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Kalimantan Capers with the Pilkingtons!!!!
Have just returned to Penang after a great 2 weeks in Borneo. Lovely to share some travels with close friends and we certainly won't forget our jungle week in a hurry!!! Mike and Karen arrived here after a couple of nights in Singapore so we gave them a whistle stop tour of Georgetown, Penang. Enjoyed visiting the clan jetties, tasting durian, the Khoo Kongsi complex, several Buddhist temples, Armenian Street and just wandering around the town. Visited some of our favourite watering and eating places. Bali Hai, a Chinese seafood restaurant was our choice for my birthday meal and we had a fun evening. Learnt that l share my birthday with the King of Malaysia so that explained the national holiday and hoards of local tourists. Mike and Karen loved the E and O Hotel as much as us so we were loath to depart early the next morning for Jakarta and the unknown challenges of Indonesian Borneo.
Arrived in Indonesia and spent the night at the FM7 Hotel near the airport to avoid the chaotic traffic of the city. Met our tour guide, Graham and the remaining member of our tour, Steve ( a wildlife tour enthusiast). The tour began early the next day with a Trigana flight to Pangkalan Bun on Kalimantan. Indonesian Airlines don't have the same levels of health and safety checks or timetabling as we are used to in Europe so it was a question of a quick prayer and hope for the best. We got there in one piece despite the pilot landing at full speed and taking ages to slow down on the runway!!!! We met our local guide, Bain and were soon transported to our klotok, a roomy local boat named Dolphin that was our transport for the week. It had 3 lovely staff, Iyan -the skipper, Azis -the cook, and Iman -the boat hand and fantastic wildlife spotter. The Indonesians are very respectful of mature ladies so Karen and I were given royal treatment. As we left the port of Kumai, we saw lots of commercial activity including evidence of logging (loading and unloading, tugboats, cargo ships, speedboats, canoes with paying passengers and motorbikes on board) but sadly no sign of the frequently sighted dolphins? There were grey concrete towers broadcasting birdsong. These are to attract swallows so the nests can be collected for swallow's nest soup, an Asian delicacy and a fizzy drink which we sampled ( ugh!!!). The muslim call to prayer resounded around the town.We cruised for over 2 hours up the Sekonyer River to our lodge, the Rimba, managed by Bain's wife, Desy. The river was beautiful flanked by lush tropical rainforest on both sides although we later learnt that the brown water was very polluted by the open gold mine further upriver which pours silt and mercury into it. The unpolluted colour is a very dark black and now only seen in the small tributaries.
The lodge was simple but comfortable and our rooms faced onto the jungle with swamp beneath the wooden walkways. We had to cover ourselves with deet to deter the mosquitos (and hope the Malarone works!!!) We had limited hot water but never knew what insect life would be sharing the bathroom! Electricity powered by solar and generator only worked from 5pm until 10am. Meals were very fresh and tasty.The lodge was dry but we fortified ourselves with gin and whiskey from our duty free supplies during the long evenings. Long tailed macaque and proboscis monkeys live in trees close by so our wildlife spotting could begin at the lodge. The macaques are trouble (had to ensure all doors were shut) and we were told never to stare at them as they will attack if they feel you are challenging them. There were frequent thumps on the roofs of the lodge as they landed above us. They are always in large family groups and look cute all bedded down for the night in trees dotted along the riverbank. The proboscis monkeys are large and noisy but shy with humans. Bain got a great photo of one diving into the river to swim across to the other side. We spent a long time viewing monkey antics from our boat.
