king cobra snake, the 23-year-old says she is ready to return to help save orang-utans from extinction.

Amy is now back at the Coastway Veterinary Group's practice in Shoreham, dealing with cats, dogs and other household pets.

After 53 nights in the rainforest on the Indonesian island, she says caring for the endangered species has been a life-changing experience that has broadened her outlook on life.

The former pupil of Uckfield and Lewes Tertiary Colleges said: "Nothing will ever really be the same again. It was a completely different way of life and, although I have only scratched the surface of it, I know one day I will go back.

"I have always been fascinated by orang-utans and can't wait to be with them again."

Amy, who lives with her mother Pam and sister Faye, flew to Borneo via Bali and Java in September.

The young woman, who once dreamed of becoming an actress said: "I was dead scared. I have never really travelled anywhere on my own before and didn't know what to expect.

"No amount of books can prepare you for life in the rainforest."

Amy had to overcome an alien culture, the language barrier, curious food, and an absence of comforts such as TV, radio, indoor toilets and take-away food.

All this, and she was working with apes five times as powerful as any man.

She recalls: "I loved every minute of it, despite being ill and almost being bitten by a deadly snake."

Amy became quite a celebrity as the local people do not often see European people with blonde hair.

She said: "My hair and white skin really stuck out and I was followed by crowds everywhere I went.

"People mobbed me. It was like being a supermodel but without the high heels and make up.

"I had a smile constantly on my face. At first it was a nervous, gritty smile but soon it became a smile of pure joy.

"As soon as I arrived at the clinic, I realised I was right in at the deep end."

To pay for her voluntary trip, Amy raised £2,000 in ten months. To help prepare herself, she spent one day a week working with gorillas and orang-utans at London Zoo.

She said: "These zoo creatures were behind bars and I felt honoured to be allowed to feed them a lettuce leaf at arm's length.

"When I arrived in Borneo, I suddenly found myself with a baby orang-utan in my arms. I knew I had arrived."

Many young women of Amy's age change babies' nappies. The first nappy Amy changed was on a three-month-old orang-utan called Kadafi. And the baby ape had diarrhoea.

"I was quickly introduced to all the apes at the clinic and told each of their names.

"Initially, they all looked alike but within days I could tell them apart.

Each one had a different personality. I was shocked to realise just how intelligent and human-like they were. They really responded to humans.

"The trick was to take them for granted very quickly, take a deep breath and get on with the job. If you stopped to think you were actually nursing apes, you would be no use to anyone at all."

Within days, Amy picked up a virulent bug that left her sick with diarrhoea for almost a month.

She ignored the discomfort as best she could and knuckled down to work, with frequent trips to the bathroom.

"Bathroom, that was a joke. It was a tiled hole in the ground. I knew every tile intimately by the end of my stay.

"The vets thought I had picked up a mild form of typhoid, despite having all my jabs."

It was during one of her visits to the hole in the ground that she encountered the king cobra.

Amy heard a rustling and felt something touching her foot as she entered the darkened outhouse.

She first thought it was a mouse, then looked and saw it was a snake.

She ran out being chased by the 10ft killer.

"I didn't stop to look back. I just ran and it chased me right into the house and reared up. One of the locals wrestled it and hurled it into the jungle.

"They told me if it had bitten me, I would have been dead inside five minutes. You don't get that every day in Burgess Hill."

Amy was based at the Orang-utan Care and Quarantine Centre, at Pasir Panjang, in Central Kalimantan, the Indonesian name for Borneo.

Her trip was organised by the UK branch of Orang-utan Foundation International.

She spent time with vets from Europe and Indonesia, as well as zoology and anthropology students from all over the world.

Her duties were to assist in surgical procedures as injured or abandoned apes were brought in.

She had to quickly master the Indonesian language to talk to locals and discover how to communicate with the orang-utans "Basically, it was constant contact with the orang-utan and any new arrivals that might be brought in. I spent some time looking after a baby called Paddy. I had to be his surrogate mother. They are very intelligent, loving creatures.

"Walking around with orang-utans of all shapes and sizes clinging to you is something barely describable.

"And don't forget, they are wild animals and stink. In fact, they smell like the insides of musty old garden sheds.

"After a while, I began to smell exactly the same as them."

Amy was based not far from the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, when riots exploded in the Muslim country in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

But she says she could not have felt safer in the rain- forests, where news of the outside world was little more than nasty rumours.

She said: "Getting used to life in the jungle for a townie like me was hard but everyone was so relaxed. In Britain, everyone rushes around but not in Borneo.

"The noises at night of screaming animals were deafening and the rain was unbelievable. It actually fell so hard at times it hurt.

"But I feel honoured and privileged to have followed in the footsteps of so many other volunteers. Despite the snakes, the diarrhoea, the stench and the flies eating my legs, it was a dream come true."