This past weekend, however, we went on a fabulous and comfortably adventurous trip to central Kalimantan! By Indonesian standards it was an expensive trip, but it was well worth all those millions of rupiahs! The flight from Jakarta to Palangkaraya was only 1.5 hours, and aside from the Lion Air pilot once again landing us hard upon touch down (seems to be a trend with Lion Air...), it was an easy get away from Jakarta. We went Thursday night and stayed at the Luwansa Hotel so that we would already be there Friday morning to get on the boat. The Luwansa Hotel was surprisingly nice - a very clean, comfortable and decent place to spend one short night.
The next morning we were picked up a bit late from the hotel (car problems they said) but then arrived a short 15-20 minutes later at the port which I assume was in the old part of town. We were greeted at once by an Indonesian woman speaking perfect English - Aini - and were welcomed on a gorgeous wooden house boat called the Rahai'i Pangun. We were taken to our comfortable cabins and shown a map of our route which would take us up the Rungan River past 3 orangutan reserves. As soon as the other tourists (an American couple living in Jakarta) arrived we shipped out! We drank coffee and ate some Indonesian snacks as we floated by the busy river life of Palangkaraya.
We spent the next four hours or so slowly making our way up the river, passing a few small villages in the midst of miles of jungle. At one point we asked how isolated a certain village was, as it seemed to us we were in the middle of nowhere. Much to our surprise we were just 15 km from Palangkaraya by road! So while our whole river cruise felt very "adventurous" and "isolated", surrounded by what felt like miles and miles of jungle and small river ways, it turns out we were never more than 50 minutes from Palangkaraya! During our whole 2 day trip; however, we never passed another boat full of tourists, and were instead treated to fishermen in small canoes, small villages full of waving children, quiet river jungle and mangrove forests, and of course orangutans!
The orangutan reserves are managed by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), which is an organization that has been rescuing orangutans from illegal captivity or loss of habitat since 1991. Their mission is to Rescue, Rehabilitate, and Release orangutans from around Borneo. The reserves that we visited are where the orangutans are being rehabilitated - learning to fend for themselves in a safe jungle environment. Most of the orangutans were rescued from captivity where they most likely lived since they were young, so they never learned how to live in the jungle. BOSF teaches them how to do that, first at "Forest School" and then later at these reservations. We visited the Nyaru Menteng location in Central Kalimantan.
After a delicious lunch on the boat we soon arrived at our first orangutan island. Straight away we spotted a few orangutans up in the trees, and all of us crowded to the back of the boat to get the best view. We stopped nearby and readied ourselves to get in canoes in order to get closer to the orangutans and then continue on a canoe trip through the smaller river ways. The big boat wasn't allowed to get too close to the island, but canoes can get closer so we all piled ourselves into the canoes and were paddled the short distance to the island.
At one point there were about 4 orangutans on the ground near the shore, where the feeding spot was located. They were gorgeous! Even the boys had their eyes glued to them, as I continuously experimented with my camera trying to get "national geographic shots" in low light, with a telephoto lens, balancing on a rocky canoe! I took over 350 photos over 2 days, and fortunately I believe I managed a few good ones.
Once our appetite for Orangutan gazing was satisfied we took off on our canoe ride. What we thought was to be a short ride through the small water ways turned into a 2 hour long voyage. By the time we found our big boat dusk was well upon us and the rain clouds were threatening. The first hour of the trip was lovely though - cruising through jungle encroached river tributaries, mangrove forests and black water lakes (from the peat of the soil). It was completely quiet except for some bird and insect chatter, and the only hint of civilization we saw was a few fishermen shacks.
As can only happen in a 2 hour long canoe ride, our 4 year old grew restless and began the constant barrage of "when are we there...?? (whine whine) where is our boat...?? (whine whine)". We did the best we could with LC while J and I simultaneously mouthed to each other "oh my aching back...! (whine whine) oh my sore butt...! (whine whine) where is our boat...?? (whine whine)". As the sun went down and the clouds grew darker I must admit to a creeping fear as well - what if our canoe capsized here in the middle of nowhere?! The thought hadn't crossed my mind until everything grew more ominous with the approaching night. Finally, we spotted the boat and we all cheered - our guide was also very happy to have finally arrived! Evidently there was a gold mining platform blocking the way that our big boat wanted to take to meet us, so it had to go farther up river than originally planned. We had made it safely, with just an aching back and bum to complain of, and with beautiful scenery to remember.
Our first night we parked near the side of the river, enjoyed another delicious meal, and listened to the rain overhead. Thankfully we tucked in early to bed as the jungle and our own little monkeys woke us up at 5:30 the next morning. We had a lazy morning as the boat paddled up to a larger village where we picked up another few passengers. We then headed to a second orangutan island and once again enjoyed watching them eat and swing from the branches.
After lunch we headed to a dayak village where we were entertained with a welcoming dance and music by some of the village children. After a little while LC got bored and wandered off towards some other kids and started making friends. He and C were definitely big hits in the village and were basically treated like rock stars. I'm sure they don't have many foreign kids visiting their village and they were a novelty. But they had fun and we enjoyed learning a bit about dayak culture and about life in the village.
After we left the village the boat found a spot to park for the night and we were treated to another great meal and stayed up a while chatting with our boat mates. We went to bed early again as we knew it would be another early morning and we had to get off the boat to catch our flight back to Jakarta.
In the morning we realized they had parked us right beside another orangutan island, and were delighted that we got to see another couple orangutans before leaving Kalimantan. We were happy we were able to see a mom with her baby at the first island, and then were able to see another one in the morning before leaving.
All in all it was a really great trip - easy flight out of Jakarta and everything was so well organized. Plus the boat was very nice, the food was great, the guide was very informative, and best of all we saw some amazing orangutans in Kalimantan!
