The Travelling Stomach: Visiting the Orangutans in Borneo at Tanjung Puting National Park

When should I visit the orangutans in Borneo?

June or September – To avoid the rush of visitors coming to see the orangutans in Borneo in July and August visit during shoulder season. There will be way less people, with a maximum of 15 boats at each feeding station instead of over 30. The weather is still fairly dry, although it has been a touch more unpredictable in recent seasons, not that this puts the orangutans off coming for their bananas!

July or August – For the best weather visit during July or August, the driest months in Borneo, however this is also the most popular time to visit. Expect much more crowded feeding stations as everyone tries to see the orangutans.

How do I get to Borneo?

The easiest way to get to Tanjung Puting national park is to fly into Pangkalan Bun airport. There are a few direct flights each day from Jakarta (1 hour flight) and other Indonesian airports. Be aware that these flights tend to be operated by small airlines without a website, therefore you will have to book via an online agent such as Nusa Trip. If you have booked a tour prior to arriving in Borneo your tour operator may be able to assist in booking your flights. In peak season these flights get booked up quickly so make sure you are ahead of the game!

The airport is a 25 minute drive from Kumai pier, where you will board your kelotok ready for your rainforest adventure. If you have a pre-booked tour, the tour operator will likely meet you at the airport and take you to the pier by private car, with the opportunity to stop off enroute for any supplies. If you arrive into Tanjung Puting without a tour you can easily find several companies at the airport selling spots on their boats leaving later that day (sometimes this is not the case in peak season if all the kelotoks are full).

What should I pack to take to Borneo?

Aboard the kelotok your luggage is stored on the top deck of the boat alongside where you eat, sleep and chill. It is essential to be able to easily access anything you will need during your trip without unpacking your entire suitcase across the floor of the boat (sometimes cheeky monkeys might try to steal your belongings!), therefore I recommend using packing cubes. You can easily organise the clothes you need for your orangutan experience without getting your other clothes dirty.

Although tours to visit the orangutans in Borneo are often  phrased as jungle trekking, the walk to the three feeding stations in Tanjung Puting is along a well-trodden, relatively easy path. You do not need to bring serious walking shoes, a comfortable pair of trainers will suffice, along with a pair of flip flops to wear on the boat so you don’t spread dirt across the deck!

With humidity levels often exceeding 80% in the rainforest, I recommend wearing very thin, breathable clothes that will also dry quickly if you get caught in a downpour. The baggy trousers you can pick up at night markets in Asia are perfect! If you opt to partake in the night trek (arachnophobes beware) make sure you can tuck your trousers into your socks to avoid blood sucking leeches.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: The Travelling Stomach: Visiting the Orangutans in Borneo at Tanjung Puting National Park

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The Travelling Stomach: Seeking Orangutans in Borneo

With a love for Attenborough programmes and a resulting curiosity in all wild animals, especially those closely related to ourselves, Borneo had been on our bucket list for a while.

Not only for the orangutans but also for the bizarre proboscis monkeys that aren’t found anywhere else in the world.

Our tour into the Bornean rainforest was hosted by the team at Orangutan Applause, who guided us around the waters to see some of the world’s most incredible wildlife.

How can you not fall in love with such adorable, human-like creatures?!

The Orangutans

The main reason most people visit Borneo are these ginger haired apes.

There are three feeding stations located within Tanjung Puting national park which are open for tourists to visit and catch a glimpse of these amazing creatures getting their fill of bananas and sugar cane.

We visited each of these once during our two day tour and every time were lucky enough to see quite a large group of orangutans, giving us the opportunity to get some phenomenal shots as they swung in the trees above us and clambered down to grab a stash of food.

A word of warning: get there early if you want a seat on the benches, but don’t be afraid to lose your seat if you can get a better view elsewhere.

We visited in early September and the platforms were fairly busy but we could always get a great view.

Arif, our guide, warned us that over 30 boats moor up to watch these incredible creatures in peak season!

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: The Travelling Stomach: Seeking Orangutans in Borneo

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Indonesian Backpacker: Tanjung Puting National Park, The Wonder Of Borneo

Declared as a national park in 1982, Tanjung Puting National Park encloses different types of ecosystem including the lowland tropical forest, dry-land forest, peat swamp forest, mangrove forest, coastal forest and secondary forest.

Tanjung Puting supports the natural habitat of various endemic wildlife on the brink of extinction such as the proboscis monkey, agile gibbon and sun bear.

Rivers that meander across the sanctuary are populated by the arowana or dragon fish, false gharial, saltwater crocodile and soft-shelled turtle.

A variety of large mammals also inhabit the wilderness of Tanjung Puting, such as the common muntjac, bearded pig and Javan mouse-deer.

The national park is recognized for its orangutan rehabilitation center, the first of its kind in Indonesia.

The rehabilitation center is spread across three main locations: Tanjung Harapan, Pondok Tanggui and Camp Leakey.

At Tanjung Harapan a raised platform function as a feeding area for orangutans.

This activity is the most awaited moment of the tourists when visit to Tanjung Puting National Park.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Indonesian Backpacker: Tanjung Puting National Park, The Wonder Of Borneo

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Monkeying around in Borneo: a voluntourism trip with a difference

I’ve got a hammer in my hand when the cry goes up: “Orangutan in the camp.” Nine people down tools and grab their cameras and a chance to snap one of the critically endangered primates that we are here to help on our three-week stay in Indonesian Borneo.

