Selamat Tahun Baru! Happy New Year!
Caitlin and I were met in the small Pangkalan Bun airport by our guide, Uli and driven directly to the small town where our river boat home was waiting for us. The boat is a traditional wooden boat called a Klotok. It is 12 meters by 2 1/2 meters with a wooden roof that forms the upper deck. We had the upper deck all to ourselves and for the next four days it was our our dining room, bedroom and living area. There were lounge chairs to sit and watch the jungle going by, a kitchen table for our meals and every evening the crew set up a large mattress with a mosquito net around it and bedding. There were awnings that could be pulled down if it rained, otherwise it was left open. Tt was kind of like camping with someone else doing all the work. There was a crew of three, Uli, Sabri, the cook and Imbra the captain.
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| Our riverboat home. |
We were moving by about 10:30 and heading for the smaller Skonyer River, that goes through Tanjung Puting National Park. The water was murky, as there is a goldmine up the river that pollutes the water, making it undrinkable and unsafe even to bathe in. Even it was clean, there would be no swimming because of the crocodiles! (Once we were past the goldmine area on the second day, the water cleared to a dark tea colour and then it was safe for showering). We sat on the deck drinking coffee and watching for wildlife. Uli pointed out a monitor lizard and Caitlin spotted a black water snake. We saw three groups of probicus monkeys, the ones with the long noses. By the afternoon, we were at the first camp and set off through the jungle to the orangutan feeding station. The sky opened up while we were walking and we were glad to have ponchos and umbrellas. The ranger came with a huge backpack of bananas, dumped them on a platform and then we waited. Apparently sometimes in bad weather, the orangutans don't show up, but we soon saw branches start to sway high up in the palm trees. Gradually, they started to come in closer by using their body weight to sway the branches and by swinging Tarzan style on vines from tree to tree. Ten orangutans in all plus three babies clinging to their mothers and Yanni, the king, eventually came to eat. Yanni is 30 years old and very big. The males are much larger than the females and have a huge flange of skin around their face. The orangutans live alone but the babies stay with their mother until they are about seven years old and form a very close bond. The adolescents stay in small groups until they are mature. The male orangutan is given a wide birth by the others and he would sometimes swat at the others when they got too close. The orangutans would swing down to the platform, stuff their mouth full of whole bananas then hold as many as they could in their hand before swinging back up into a tree. It was hilarious to see them hanging by one arm and one leg between two trees and eating their fill. We watched them for about an hour until they wandered back into the jungle.
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| Yanni, "The King". |
Over the next three days we watched the same thing in different camps with different groups of orangutans. At Camp Leaky, we were early for the feeding so went for a walk with Uli and he spotted a female, Akmel. with her seven year old, Atlas and her new baby. They gradually moved in closer to us and we were able to feed Atlas some bananas and touch him, too. Atlas spotted a termite nest, broke off a piece of it and scampered up a tree to noisily slurp up the treat. They stayed with us for about 20 minutes before wandering away in the jungle. I think that experience was the highlight of the trip for me.
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| Caitlin and Atlas. |
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| "Are ya coming?" |
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| Mom and baby. |
At Camp Leaky, which was opened by Dr. Birute Galdikas to study orangutans, there is a museum with lots of information about her work. We learned that orangutans are very intelligent and have the closest mother/child bond of all the primates other than humans. One orangutan at the camp learned to paddle a canoe to cross the river. When they sank the canoe to stop him from taking it, he learned to pull it up and empty out the water. Another one learned how to use a key to get into the food storage building. Caitlin and I saw one using a large leaf as an umbrella at the first rainy feeding. Unfortunately, we also learned that the orangutans will likely be extinct within the next ten years as there is not enough food to sustain them in their disappearing habitat. Much of their habitat is being turned into palm oil farms. If you want to read more about it you can go to www.orangutan.org
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| The entrance to Camp Leaky. |
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| Caitlin and Uli heading for the feeding station. |
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I like those yoga moves.
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During the trip, we also saw macaque monkeys, wild boars, giant ants and one crocodile. One day travelling down the river to our last camp, we were startled when a macaque monkey high in the trees above us, suddenly dropped into the river in front of our boat. We heard another one drop behind us. Uli explained that when they want to cross the river, they wait until a boat comes because they know the boat will scare away the crocodiles!
On our last night, we had our own private Christmas light show - thousands of fireflies in the palms where we had stopped for the night - magical! It was a fabulous trip.
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| Probiscus monkey high up in a tree. |
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| Where the river clears and narrows. |
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| Caitlin and I with the crew. |
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| Rolling down the river. |
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"Tom" at the feeding station.
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| Caitlin and Tom. |
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| Ready for a game of Mancala. |
