As we move through life, often we don't appreciate things as they happen, and it's only later that we look back to remember and appreciate them for what they were. But every now and then, if we are fortunate, we experience something that moves us in the moment it happens. A few weeks ago we had exactly that happen to us, so hopefully this post conveys that feeling.
My best friend Sven and his wife Miriam came out from Germany to visit us for an epic Indonesian journey. We would spend 4 days living on a boat and visiting Orangutan sanctuaries in the jungle in Kalimantan, Borneo, then head over to Komodo Island for 3 days to see some dragons, and then go up North to Sulawesi (Northern Indonesia) for 5 days of scuba diving. There's too much to cover in one post, so I'm splitting it up. Part 1: Orangutans in Borneo
Sven and Miriam arrived on a Sunday, and the next day we flew to Kalimantan to find our floating home for the next 4 days. The boat was a Klotok, which is a traditional Indonesian river boat. Per Wikipedia: "The boat's name refers to the noise it makes, "klok tok tok tok." Ours was about 12 meters long, and was named One Piece.
 |
| One Piece Boat! (which is much better than 2 or 3 piece boat - it floats better) |
It may not look like much, but the boat was awesome. On the upper deck we had a table & chairs, a couple lounge chairs on the front deck, and at night they put out mattresses and mosquito nets for us. On the lower deck was a bathroom with a shower (bonus!), the kitchen, and the crew's quarters.
 |
| Gloria & Miriam enjoying a cup of tea |
 |
| The kitchen, where they managed to cook AMAZING meals |
 |
| Through that door is the crew's quarters |
 |
| One of our awesome crew members |
Before I continue I want to take a minute to acknowledge our guide and crew. I booked through a guy named Fardi who was fantastic. He hooked us up with our guide Amil, the captain, and 2 staff members who were simply amazing. I can't recommend them highly enough, so if anyone is ever considering this trip, I will get you his contact information.
As I was saying, after boarding the boat we headed out, full of hope and excitement.
 |
| Just after leaving the harbor. |
 |
| Notice the lack of sweat or swampiness. That will change. |
After a few minutes on the rather large Kumai river, we turned into the much smaller Sekonyer River. This would be our home for the next few days. To give you a sense of exactly where we were, here's a little video I put together.
It's hard to express the beauty and seclusion of this place. It seriously looks like a scene from a movie. Flat, serene water surrounded by 10-20 ft. tall jungle plants, with the sounds of the jungle all around us.
We came across locals fishing,
the occasional navigational aid,
 |
| Safety first. Yes, there really were turn signs in a few places along the river. Too funny. |
and we passed by a local village.
As we continued up river toward the first Orangutan area, we kept a lookout for wildlife along the river. We weren't disappointed. Within the first hour we started seeing something up in the trees and bushes along the river. When we got a bit closer we saw it was a bunch of Long Nosed Proboscis Monkeys.
 |
| Yo. What you lookin at? |
These guys would become a daily sight for us, and they never disappointed. First of all, they're endemic to Borneo, so this the only place in the world where you can see them in the wild. How cool is that? Plus (and way more entertainingly), they are crazy. They are seriously good climbers (we saw they up in trees over a 100 ft. tall every day), and they can leap like crazy. We'd see them jumping from tree to tree, a hundred or more feet in the air. Here's a little taste of what I mean.
This monkey was WAY high up in a tree. And seriously, look at how he lets go with one hand as he's flying around to get a better grip. Daredevils! So much fun to watch.
After the fun with the big nosed guys, it was off to our first Orangutan feeding. But before that, a little info from our good friend Wikipedia again: Orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of great apes, and are native to Indonesia and Malaysia. In fact, they are currently only found in the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra (how unreal is it that we got to see so many animals that are only found in these parts of the world?!). Their name comes from the Indonesian and Malay words Orang and Utan, meaning person and forest respectively. So the name Orangutan means person of the forest. Pretty cool huh? Orangutans are also extremely smart, but they can be mischievous (more on that later). They are really interesting creatures.