Rimba, a 17-year-old male orangutan, doesn’t disappoint: he circles the camp, going from tree to tree just a few metres above our heads for almost 30 minutes, hooting gruffly if anyone comes too close.

It’s a well-earned reward for our group, which has spent a week sawing, hammering, chiselling, drilling and painting in the 32C heat and almost 100% humidity of the jungle.

The Pondok Ambung research post, operated by the UK-based Orangutan Foundation, is little more than a handful of single-storey wooden and concrete buildings.

We got here by driving from the regional capital, Pangkalan Bun, then taking a four-hour boat ride from the port of Kumai, along the Buluh Kecil river in central Kalimantan (the Indonesian name for Borneo).

We’re surrounded by towering ironwood trees, which form a canopy 50 metres above our heads, blocking out sunshine but trapping moisture and heat.

Below it the thick tropical rainforest is alive with small things that crawl and fly.

There’s no mobile signal, let alone broadband. Our luxuries are packets of sweets and biscuits rationed to last the duration of our trip; a plate of sliced watermelon or oranges is greeted with delight.

As Kalimantan is a dry state, the detox is physical as well as digital, and by the end of the first week we each feel we’ve sweated out more toxins than in a year of hot yoga.

The Orangutan Foundation runs its volunteer programme every summer, attracting adventurers who fly at their own expense and pay £800 to spend three weeks sleeping in basic accommodation and building infrastructure for the full-time Indonesian research staff, forest wardens and visiting students.

Over the past 15 years, volunteers have built facilities including guard posts and boardwalks in Tanjung Puting national park, further south in Borneo, and the Lamandau wildlife reserve, a few hundred kilometres to the east.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Monkeying around in Borneo: a voluntourism trip with a difference

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Bobo and Chichi: Searching for Orangutans in the Borneo Jungle

Its not often you get to see endangered animals in the wild. Let alone witness them for four days straight while riding your own private boat through the jungles of Borneo. That’s just what we got to experience during our adventure in Borneo Jungle by boat.

This entire trip is all a special thanks to our friends Katy and Emil, who we met in Laos last year. The four of us instantly hit it off during our trip to Nong Khiaw and we ended up traveling together for the next week. The two of them did this exact experience last year and told us about it. They loved it so much they said they wanted to do it again, this time with us!

One of the most unexpected and one of our favorite parts about traveling long term would be the friends you meet along the way from all over the world. Meeting back up with them again somewhere else is even more exciting.

So thanks to our friends we were set up for four incredible days in the jungle. On their last trip they learned how to get the most of their experience starting with finding the best guide to take you on the boat with their crew which made our four days one of the most memorable travel experiences to date.

Our Guide

Our friends met Chris on their first trip. During one of the walks they were paired up with Chris and were impressed with his knowledge of the jungle as well as respect other jungle guides gave him. They couldn’t help but wonder how much better the trip was with Chris instead of their original guide, and decided to book this trip through Chris.

We couldn’t have had a better guide!

Chris is such a fascinating person. Having grown up part of his life in the middle of the jungle, he’s devoted his entire adulthood to sharing his home and teaching others about the jungle and the orangutans who live there. He made our trip complete, his company was one of the best highlights of our experience.

Chris would take us with a crew consisting of a captain, captain’s assistant, and a chef for the next 3 nights through the jungles of Borneo (Kalimantan) to watch the orangutans at the three different feeding stations as well as wild sightings in the jungle from our boat.

During our walks through the jungle he would stop and point out any interesting insects or plants that might interest us and explain what it was. There were a few occasions where he would find plants and tell us about the medicinal purpose and have us try it! I got to try a bitter plant that is said to help treat malaria.

From giving us jungle medicine, making Katy and I queens for day with crowns made of leaves and sticks, treating us after leeches attacked our feet, helping us with a magic eucalyptus oil for our itchy bug bites, and introducing us to the orangutans he knew by name, teaching us about every animal we saw in the wild, he was the best damn jungle guide we could have had and wouldn’t go back again without him!

I seriously could write a whole book about how awesome Chris is. A few small paragraphs just isn’t enough. Seriously, this is the guy that Nat Geo calls when they need a jungle guide to take their photographers to spot wild animals. If Chris had a resume to hand out, it would be freaking impressive.

Life on the Boat

We set off for three nights on a klotok, our wooden boat, where we would be cruising through Tanjung Puting National Park and the Sekonyer River to three different orangutan feeding stations and any stops for sightseeing we wanted to make along the way. We loved sitting at the front of the boat and looking for any animals in the wild. From looking high in the trees for proboscis, macaques, gibbons, and orangutans to looking in the water for vicious crocodiles. We would get a lucky treat of seeing a giant hornbill from time to time as well.

Some of our favorite times of this trip were spent on the boat just cruising down the beautiful river, bonding with our guide, and looking for wild animals.

