One Year Away

Penny and Joe

Have a look at our new photo album – Indonesia (with extra photos of animals for my goddaughter Christina and friends!).  No photos in the post today – Borneo Internet is slooowwwww.

For most, the name Borneo conjures images of remote jungles, wild
beasts and indigenous people with bones through their noses.  We set
off to the southern part of the island, the Indonesian state of
Kalimantan to see for ourselves.  We got to Kumai, a small port town,
to plan for a 3 day trip into the Tanjung Puting National Park.  The
national park was made famous by Dr. Birute Galdikas, a Canadian
who arrived in Borneo in 1971.  She started Camp Leaky and  named it
after her mentor and the famed primatologist.  The camp, located in the
heart of the national park, was and still is a research facility for
the study of wild orangutans and a sanctuary for ex-captive ones.  Even
in 1971, keeping an orangutan as a pet was illegal but the law was
rarely enforced due to the lack of resources to care for the rescued
animals.  Dr. Galdikas gave Indonesia the resources and has rescued
hundreds of animals over the years.  Unfortunately, these ex-captives
seem to never fully return to the wild and will always require the
occasional feeding by humans.

The best way to visit the park is by ‘klotok’ which is a boat that can
serve as transportation, accommodation and restaurant while traveling
to the camps and looking at wildlife.  We hired a boat and an English
speaking guide for the trip.  Our boat The Spirit of the Forest
was clean and comfortable.  The captain, Jeni was the joker while his
assistant was quiet but with a permanent smile fixed on his face.  Our
guide, Rudy, was very knowledgeable about the primates and had a true
love for them. 

We spent a good part of the next three days sitting on the deck of the
boat watching the riverbanks and treetops as we chugged along slowly.
In the early morning and late afternoon the trees came alive with
groups of large nosed proboscis monkeys, noisy macaques, and tropical
birds.  The proboscis monkeys (or “Dutch Monkey” in the local dialect
on account of their big noses!) are found only on Borneo and were often
seen sitting in the treetops or acrobatically jumping across the river.

During the day we spent a lot of time at the Orangutan Foundation camps
and viewed three orangutan feedings at two different camps. At the
feedings the camp rangers placed large quantities of cucumbers and
buckets of milk out for the orangutans on a raised platform far out in
the jungle.  They made loud whooping calls and we waited.  Within
minutes the trees in the distance started swaying and shaking, as if a
giant were walking through the jungle.  As they got closer we could see
dark shapes swinging effortlessly from tree to tree, often bending the
whole tree top to reach the next one.

Then suddenly the rust coloured “Men of the Jungle” were in the trees
directly above us and quickly descending using their hands and very
long flexible feet to grip vines or tree trunks.  They paid no heed to
the humans watching them and went straight for the buckets of milk,
which is their favorite food.  Some dunked their whole head in the
bucket and drank with loud slurping sounds.  Others picked up the
buckets and poured the contents into their mouths dripping the milk all
over themselves in the process.  Orangutans are by nature solitary but
they have a clearly defined hierarchy nonetheless.  It was obvious at
the feeding platform which were the dominant ones by who got the most
milk. 

On our second day we asked to visit an illegal mining area which was
known to be in operation up the river.  The miners there are known to
the police and park authorities who claim to be powerless to remove
them.  Our guide Rudy knew some of the miners and agreed to take us
there.  There are dozens of small scale mining operations all trying to
pull gold and silicon from the white sand of the riverbank.  They use
mercury as part of the gold process and the devastating effects that
the activities had on the environment were immediately obvious by the
colour of the water in the river downstream of the mining.  It’s hard
to condemn people who are so poor and have few opportunities to make a
living but their activities and those of the illegal loggers are
seriously damaging one of only a few places in the world where
orangutans continue to live.

The park is large, beautiful and full of easily visible wildlife,
unlike other national parks we’ve been to in Asia.  Surprisingly, it
was also a very relaxing three days as we went up and down small rivers
in the jungle sitting on deck with a good book and a camera at the
ready.

For more info on the foundation and park go to http://www.orangutan.org
Our guide Rudy was helpful and spoke English well.  His email is forestguide07@yahoo.com