Borneo or bust! Let's see those orangs..

There are so many amazing things to see and do here in Indonesia, and this is one of those things that we'll remember forever and do again when you come visit.  We spend three days and two nights on a boat with friends, and stopped at three orangutan refuges along the way.  It was amazing!  We were six kids and eight adults (including three grandmas!).  An hour from home to the airport, another hour from Jakarta to Pangkulan Bun, Kalimantan (what Indonesia calls its part of Borneo), and 20 minutes' drive to the boat.  Having caught the very early flight, we were cruisin' down the river by 10:30am.



Note: to get onto the boat, we first had to get past the drying fish on the dock.. pretty neat to look at, but the smell was really something to remember!

 

Everything about this trip was great.  We ate the best Indonesian food we've ever had thanks to the two ladies below in the boat's kitchen working all day.. and we had the best guides, too, Yusuf and Mo -- who were rangers as well, and knew everything about the flora and fauna and culture and conservation.  And they watched the kids to make sure no one fell in.  I was betting money that someone would, but the only casuality was Malvy's stuffed parrot.  And he was retrieved.

 

The boat itself was a double-decker, and so we had lots of space.  We had two boats, actually, but only used the second for sleeping.  During the day, we hung out on one all together.

 

As we started up the big river towards one of the tributaries.. we first saw these horrible concrete buildings that omitted bird songs for 12 or 14 hours a day.  The Chinese built them to attract the kinds of birds that make their nests out of spit that the Chinese eat in birds' nest soup (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_bird's_nest).  Honestly, I think I would have lost my mind had I had to live in that village with all of the intense (way too intense) tweeting. 

 

 

We soon got away from the noise, and because we were close to the ocean and it was high tide, we saw dolphins! Wow!!  It was a great way to get the kids to be quiet for about 4 whole minutes.

 

 

We kept going up the river, as we were on schedule for the feeding time at the first orang station. We got there, got off the boat and walked through the forest.. we were pretty surprised to see someone waiting for the ranger and his bananas--who was about 10 minutes late!  This guy didn't care about us, he was watching the trail where we had just come from for the RIGHT person to come!

 

He finally came and put the bananas on the feeding platform.  Soon, the male orang (mature, you can see his big cheek flaps) was joined by his honey.  It was amazing to see how gentle they were with each other.. and because he was the main man, the other orangs waited in the trees until they were done eating.

Back to the boat, and off to another feeding station.  It was hot and humid, but there was a breeze on the boat.  The grown-ups sat on the top and watched the jungle, the girls were on the top floor at the back playing.  And the two boy monkeys (Eben and Bas) were all over the place.

Yusuf

Mo

Lou in her sporty British jungle outfit!  Go Lou!!

We then saw a number of more orangutans of all ages at the two next feeding stations.  It was amazing how they watched us as much as we watched them.  It was also amazing how watching them eat explained the table manners of some of my closest friends.  They were very quick about getting a lot of bananas into their bellies!

 

The walks through the forest were amazing as well..

In true jungle form, it was rainy a lot of the time.. watch out for leeches, Zeric!

 

At the last feeding station, we saw a gibbon joining in on the action.. he had such an amazing face.

and a squirrel too.. never saw one with those colors before.

The last place we stopped was a refuge for orangs, and we had strict instructions not to swim.. there were stories about what happened to others who tried!  Apparently crocs like to drown their food, peg it to the bottom of the river for a few days to rot, then let it float to the surface of the water to eat it. Yum.

 

 

The most exciting thing was to meet Siswi. She was just the sweetest girl.. we so wanted to snuggle her, but weren't allowed.  Yusuf had known her for a long time, and had a few conversations with her while we were there.  He was talking to an old friend.  They liked to wrestle too, but she was feeling like taking a nap when we saw her..



We bumped into some teenage boys that were wrestling..

...which was somehow very familiar

and more teenagers hanging around checking us out too.. 

 

 

Back on the boat, we continued to hang out (and eat)

Lisette and Marcel

hangnail?

Pirates on the other ship

In the evenings, we saw probiscus monkeys (check the profile!) in the trees along the riverbanks.  There were tons of them in each tree.. so much so that the trees were bending from the weight. In the night, it wasn't unusal to hear them falling out of the trees and into the water while they were sleeping.  Rude awakening!!  It was surprisingly noisy at night--like being in the middle of New York City!  For our last dinner on the river, we parked next to a huge bush full of fireflies.. it was even better than Christmas lights.. it was magical. 

 

Can't wait till you come visit, so we can do it all over again!!