We would sleep on a mattress with a bug net on the top floor of our wooden vessel each night hoping a huntsman spider didn’t join us at some point in the middle of the night. We went to bed when the sun went down and woke up each day when the sun came up.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Bobo and Chichi: Searching for Orangutans in the Borneo Jungle

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A Backpackers Tale: 48 Hours with Orangutans In Borneo

A group of rickety boats bobbed up and down forming a large line shooting out from the dock. Ducking through hobbit sized bulkheads and over railings, we jumped from deck to deck slowly making our way across the floating bridge.

After hopping a half of dozen boats, we came to a small blue one, our new home for the next 48 hours.

“In a few moments, we would start our journey down the river to Camp Leaky, an Borneo orangutan sanctuary located deep in the jungle.”

The Rare Wildlife of Indonesia

This wasn’t my first time to the islands of Indonesia. However, it was my first to beautiful Borneo. I’ve always wanted to visit the third largest island in the world. Borneo is teeming with mangrove trees, thick jungles, and exotic wildlife.

It is also home to rare animals found almost exclusively here like the long-nosed proboscis monkey and the largest tree-dwelling ape in the world, the orangutan.

Due to habitat loss, the orangutans are endangered and only found in Borneo and Sumatra. In Borneo, these animals are protected in the area surrounding Camp Leaky called the Tanjung Puting National Reserve. Here in Borneo Camp Leaky Orangtuans are taken care of by rangers.

This camp was set up by Dr. Louis Leaky who mentored Jane Goodall. (There is your fun fact for the day.)

Into the Jungles of Borneo

There was an air of excitement as the five of us piled onto our boat. We sat under the roof of the top deck eager to escape the scorching heat of the midday sun.

This deck served as our living room, dining room, and even our bedroom throughout our journey.

As we dropped our bags and camera equipment, the boat began chugging its way down the river.  Within a few moments,  we were surrounded by jungle and all traces of civilization disappeared.

Sweat rolled down our foreheads, as different types of ice cream became the main topic of discussion.

The thick forest of Tanjung Puting National Reserve surrounded us. Mangrove trees loomed over the boat as we coasted down the dark waters and deep into the belly of the jungle. We leaned against the rails, eagerly scanning the banks for signs of crocodiles, apes, monkeys, and other wildlife.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: A Backpackers Tale: 48 Hours with Orangutans In Borneo

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Every Footstep an Adventure: Guide to Borneo Orangutan Trekking in Tanjung Puting National Park

When I was a small child, you wouldn’t find me playing house, but instead running high and low with a raggedy brown duffel bag in tow — I was playing Explorer. I would stuff my trusty brown bag with a few pairs of underwear and some essential travel gadgets.

This meant, of course, my plastic red hammer, a skipping rope (to help me climb!), a tiny compass, and a few other items that would change as the situation did. And then I would wander around the house pretending I was journeying through a harsh mountain range or across vast ice fields or deep in the heart of a remote jungle.

You can imagine how excited I was then when, a few weeks ago, I visited Indonesia for the first time and I found myself exploring the far flung places of my childhood imagination. One of the first adventurous activities I partook in when I arrived was orangutan trekking deep in the Borneo jungles of Tanjung Puting National Park — and it was incredible.

We are walking single file along the jungle trails, deeper into the Borneo rainforest. As I pause and gaze around at my surroundings, the silence of the forest is broken by the snapping of a branch. I whirl around and gasp. Just a few meters behind us, high in the trees, I spot my first wild orangutan.

He gazes back at us with a thoughtful, inquisitive expression on his face. As we whisper among ourselves, I wonder what thoughts are going through this gentle giant’s mind. And then, just as suddenly as he had come, we watch as this auburn-haired creature grabs another branch and swings away through the treetops.

I had so many new experiences and amazing adventures in Tanjung Puting (and Indonesia as a whole!) and I’m finding it hard deciding what to start writing about. I mean, how do I even begin to convey my thoughts and express my feelings about a trip that has changed my life? I’ve learned so much more about the world and I’ve learned so much more about myself and what I’m capable of — I have no words.

But I’m a blogger and somehow I have to find the words, so here goes nothing!

While wild orangutans are the main draw of Tanjung Puting National Park, also a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, and, don’t get me wrong, that was an indescribably great experience, I experienced so much more than that in Tanjung Puting.

From meeting friendly locals to trying delicious Indonesian cuisine, from being surrounded by such beautiful and different jungle vegetation (as compared to my home country of Canada) to seeing wildlife such as proboscis monkeys, gibbons, bush pigs, and fireflies, from getting to know people from around the world to learning more about Indonesia — it was all so amazing.

After a one-hour flight from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, I found myself on Borneo in the city of Pangkalan Bun. From the airport, I took a bus to the Port of Kumai and, along with four other people from around the world, we set out on a two-day-one-night adventure in a klotok, a traditional Indonesian riverboat.

With our guide and boat crew, we cruised down the Sekonyer River and headed into Tanjung Puting National Park where our goal was to encounter wild orangutans in their natural habitat.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Every Footstep an Adventure: Guide to Borneo Orangutan Trekking in Tanjung Puting National Park

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xameliax: Move Over Bali, Borneo Is The New Place To Be

Ok, ok, let’s not completely dismiss Bali just yet, it’s got it’s own hidden wonders to explore but we’ll get to that later in my Indonesia series.

Today I want to talk to you about one of the hidden gems of Indonesia – Borneo.