The area to which we were headed is the Tanjung Puting National Park. It is a huge conservation area (over 4,000 sq. km.) and is home to Camp Leakey, which is one of the most famous Orangutan sanctuaries and rehabilitation centers in the world. Since 1971 over 200 Orangutans have been returned to the wild through the efforts of those at Camp Leakey. They're really doing some great work there.
But, before Camp Leakey, we stopped off at another feeding site first.
The feeding area is about a 10-15 minute walk back into the jungle, and since we were in the rainforest, it started raining on us. Luckily our guide brought umbrellas, which kept us dry. But they also provided a nice shelter from the rain for the mosquitos. Oh the mosquitos. I've been in muggy, bug infested areas in the middle of the woods before, but it was nothing like this. Jungle rainforest mosquitos are extra strength, bite you through 2 or 3 layers of clothing bugs. Nasty little suckers. But, we had our malaria meds so we continued on. We had apes to see. And apes we did see!
The Orangutans are no dummies and they know when feeding time is. As we were walking toward the feeding area, we saw a few of them just hanging out up in the trees.
 |
| Bring me my food! |
 |
| I see you down there |
 |
| Heeeeeeeyyy!! |
 |
| Enjoying the view? |
Notice the big cheek pads on these guys? Those are a result of testosterone. Apparently as they male Orangutans age and testosterone increases, the cheek pads grow bigger. Generally the dominant males have very large cheek pads.
The Orangutans have a fairly organized structure in that there is one dominant male who gets to eat first. If that one dominant male isn't present though, the larger males in the area will generally go first. We saw two large males here, but not the dominant one. As such, they were very cautious and took their time to survey the area to make sure the dominant male wasn't around. Here we see one of the large males about to head for the bananas.
Let's take a closer look.
Notice how the big guy comes in by himself? And how the other Orangutan comes up, but is very careful and only gets on the very edge of the platform? It's an interesting dynamic. Did you also notice at the end that the second Orangutan really stuffed her face? This was a common theme and we loved it.
 |
| Say chubby bunny |
We hung out and watched them feed for a good hour or so. It was incredible to see them in the wild. So amazing.
Then we headed back to the boat and chugged up river for another hour or so.
 |
| Captain Gloria says no icebergs here |
 |
| Spectacularly beautiful. The sunset is nice too. Hiyo! |
Then our expert crew docked us for the night (which consisted of tying the boat off to some of the HUGE plants along side the river), and we settled in.
Day 2 begins and we head further up the Sekonyer river and then branched off on a smaller river toward Camp Leakey.
 |
| Boating is soooo hard |
One thing we noticed is that the water changed from a murky brown color to a dark black water. Our guide told us that the murky brown is actually really polluted due to upstream mining, and the dark black is very clean. Sad really, but it's a fact of life here.
Also, it was around this time that we started introducing Sven & Miriam to the term "swamp ass". Living in the jungle is extremely hot & sweaty, and after going a full day in it with no shower we were all feeling a little extra funky. Good times! But, as tempting as it was to jump in the clean river to cool off, we didn't for one very important reason. Alligators. This river is known to the locals as Alligator River, so yeah, no swimming.
After an hour or so we arrived at Camp Leakey, and were greeted at the dock by Sisui.
 |
| Give me some candy! |
Sisui is one of the older Orangutans living at Camp Leakey, and she's also one of the more mischievous. Apparently she had attacked someone the previous day, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Basically, she tried to take someone's bag, and they tried to keep it from her. Being an animal, she responded as animals do, and bit the person. Not a great situation, but you have to remember you're on their turf. After an uneventful passage by Sui Sui, we made our way into camp.
 |
| The camp is up in the distance along the path |
Just before camp, we met Gita and her Mom Gara.