Everyday, we went out early on the klotok to search for orangutans particularly at the feeding sites at Tanjung Harapan, Pondok Tanggui and Camp Leakey.The area is part of the Tanjung Puting National Park which is trying to protect the rainforest, (the orangutan's natural habitat), from loggers, the effects of mining and the worst culprit, the ever increasing spread of palm oil plantations. We watched enthralled as so many orangutans came to feed and interact with each other. They are solitary creatures in the wild and the feeding platforms are a way of trying to rehabilitate them back to the forest. Some of the babies are orphans whose mothers have been killed by man but have been successfully given to surrogate mothers who have lost their offspring or can't reproduce. I was pleased to see that the orangutans have little human contact which was different from when we visited Bukit Lewang in Sumatra and guides encouraged us to feed them. We saw males with cheek pads, a mother who had just given birth carrying her baby with the umbilical cord still attached, mothers with babies and sometimes another child still in tow and young males. We were pelted with branches by a mother in a tree, nearly peed on by another, heard a longcall by a dominant male and warned off vocally, especially by a wild mother on the riverbank. My favourite sighting was a lone huge male munching vegetation on the riverbank as we sat watching from the boat deck. A lone black handed gibbon stole fruit and milk from the orangutans at one site (as did a squirrel) and wild boar rooted around beneath another platform. The sites can be fairly packed with tourists and guides especially Camp Leakey where the jetty is blocked with klotoks. This was my least favourite site despite having fame as being started by Dr Birute Galdikas, one of the protégés of Louis Leakey, an anthropologist who sent Goodhall, Fossey and Galdikas to study primates. We saw her at the Rimba Lodge as an American tour group was visiting under her charity. The camp seems to be run around her personal cult following and restricts entrance to the feeding platforms despite the camp being in the National Park and open to all. The local guides seem intimidated by Galdikas and it doesn't seem to help the Conservation cause. We almost missed the feeding as the time was brought forward an hour apparently to allow her tourist group exclusive access - unlawful and morally wrong. All the other tourists and local guides had to rush to catch the orangutans and we all suspected that the dominant male, Tom was being fed in the camp to keep him away from the feeding platform. A murky world of misbehaviour!!!
We had a brilliant time with our knowledgeable and fun tour leader, Graham. He is an academic who has been studying orangutans for nearly 10 years despite only being in his mid 20s! We learnt so much from him about their behaviour and realised that they must be respected as wild animals despite looking very human like. They share 95% of our DNA but are like very powerful naughty children aged 4 or 5. People make the mistake of standing too close and they make off with your watch, camera etc... Graham has lost a computer, an iPod and an iPhone to these primates. In rare cases, they can be violent. Graham was attacked by a lone female who pulled out part of his hair and then bit his scalp badly. He had to escape into the crocodile infested river!!! Overall, they are thrilling and amusing to observe and we felt very privileged to have Graham as our guide. Kevin was amused by his tales of collecting fresh orangutan dung over several months but also in awe of his fortitude in living in the jungle for so long with its heat and constant humidity. (Mike was our Mr Wet T shirt so will be entering a competition as soon as he returns). In Indonesia, Graham has had malaria many times, typhoid, been in a car crash with fatalities, in a plane that flopped belly first onto a runway and witnessed a fatality in a speedboat accident. His mother visited him last year and had to make 2 trips to a hospital. This is not a country for the fainthearted!!! Graham, we salute you and by the way, love your devotion to Britney Spears and your locks.
Our local guide, Bain was great at looking after us both on the klotok and in the forest. He also took some great wildlife action shots. With him we spotted 2 red langur monkeys and a grey one. At Pondak Tanggui our photo buffs, Mike and Steve photographed a large group of ground growing pitcher plants ready to devour insects.The forest is full of beautiful coloured butterflies, more than 100 species. We saw a pair of rhinoceros hornbills, an eagle, a kite, kingfishers, many smaller birds and a neon green tree snake. We only spotted a baby crocodile on a branch and not its family. Despite the existence of the crocs, you see locals bathing in the water and 2 years ago, a tourist was killed swimming near Camp Leakey. Of course, we saw many Pygmy giraffes but surprisingly, Rimba Lodge didn't believe our frequent sightings!!! One night, the riverside was lit up by thousands of fireflies and it felt magical to drift along in our boat sipping beer listening to the jungle nighttime chorus.