You probably wouldn’t think of the jungle when planning a trip to this part of the world.

The humidity, the mosquitoes, the not so conventional sleeping conditions but this should 100% be on your list if you’re planning on visiting South-East Asia and here’s why…

Have you ever been somewhere that feels like you’re the first to wander there? A place that completely blows you away and envelopes all your senses? This was Borneo for me.

If you had told me three months ago I would be sailing along the black river in a traditional wooden boat, nearly being bowled over by a fully grown orangutan female and sleeping under a mosquito net in the middle of the jungle, I wouldn’t have believed you.

This isn’t my usual kind of travel and I was petrified before my arrival – so many unknowns, unanswered questions.

But the time we spent in the Borneo jungle surrounded by wildlife and new friends was one of the highlights of my #WonderfulIndonesia Trip and is something I would recommend for everyone to put on their life bucket list.

We arrived in Tanjung Puting and took a bus to the river where we were greeted by traditional dancing and a lot of smiling faces.

Flights from Jakarta to Pangkalan Bun range from around £70-120 return depending on airlines and when you fly so it’s incredibly easy and cheap to hop over as part of your trip.

Once our welcome was over we were led over to the river and our accommodation for the night – a group of traditional wooden boats called Klotoks.

No flushing toilets, no beds, and just a few pillows on the deck to lounge on. Deep breaths.

We climbed and jumped over and through the other boats to get to ours and met our boat buddies we’d be spending the next two days with.

I don’t think any of us had an idea of what was to come and just how much it would stay in our minds for weeks, months, even years to come.

We waved goodbye to the shore (and our phone signal) and sailing off down the river for a once in a lifetime experience with nature.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: xameliax: Move Over Bali, Borneo Is The New Place To Be

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Roselinde: Jungle Expedition - Meeting Wild Orangutans in Borneo

If you had told me one year ago that I would go to the jungle of Borneo to see wild orangutans in Indonesia, I would have called you a dreamer.

In my third year of college, nearing my graduation, I had no idea where I was going, but I decided not knowing where to go was a good place to be at.

All I knew for sure is that I wanted to explore the world and I was never going to give up on my dream.

Over the past few months, I’ve discovered that a dreamer is exactly what you need to be. If you work hard enough, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.

Whatever happens next, I feel like I have stayed true to myself by seeing a childhood dream become a reality: meeting wild orangutans in Borneo.

Arriving in Central Kalimantan

I will start from our arrival in Central Kalimantan. As we exit the tiny airplane that brought us from Jakarta to Pangkalan Bun, the sweltering heat and pressing humidity immediately envelop my body: I had arrived in Borneo.

Most of us gather near the air conditioner, tucked into a corner of the arrival’s hall. After reshuffling some items and stuffing my valuables in a waterproof bag, we walk to our bus.

The bus takes us from the airport to Port Kumai, passing shops, mosques, karaoke centres, and the only shopping mall in the city.

At Port Kumai we will board traditional wooden klotok boats that will take us into the jungle.

Before we enter Tanjung Puting National Park by boat, we are welcomed at the dock by local traditional dance group Sanggar Sa’Haluan.

They showcase their vocal skills and smoothly coordinated choreography. Their feathered headdress, colourful costumes, and charming smiles add the final touch to their captivating performance.

Afterwards, we chat, take photos, and follow each other on Instagram. Then, it was finally time to board our boats and leave for the jungle.

Day 1: Cruising the Sekonyer River to Tanjung Harupan

We are split in groups and board the klotoks by using the other boats as stepping stones to get to our own boat. We leave Port Kumai and head to Sekonyer River, the main river in Tanjung Puting.

The boats move slowly but steadily, giving you every chance to admire the jungle at both sides of the river. Mickey, our guide, tells us about the river.

The Sekonyer river has always been a lifeline for both humans and animals living in Tanjung Puting. It’s not just the forest that’s full of life.

The river is teeming with hidden fauna, including crocodiles, though the pitch-black water makes it especially hard to find them.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Roselinde: Jungle Expedition - Meeting Wild Orangutans in Borneo

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The Midnight Blue Elephant: Me and my Monkey - Finding Orangutans in Borneo

Back in the jungle. I almost sigh in relief.

Life as I know it is not only thousands of miles away, it feels like a lifetime ago, away, gone.

I didn’t even know I was going back to Borneo.

My itinerary said Tanjung Puting and something about orangutans.

I didn’t put two and two together – wild orangutans can only be found on Borneo and Sumatra today.

You should have seen my face when I realized – back to Borneo!

The island holds a special place in my heart and so do those beautiful, fun creatures.

I don’t think you can ever have too many orangutan pictures, can you?

Now I know how parents feel when they want to share 1001 Facebook photos of their offsprings, but I cannot help it.

These faces… (and for those parents who feel offended that I inadvertently compared their kids to orangutans, I am sorry!).

We are on a boat, a wooden boat going down the Sekonyer River.

I think of African Queen and it feels wildly romantic and adventurous.

I don’t even mind the heat and the humidity, we get ice cold towels whenever we return from an excursion and a fresh breeze when the boat is in motion.

I write this a few weeks later while I sit in a taxi in traffic, of course.

I wish I was back on the boat. Sitting at the stern and staring into the water, watching out for crocodiles and Proboscis Monkeys in the trees.

