Into the Heart of Borneo

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