Indonesia - Orangutans of Borneo

Our first port of call in Indonesia was an overnight stay in the city of Jakarta before our flight to Borneo. A rather metropolitan city with tall skyscrapers and rather posh restaurants. We took the opportunity to visit an international SOS clinic to top up our vaccines and explore the city.

The following day we boarded our flight to Pangkalanbun airport in Central Kalimantan near the town/city of Kumai. Our host Siti met us at the airport to take us on to the boat that would be our home for the next 4 days.

We booked our trip direct with Siti via email as listed on her website (insert link). She is the only solo female tour operator in the area and goes to great lengths to guarantee the satisfaction of her customers (we would highly recommend her).

Along with what to expect from our trip Siti explained to us all the comings and goings of the local people. When you pull into Kumai you are struck by a number of tall concrete buildings with small holes dotted around the walls at the top. Siti explained that these are farms for swallow nests. It turns out that this is a rather lucrative business as their nests are worth around £10,000 per kilo!!!, mainly being sold to the chinese for medicines.

The house boat was a rather quaint affair with two decks, one for the crew and one for us, a couple of sun loungers, dining table and double bed for us in the evenings. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks were all included and the food was super tasty. There were 4 crew in total; our guide Mita, cook, captain and his son/assistant. We all got on fantastically well and they went out of their way to always make sure we were comfortable. The tour was for 3 nights/4 days cruising up the river in the Tanjung Puting National Park. Although a wide variety of wildlife can be seen our main purpose was to see the orangutans...

The park is full of rehabilitated orangutans that have been rescued after the palm oil plantations have either injured or made orphans of them. Although the released orangutans are self reliant for the most part competition for food can be harsh at some times of the year. So local rangers supplement their diet with milk and fruit (primarily bananas). They do this at a variety of feeding platforms which also make for convenient spots for tourists to catch a glimpse of the otherwise elusive creatures.

We stopped off at 3 feeding platforms in total, allowing us to see Orangutans that varied in age, size and gender. From babies clinging to their mothers backs to the large alpha males. We even got lucky enough to see some of the truly wild orangutans on the other side of the river when one woke us up with its calls. Ashley then proceeded to play hide and seek with it through the branches of the trees, a truly magical moment.

Although the orangutans was the primary reason for our visit we had other distractions along the way. We spent evenings fishing, took a tour around a local village and had a jolly old time watching all of the boat workers hack apart an island of palms that blocked our passage up the river.

This has been a true highlight of our trip, one that we would recommend to anyone. We stayed one further night in Kumai before catching our flight on to East Java and the city of Surabaya.