The water from the Sekonyer River is muddy and brown.

Later, once we have moved to the Black River, the water while dark, almost inky becomes crystal clear – much better for crocodile spotting as it turns out.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: The Midnight Blue Elephant: Me and my Monkey - Finding Orangutans in Borneo

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Orangutan Oops: Rescue Efforts Led to Genetic Mix-up Among Borneo’s Endangered Apes

Crossbreeding between subpopulations of an island’s orangutans could weaken the species, a new study finds.

The forests of Tanjung Puting National Park in southern Borneo contain some unusual orangutans that, by all rights, probably shouldn’t even exist.

Scientists say decades-old attempts to rescue, rehabilitate, and release orangutans unintentionally created an unnatural mix of genetics among the park’s orangutans that could pose future health problems for these endangered apes.

Their research was published in February in the journal Scientific Reports.

The situation dates back to the pioneering work begun in the 1970s by orangutan researchers and rescuers Biruté Galdikas and her husband, Rod Brindamour.

At that time, scientists still debated whether the orangutans living on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra were different species, something that wasn’t fully accepted until 1996.

Beyond that, what no one back then yet realized was that the orangutans living on Borneo actually represented three different subspecies, each from a different part of the island and each with widely divergent genetics.

“Bornean orangutans last shared a common ancestor around 176,000 years ago and have markedly differentiated over the last 80,000 years,” said Graham Banes, the lead author of the new paper and a scientist with Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “That’s an incredible amount of independent evolution.”

Galdikas and Brindamour rehabilitated more than 90 orangutans at their famous Camp Leakey research site and released many of them back into the national park.

The animals, most of which were rescued from the pet trade, came from all over Borneo and, we know now, were not all from the same subspecies.

At least two females released into the park came from the western portion of the island, home to a subspecies different from the orangutans that already lived in the park.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Orangutan Oops: Rescue Efforts Led to Genetic Mix-up Among Borneo’s Endangered Apes

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A River Cruise Through Borneo to Hang With Orangutans

A river trip through remote Borneo leads to endearing, if frightening, encounters with the island’s rapidly disappearing primates

THE MOTHER orangutan hung from a tree branch and pried her baby’s fingers off her chest. Her infant was just five months old, as big as a human baby of the same age, with wild tufts of red hair and a pursed bottom lip. I stood a few feet below while the mom moved her baby’s hand to a vine and supported his bottom as he stretched a leg toward the creeper and wrapped his toes around it.

The 29-year-old orangutan mother, named Uning by the researchers at Borneo’s Camp Leakey refuge, looked at me with her coffee-bean eyes, then turned back to her baby and let him go. I held my breath as the little one caught himself and hung tightly to the swinging vine.

“This is how orangutans learn to climb,” explained our park guide, Rini Mariani, a local who lives in the small Indonesian port town of Kumai. (Borneo, Asia’s largest island, is divided among three countries: Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.)

Camp Leakey is an orangutan-research station in Indonesia’s Tanjung Puting National Park, on the southern coast of Borneo. I had joined my friend Diane and her 13-year-old daughter, Maia, on a three-day riverboat trip through the Indonesian part of the island to Camp Leakey and a few other preserves where orangutans can be seen in the wild.

“They’re like our redheaded relatives,” Diane said to ginger-haired Maia.

It’s easy to feel a connection with orangutans. Sharing 96% of our DNA, they are our cousins from just the other side of Uncanny Valley. And they are in danger. Ms. Mariani said that Borneo’s jungles, their primary habitat, are being cleared at a reckless pace to accommodate mining and logging and to meet global demand for palm oil. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the animals’ habitat has shrunk by 50% in the past two decades. “Sometimes you can hear chain saws from inside the park,” Ms. Mariani said.

Two days before meeting Uning, we had boarded a riverboat in Kumai and motored up the Sekonyer River, which forms the boundary of Tanjung Puting National Park. Our boat looked like a bright green-and-yellow version of the African Queen, with no-frills living quarters on the upper deck, equipped with a dining table, lounge chairs and mattresses.

During the day, we’d watch the pale-pink water hyacinths float by and survey the jungle tree canopy, filled with macaques, gibbons and the rare, long-nosed proboscis monkey.

At night, our crew would string mosquito nets to form veiled bedrooms on deck, and we would fall asleep to a symphony of cicada and bullfrogs and awaken to the soprano call of gibbons.

We were chugging our way to Camp Leakey, a refuge created by Dr. Biruté Galdikas, a protégé of paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who also mentored Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. Dr. Galdikas’s research laid the groundwork for understanding the life-cycle and behavior of these gentle, tree-dwelling animals. (Fun fact: The mothers have only one baby at a time and nurse their offspring for six to seven years.) Forty years later, her rescued orangutans are introduced to tourists by name and happily shake hands with their fans like well-mannered children.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: A River Cruise Through Borneo to Hang With Orangutans

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Travelling to Borneo

Here we go again… My next travelling story. Try to write in english… Sorry about the grammar please.

Last week i went to Natioanl Park Tanjung Puting (Taman Nasional Tanjung Puting).

Its located in Central Kalimantan. How can we get there? Easiest way? Travel agent… Hehehe… Yes, i used Kakaban.

