The Forest People

We took a 3 day, 2 night river boat cruise into the Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan. This is an area on Borneo that is a reserve for orangutans that was established in 1971 with the help of Dr. Birute Galdikas, who was one of Lewis Leakey's primate students (which also included Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall)  In Bahasa Indonesian, 'orang' means person or people and 'utan' means forest, so orangutan means people of the forest. This female above is walking off with some corn and her baby.

The river boats take 2 to 6 guests up the river on 1 to 4 day tours. The price includes an English speaking guide, Anjit, along with a captain, a mate and a cook.  We opted for the vegetarian meals and they were excellent. We used Satria Majid Tours, aka Liesa and Majid. (best contact is probably WhatsApp +62 852 4859 0487). If you are a cruiser, Majid will most likely meet you in his dinghy as you arrive in town and tell you were to anchor. He has a government friend who works near the river mouth who calls him when a cruiser is heading upstream.
We slept on a decent double mattress on the upper deck under mosquito nets, although it was very clean the en-suite left a little to be desired.

There are three orangutan feeding stations along the river. As you slide down the river you get glimpses of the orangutans, but the best sightings are around the feeding stations where the rangers chum the waters with fruit. We were there just at the very start of the wet season. As the rains are more common the orangutans go deeper into the forest and enjoy the local fruits. During the drier season they rely on the afternoon clockwork delivery of fruit treats.

They have incredibly powerful arms and climb 50 feet up a tree in seconds. Not bad for animals that weigh in around 80 lbs for females and 165 lbs for males.

While you see a good turn out at the feeding stations, the orangutans live a solitary lifestyle and there isn't too much interaction or socializing at the feeding stations. The primary bonding is between mother and child, the little one stays with mom for at least the first 5 years of life. We saw one mother with a baby and a young adolescent in tow. You can see the child hanging on tightly here as mom takes a leap carrying a mouthful of tangerines. Sometimes the young ones stay up in the trees as mom goes down to get food. If she doesn't come back soon, you hear the toddlers start up a whine that would make a human toddler proud.

 A fairly young orangutan keeping an eye on mom from above.

Their arms are a far stronger, and longer, than their legs.

A few portrait shots

 Now its not all orangutans in the rain forest. We took two night hikes with a park ranger.  

There were,of course, giant spiders.

 And not to be outdone, tarantulas.

With all these bugs around  you need some trusty frogs.

Chris' least favorite nighttime meeting, a black scorpion doing battle with a stick being held by the ranger. 

And nothing like a carnivorous pitcher plant to compete with the frogs for bugs.

An early morning river view.

There are hoards of very social long-tails proboscis monkeys-- can you see the nose? They cruise through the upper canopy by simply leaping off a branch, confident that they will catch something before hitting the ground. They break the silence of the jungle with screeching arguments among each other. 

 The proboscis monkeys and macaques climb high trees on one side of the river and leap off into the river with a belly flop style splash and then swim like crazy to avoid the crocs. You can see a couple swimming here. Why did the monkey cross the river?

Here you can just see one in mid-air center picture and one that has just hit the water on the left. 

Here is are a few getting ready to leap into the river. Let's see, no crocs - check, no speed boats - check, Go!

The bird life was pretty fascinating. Here's a hornbill watching the river.

We were tied to a wood pier after we went on a hike. On the center of the table on the boat was a bunch of small bananas left over from our desert. All of us were on the same deck, near the bow. One of these macaques leaps on the boat, takes a half-a-second look at us, grabs the bunch and leaps off the boat. Score!

I have no idea what this bird is. It was sleeping on this branch as we walked past in the night. The best I could understand form the ranger was that it was a red bird.

This wood-pecker is buried in its hole, safely sleeping the night away.

Didn't catch the name of this gal also sleeping on a branch.

I was up early sipping my morning tea and reading on my Kindle. I looked over to the side and saw a pair of eyes looking back. An Indonesian owl.

A very colorful stork-billed kingfisher. These beauties were zipping up and down the river in the morning. They're a good size, at least 6 inches tall and with a cry like a Cookaburra.

A large monitor lizard. When we first saw him or her we thought it was a croc. There are both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles on the river, but we didn't see any.

Its kind of a tough life living on the river.

We made it 40 km (24 miles) upstream to Camp Leakey, the research station. This is our river boat mates and cruising friends from Sweden, Katherina and Anders off s/y Carpe Mare.

The ranger telling us about the trees in their nursery that they use to replant after the forest fires. This section was burnt by deer hunters, clearing the area to make it easier to kill deer and is mostly re-forested. The current issue on Borneo is the clearing of land by fire to plant more palm-oil palms.

One of the tress planted by the Georgia crew.

The ship's horticulturalist.

There has to be at least one really destructive group in the forest, this is the Indonesian bearded pig.

This is Terry, one of the three large male orangutans in this area. You can see the cheek jowls that distinguish the males. It is suggested on the park signs that you not get between a male orangutan and a female-- noted!

And few more gratuitous people of the forest pictures.

Paul