This was just a taste of what we were in for. A couple minutes later we made our way into camp and met Thor and his mom Tut Tut.
 |
| This is Thor. Looks ferocious. |
Thor was playing around in the trees while Mom hung out a few feet away.
 |
| Incoming!!!! |
 |
| Are you taking my picture? |
 |
| This is when the branch he was hanging onto broke and he smacked his butt on the ground. Doh! |
Thor was not feeling all the pictures and decided he needed to get our cameras from us. Here he is trying to grab Sven's camera.
 |
| I said no pictures! |
 |
| Just a couple apes playing around. |
We arrived at camp in the morning and feeding wasn't until afternoon, so we took a walk through the jungle.
At one point what appeared to be a stream of water seemed to come pouring out of the tree right next to us. We looked up and saw this:
That is a Gibbon staring down (and peeing) at us. Cool to see it in the wild; not cool that he almost peed on us. C'est la vie in the jungle...
After our hike we headed back to the boat for lunch, and things got interesting. First, we came across Sisui along the path. Amil had warned us that she would come up to us and try to steal things from us, so he positioned himself between her and us. Sure enough, she took his camera bag. She even unzipped the bag and took the camera out.
 |
| Selfie!! |
She started to climb up a tree, but Amil managed to keep her from climbing up while some other guides came running, at which point she dropped the camera. It was crazy for a couple minutes there, and she did manage to snap one picture while she had the camera. Naughty ape!
Unfortunately our adventures weren't over and things were about to take a turn for the worse for me. Being the ever-so-graceful person that I am, I managed to fall getting back into the boat. We had to step on a couple 4x4 boards and then into the boat, and somehow my foot slipped between the boards. All my weight came down on my left knee, which was wedged between the boards. Not fun, especially on day 2 of the trip. But, I limped my way through. That's what I get for being such a klutz.
After lunch, it was time for the Camp Leakey feeding. This time, there didn't seem to be any large males around, so it was more of a free for all, which was awesome to see.
 |
| Hey! Where's my bananas? |
 |
| Kinda crazy seeing them stand up straight like this |
 |
| Momma and baby coming in for some lunch |
 |
| These big hogs are actually dangerous to young orangutans. Jerks. |
 |
| Do you like sea food? See food! Bwahahahaha! |
 |
| Gloria found a butterfly friend! |
Then it was back to the boat for another night on the river. One fun thing that happened was the crew did some fishing and they caught a big Snake Head Fish.
Also, thankfully we could shower now that we were in clean water, and let me tell you a cold water shower never felt so good. On to day 3!
Much like Day 2, we started with a ride up the river. We were back in the polluted river now, headed to Pondok Tanggui sanctuary.
 |
| Good morning sunshine! |
Feeding here was awesome. First of all, we saw more of the ritualistic stuffing of the face with bananas.
Then this big guy came along. He seemed to be running the show and none of the other Orangutans approached the feeding platform.
Then this momma and her baby came up, and the big male let them in to eat.
We were told this baby was probably less than a week old (they weren't sure since it was born in the wild), and that it was quite rare to see this. It has been over 2 years since they've had a baby this young here. Quite a treat.
Then this momma and her little guy came up.
This young guy was quite playful. He kept playing around and doing more as we laughed.
After leaving the feeding we headed back out to boat, and along our way we heard a rustling in the trees above us. Then all of a sudden, several Proboscis monkeys went flying by.
At this point, our guide took us to the village where he grew up. It's always cool to get a taste of local life.
These two kids were great. They were playing in the water, paddling along in their boat.
Then we can upon these guys who were hand carving statues. Since we already have a giraffe from our South Africa trip, we naturally had to get an Orangutan from this trip. Here is one of the craftsmen carving his name in the base.
After our visit to the village, we went back to Camp Leakey for one last feeding. This time it was a bit different. The big males were there again.
The real "treat" for us here was the big male. He was hanging out peacefully with all the other apes, when suddenly he decided he just had to have one of the females. So he grabbed her and had his way with her right in front of us on the bananas. Seriously. Straight up ape sex, right on the table. Nature!
So despite the inauspicious ending to our time with the Orangutans, they still left us with a real sense of wonder and awe. They are incredible creatures and it was a real treat to see them in their natural habitat. We consider ourselves to be amazingly fortunately to have had this experience, and we'll always remember it.
No comments:
Post a Comment