They offer 3 days 2 nights and live on boat… Wohooo… Exciting right?

After arriving in Pangkalan Bun Airport (friday afternoon), we picked up by Pak Hadri.

He is our tour guide from Kakaban. We’re heading to Kumai Port ( Pelabuhan Kumai). Its quit near from the airport. It took about 25min to Kumai Port.

Guess Pangkalan Bun is small city. No sophisticated building. We found Borneo mall. Small building and didnt see the parking cars were full.

Its like desserted town and life goes slowly here. Ahhh… Seems like i can take a deep breathe here. Lots of space and fresh air in here and no traffic jam for sure.

At Kumai Port, its quit crowded. Lots of boats are ready, stand by for the guest. The boat is called Klotok. e boat. Klotok is made by wooden river boat about 12m by 2m with a roof which forms the upper deck where we can view the rain forest as it glides by. En We have nice klotok with friendly staff.

Ups forget to inform. We are in 5 members. Me, Ester, Mbot, Pade and Lia. We are friends since were in college in 2002. Since its 2PM, we are served the lunch directly. Coollllll… They provide us with fresh fish, vegetable (called cap cay) and also provide us with fruits like grape and orange… No diet please.

1st stop will be Tanjung Harapan. We will watch the orang utan’s life in feeding time. We sailed down the river.

Such a relaxing, comfy and lovely environment. The boat sailed slowly and we can enjoy the forest. Sometime the monkey showed up in the trees.

After 1hour sailing, we arrived at Tanjung Harapan. We did short tracking- around 10minutes to feeding places.

Some of orang utans were there, hanging on the trees. But since they are wild orang utan, we are forbidden to get closer.

Minimum 5 meter from them. Need to be silent as well, we cant disturb them. While we talked, we whispered.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Travelling to Borneo

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Orangutan - “People of the Forest” BORNEO

We never had cable TV when I was growing up, hardly had the TV on for that matter; but when we did watch the tube it was channel 10, PBS. I remember Friday nights were our favorite because that meant Nature was on. This show, as you can probably guess, was all about nature. I am convinced that these shows subconsciously steered my life in the direction it has gone. When I would watch those shows I would set goals that I thought would never happen in my life.

I wanted to stay up all night on a beach, protecting baby sea turtle hatchlings and making sure they got to the ocean safely. I wanted to swim with the oceans largest, most majestic creatures, and feel the presence of a being the size of a bus. I knew I wanted to spend time in the rainforests of Borneo and sit amongst orangutans in one of the few places they consider to be home. I had checked off the first, and partially the second, but Indonesia was calling me for many reasons.

As an environmental geography major, I learned all about the deforestation and overall environmental degradation occurring in many parts of SE Asia. This is actually a huge global issue for many, many reasons. The Borneo rainforest is one of the oldest and most biodiverse rainforests in the entire world. It is home to many endemic species, and unfortunately, many endangered species as well.

The rainforests of Borneo, which includes the countries of Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia, are all being sold off to big business and corporate greed for the sake of cheap oil and expensive timber. They have already cut down millions of hectares of dense rainforest to plant a mono-culture crop, either rubber or palm oil.

This brings about an array of issues; rainforests are considered to be “carbon sinks” which basically means they actually take in carbon, store it, and release oxygen into the air. Without these carbon sinks such as forests and oceans, we would simply run out of air to breath.

Also the slash and burn technique they use to clear this land is one of the largest green house gas emitters each year, so not only are they destroying the natural carbon sink, they are releasing more into the atmosphere. The list of problems with deforestation could go on forever but the one that really gets to me is the loss of habitat to the thousands of species that live there.

I felt that if I didn’t go to Indonesia now, I may never get to see it. So six months after I graduated from college, I took a one way flight to Indonesia by myself to see this beautiful gem of a country before it was too late.

Here is a look into my four days in the rainforest of Kalimantan, Indonesia…

Flying into Kalimantan was the most shocking, yet completely expected, sight I have ever seen. I had read articles and seen the photos of the invasion of palm oil plantations throughout Borneo, Sumatra, and much of the Philippines, but I still could not believe my eyes. The first 5 minutes of flying over the island was stunningly beautiful. As far as you could see was lush, dense, dark green rainforest, tall trees, no buildings.

Suddenly it was gone and a different type of green showed up. The trees were perfectly spaced, all within white lines, forming rectangle after rectangle of the palm oil mono-crop. That view continued until we reached the airport with the exception of a few patches here and there of remaining forest and cloudy rivers. This was proof enough that I needed to visit this place before it disappears.

I boarded the boat in Kumai and headed down the Sekonyer River alongside Tanjung Puting National Park. There was constant entertainment simply while going down the river; staring up at the proboscis monkeys with their cartoon like faces in the high branches, a crocodile cruising in the muddy water, and the most beautiful kingfishers with bright orange, blue and red colors flying by.

My tour guide, Dedy, was a local to the area of Pangklanbun and spent many years of his life working for Tanjung Puting National Park as a park ranger and orangutan care taker. It was obvious that he knew that rainforest inside and out and his passion for biology and the environment was strong. He knew all about the rainforest ecosystem, the history of the park, and had so many stories from when he would trek and camp in the forest for days at a time.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Orangutan - “People of the Forest” BORNEO

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Tanjung Puting – cruising the rivers of Borneo

One of the driving factors behind my visit to Indonesia was the desire to take a trip by klotok, a houseboat where we would eat, sleep, and live, with a captain, guide, crew, and cook, up the Sekonyer river through the jungles of Borneo.