In the middle of the week, we sailed back to Pangkalan Bun to visit the Orangutan Foundation and their local partner, Yayorin. The foundation is UK based and aims to support conservation work in Borneo and to raise funds and awareness in the UK and elsewhere. We met the vet who works with the orangutans who explained his work to us. Our visit to Yayorin was very interesting. They are trying to educate local people to preserve the rainforest and have come up with some sustainable projects that indigenous people can practice which will give them an income and mean they don't have to work in logging, mining or palm oil. Examples they are promoting are fish farming and using gas produced by cow dung for cooking and lighting. The following day, we went by klotok and then small speedboat to visit Tanjung Puntri, a traditional village starting to benefit from a sustainable programme. About 300 families live on jetties here. Many are fishing commercially and there were mounds of fish drying in the sun. A community liaison officer explained that they have introduced a method of turning nip palm fruit into brown sugar. We had a tasting and it was good. We had an audience of many very photogenic children. Saw evidence of their love of cockfighting by 2 men proudly showing us their champion birds! We crossed the river to see the fruit and chat to a woman who is making money from the crop. It seems to be an opportunity for women to have their own money. We returned to the speedboats for an exhilarating trip to Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. The Gemimi Camp is closed to the public and used by the foundation as a release site for rehabilated orangutans. As Steppes, our travel company works closely with and supports the foundation, we were able to visit. We had a packed lunch at the small camp and then visited a orangutan blinded after being hit more than a 100 times by an air rifle. So sad and avoidable but she seemed contented in her large caged area and was actively swinging on the ropes. The visit to this camp and its feeding platform was one of the highlights for me as there were only us and a few rangers. The mothers and babies performed acrobatics above our heads and loved ripping open the coconuts.
Our week was coming to an end. We went to visit the nearest village to the lodge and Karen and I bought orangutan woodcarvings made by a villager and fern jewellery. We had lots of local interaction and confirmed what lovely friendly people the locals are. The village backed onto cleared fields. On our penultimate night, we had a lovely dinner on board our klotok. Azis conjured up a real feast of fish, prawns, satay, vegetables and rice and noodles. He had won Karenand I over earlier in the week with his banana and pineapple fritters!!! We ate dinner next to 2 klotoks full of Indonesian schoolchildren so there was lots of laughter. We then went on a night walk around the research centre, Pondak Ambung, where Graham did some research in the past. The last day was very wet so we stayed around the lodge before venturing out later by boat to watch monkeys and look for elusive crocs.
The next morning, the 4 of us took a 30 minute speedboat ride back to the port. It was slightly alarming as it was dark and 1 driver drove by the light from his head torch. We kept breaking down as water hyacinth got tangled in the propeller. Still, we were met by 2 taxis and soon at the airport to continue our 19 hour journey to Kota Kinabalu, still in Borneo but Malaysian so no direct flights! Landed back at Jakarta and had the use of a hotel room for a few hours before our flights to KL and then KK.
We had booked 5 relaxing nights at the Shangri La's Rasa Ria Resort. Felt we all deserved a bit off luxury after a challenging week in the jungle. Not to be quite as straight forward as 3 weeks ago we were told that the hotel was hosting a huge Indian wedding during the last 3 days and would we like to be transferred to their sister hotel? Said yes as 95% of the hotel was booked out due to the wedding and some of the restaurants closed to us. Rasa Ria is absolutely beautiful on the beach with its own nature reserve in the jungle. We watched some baby orangutans feeding but it was very tame after our Indonesian experience. They rescue orphans and support them in this small reserve for several years until they are moved to a larger reserve and introduced to adult orangutans and learn to live independently. Liked the fact that lots of local children came to learn about the animals and forest. We enjoyed the beach and facilities although the wedding preparations began to get intrusive. We were intrigued by a troupe of Aussies practising a performance in large coloured balls on moving stilts. The marquees were impressive and a large stage was built for the entertainment. Kevin and Mike left early on the 3rd morning for an overnight trip to climb Mt Kinabalu. Karen and l changed hotels somewhat reluctantly as we were told any guests remaining could attend the wedding. Met the bride and groom from Calcutta in the foyer who were charming. They were expecting 750 guests with all expenses being met by the groom's father!!!!
The Tanjung Aru hotel was nearer the city and the airport but still lovely as it was sited next to the sea with a Sunset Bar perched over the sea. Karen and l enjoyed girlie time until we saw our men limping back. They hadn't reached the summit as it was very difficult and demanding and basically involved rock climbing at the top. Don't think their preparation was quite as rigorous as required!!!! Spent our last day, sunning ourselves listening to Kevin and Mike groan when any movement was required.
Now, we are back in Penang and the Pilks are home in the UK. A great time had by all despite some danger aand discomfort.Feel committed to supporting the fight for orangutan conservation as they are magnificent creatures. Til the next trip...... Xxx
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