I have always wanted to see exotic places, the wilder the better, and the jungles of Borneo seemed about as exotic and wild as I could think of.

We flew to Pangkalan Bun, and were taken to Kumai, where we boarded the Kunang Kunang, which means Fireflies (I thought she said French fries! said Emily, hahaha).

Most of the klotok on the river are newer than the Kunang Kunang, but our boat is made of expensive, sturdy ironwood, and she is beautiful.

We spend most of the day cruising along the river. The klotok is well-equipped with a deck with wooden chairs, a shady area with mattresses, bean bag chairs, and hammock, a dining area, and an open-air washroom.

The crew spend most of the time below deck, where there is a library, a space for the captain, and a kitchen, where the cook makes us assorted dishes three times a day, on top of fried bananas, drinks, tea, and coffee for snacks in between.

When Louis Leakey’s three famous students set off to study the great apes, Jane Goodall headed to Africa to study chimpanzees, Diane Fossey made a name for herself studying the gorillas in Africa, and Canadian Biruté Galdikas came to Borneo to study orangutans.

The main draw of these klotok tours is to visit the orangutan feeding stations when the rangers call to them and leave out fruit.

The orangutans are semi-wild, most having been rescued, rehabilitated, and released as part of Professor Galdikas’ efforts.

We visit Tanjung Harapan the first afternoon, Pondok Tanggui in the morning on the second day, and arrive at Camp Leakey later that afternoon before beginning our journey back to Kumai on the third day.

The journey to Camp Leakey takes an hour and a half by speedboat, but the journey by klotok is way cooler.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Tanjung Puting – cruising the rivers of Borneo

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Tanjung Puting National Park: Borneo, Indonesia

One of the last times we went to Indonesia, we took the opportunity to travel over to Kalimantan (north of Java) to visit Tanjung Puting National Park. First, here’s the flight path we took from Jakarta to Pangkalanbuun Iskandar.

I’ll reserve another post to talk about flying over to Kalimantan. It was an experience in itself that involved walking down a highway outside of Jakarta, getting a free taxi ride, and a tiny airplane. :)

Tanjung Puting National Park.

The park was originally designated as a game reserve in 1935. It wasn’t until 1982 when the national park was established and even since then it has had questionable protection mostly due to Palm Oil plantation in the surrounding lands (deforested areas).

Nonetheless, it does remain wild and natural. The park consists of over 1100 square miles of area including the rivers that weave their way through the park before flowing into the Java Sea.

Tanjung Puting is filled to the brim with wildlife, including multiple species of monkeys, gators, and a multitude of birds. It is most well known, however, for its Orangutans, made famous by a rehabilitation center at Camp Leakey.

The orangutans, displaced mostly by the palm oil expansion (through deforestation), are nursed back to health and taught how to function as wild Orangs, before they are gradually re-released into the wild.

When you go to visit Tanjung Puting, you need to have a hired guide. This guide typically includes a boat (the only real way to explore the park). There are a multitude of services online that offer tours of the park for varying lengths of time.

I must have spent weeks/months scouring through different tour services that sort of seemed sketchy or seemed really sketchy. After a multitude of emails back and forth with different options, I finally gave in and just booked with a company that would allow us to do a 2n/3d trip into the park. We were set to meet them at the airport and go from there.

Our boat was a traditional Indonesian boat similar to the boat we took in Flores to Komodo National Park, just a bit bigger. Our “area” was the top floor of the boat where there was a bed and mosquito net, a table with chairs, and some lounge chairs out on the deck.

The bathroom was a flush toilet on the first floor– where the contents are flushed to is another story and a another mystery for another day. We met our crew and spoke with the tour operator- a woman and her husband run the business. Our tour guide for the trip was a young guy, maybe 18. He showed us around helped us get comfortable.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Tanjung Puting National Park: Borneo, Indonesia

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A Borneo boat tour to see Orangutans

Orangutans are some of the most intelligent primates in the world. They are exclusive. Travelling Asia to Malaysia and Borneo (Kalimantan), Indonesia in South-East Asia. They are gorgeous and really wonderful to observe and I was lucky enough to do just.

My partner and I hired a boat and cruised down the Sekonyer River to reach Tanjung Puting National Park to see an Orangutan feeding at the famous Camp Leakey.

We flew from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, into Pangkalanbun airport, Borneo, were picked up at the airport and driven to the ferry point where we were then shown to our own private boat and commenced to cruise for 3 days (2 nights) along the River Sekonyer, stopping at various spots to view Orangutan feeding spots in order to observe the beautiful animals.

Of course I make this sound as if it went extremely smoothly, the reality was slightly different. Our flight at the early hours of the morning was delayed by nearly an hour, we drove around for a very long time trying to get signal for the credit card machine to make payment and had actually expected to be on a boat with other people. But once away none of that mattered in the slightest.

The experience was amazing and so beautiful to see. We were lucky and saw the all different sizes of the primates, babies still clutching to swinging mothers, teenagers skulking along behind or in front of mum and even the area Alpha- Tom, a huge Orangutan who was the area’s dominant male.

The river was calm and the rainforest full of life. Motoring down the river we saw various lovely birds, bats, fireflies and the Proboscis Monkey- renown for their exceptionally big noises! Unfortunately my photos do not do this part of the journey justice.

The boat crew were incredibly kind and attentive, cooking us vast amounts of food that was as delicious as it was abundant.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: A Borneo boat tour to see Orangutans

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Jungle trekking in Borneo with Orangutans

“Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.”

Apologies to Joseph Conrad for stealing this quote from The Heart of Darkness, but a recent trip to Tandjung Puting Park in Borneo to visit the world’s largest population of orangutans felt a bit like being a character in his novel.

Tandjung Puting is home to 6,000 organgutans which are one of the planet’s three great apes (chimpanzees and gorillas are the other two). 

The park gives you an up close view of these remarkable animals.

I glimpsed a few orangutans in the wild, but mostly saw them at the park’s three feeding stations where rangers provide bananas once a day.

Tandjung Puting was first designated a national park by the Dutch in 1939, and later by the Indonesian government, but the orangutan reserve is mainly the work of a remarkable scientist named Birute Galdikas who arrived here in 1971 by dugout canoe.

She spent years following the orangutans often wading or standing in peat swamps with water up to her chest.

It was a magical experience watching these creatures emerge from jungle. 

You first would see tree branches swaying and then would catch a glimpse of red hair in the trees and finally they would slowly walk or swing over to the feeding platform.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Jungle trekking in Borneo with Orangutans

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Borneo: Orangutans

Orangutans in the wild are a sight to behold. These marvelous apes, the closest living relatives to humans have safe havens in Borneo that belong on everyone’s must-visit list.

Borneo’s rare animals, virgin rainforest and coral reefs deserve the number one spot on your must-see list. On this Southeast Asian island, you glimpse a world that is all but lost.

Begin in the south in Indonesian Borneo with a visit to Tanjung Puting National Park—home to numerous species of birds and monkeys, and its most famous residents: the endangered orangutans.

Tanjung Puting National Park

In 1971 Biruté Mary Galdikas arrived to a park decimated by loggers, rhinoceros hunted into extinction and wildlife protection laws unheard of. Through her research work, Galdikas, a protégé of paleontologist Louis Leakey, safeguarded—despite tremendous pressure from illegal logging and mining interests—one of the orangutans’ last havens in Borneo.

The Borneo rainforest is one of the few remaining natural habitats for the orangutan. Local boatmen take you on full-day river cruises through the forest where feeding stations bring orangutans into close range. You also see hornbills, crocodiles, and the proboscis monkey while gliding on narrow channels. Guides also lead hike through the forest in search of barking deer, rhinoceros hornbills, and Bornean wild pigs.

Headhunter’s Trail

In western Borneo in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, the Iban, formerly headhunters, now reside in longhouses along the Rejang and Baram rivers. Their longboats and dugout canoes pass through the jungle on large river systems. You learn about the indigenous culture by hiking the headhunters trail and staying overnight in an Iban longhouse where tales of headhunting are heard.

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Marvel at orangutans in the rainforests of steamy Borneo

‘Eoowwww!’ Our short and stocky guide Joe is calling out to the dense forest in the steamy island of Borneo. It sounds like a mix between a particularly loud owl and an aggressive wolf howling. Moments later two tiny blinking eyes and a hairy arm emerge from the foliage.

‘Its an orangutan,’ someone yells and everyone rushes over paparazzi-ready with their cameras as he lumbers forward with the cautious grace of a tipsy old man.

There’s a flimsy rope barricading a feeding platform at the Tantung Haraban centre from visitors who have walked the half hour from the port on Sekonyer river. Rather unsurprisingly orangutans appear to have no awareness of public boundaries and soon he walks forward towards the tourists clamoring to take pictures.

Uncomfortably close. ‘Back, back,’ screams another guide. ‘He’s got us cornered,’ someone cries as he fixes us with his beady eyes contemplating where to move next.

Nonchalantly he scratches himself, unaffected by the crowd around him, but is soon distracted by a female orangutan swinging through the trees with a baby clinging onto her, a tiny fuzzy thing gripped like Velcro to its mum. A teen orangutan making its way to the feast rips a branch off and flings it to the ground.

It lands inches from a man snapping away. ‘Was that meant for me?’ he asks as the impish ape scampers down. It certainly looks that way.

We watch as they wolf down a mountain of bananas after the male orangutan backs away, relieved that they’re more interested in food than us.

Along with Sumatra, the rainforests in Borneo are the only place in the world where you can see orangutans. The name ‘orangutan’ means ‘person of the forest’ in Malay and Indonesian. The centre is located in the beautiful Tanjung Putting National Park.

You can take a traditional riverboat called a klotok from the port of Kumai in Pangkalan Bun, which is a short flight from the capital Jakarta. As we take a leisurely cruise along the river we spot colourful butterflies, dragonflies, Rhinoceros Hornbills, Water Monitor lizards, Humpback dolphins and Proboscis monkeys.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Marvel at orangutans in the rainforests of steamy Borneo

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