Borneo
5:00 am, December 1, 2017
Yesterday was another all-day travel day. Left the hotel at 8:00 am, arrived at the Rimba Lodge here in Borneo at 8:00 pm. The plan was, drive to Semarang airport; arrive at 11:00, an hour and a half before the flight was to leave. Land in Pangkalan Bun, in the Kalimantan region of Borneo, at 1:30 pm; drive to the boat dock; arrive at the Lodge around 3:30, in time to see the orangutan feeding.
We were warned that flying in Indonesia was iffy, in terms of schedules, but the airline we chose had a 30-day ontime record. Well, we didn’t take off from Semarang until 3:30. We were told there was a delay caused by the weather. Spending 4 1/2 hours on the hard chairs in the waiting room was decidedly unpleasant. I guess that’s the risks you take by going this far off the beaten path. As far as the weather goes, we found out there’s a cyclone hitting parts of Java. There’s truth in that: the flight wasn’t exactly white-knuckle, but quite bumpy.
Klotok River Cruise
The boat (I have to get a picture of this one, once it’s light enough.) was a pretty large, heavy affair. It lumbered along through the bay at Pangkala Bun, then turned left up the river to the lodge. The sun finished setting as we left; the ride up the river was in darkness. It was probably 200 yards wide at the mouth, but narrowed gradually to about 20 yards wide. Both sides were lined with dense vegetation: large palm trees. Every once in a while one of them was lit up, sparkling with thousands of fireflies. Very pretty!
We passed only one boat coming the other way, a village of about 300 people, and two other lodges that had boats tied up to them. Finally, after two hours, we landed at Rimba Lodge and were shown to our cabin. Sparse, but comfortable: two twin beds shoved together under a mosquito net, a toilet, running water. But it was air-conditioned! All told, a good choice.
Saturday, December 2, the Grand Kecubung Hotel, Pangkalebung
Let me catch up here. As you can imagine, updating this blog and posting it on the Internet while on this leg of the journey was not really practical.
First of all, we were exhausted by the time we reached the lodge. We just went to our cabin and went to bed. The two of us are pretty hardy — for our age — but there are limits.
When we woke up and looked around we found ourselves in an admirable kind of place, an “eco-lodge.” It’s all wood, built on platforms above the swamp that surrounds the river we just traveled on. It is not connected to any facilities — water, electricity, etc. All of its electricity is provided by solar power, the water is collected in cisterns. Yet it is comfortable. Under the circumstances, I’m surprised that our cabin was nicely air-conditioned.
In the morning we were served a rudimentary breakfast: really good coffee (!), a cheese omelette, and toast with butter and jam. And we found out that we were the only two guests at the lodge! On the weekend, more guests would arrive.
This was, in my opinion, the best choice in terms of accommodation for the two of us. Most other tourists at the park opted for much larger, three-deck boats, which they slept on. Sleeping out on deck, even with mosquito netting around the bed, just wasn’t for us.
Two small groups stayed, I suppose, in Pangkala Bun and were brought to the orangutan sites in what I call runabouts, small outboard boats of the type you see on rivers and lakes in the U.S. They sped in from across the bay and then up the river, stopping only at the feeding sites and at a different lodge along the river for lunch.
On the other hand, we puttered up the river at about a quick walking pace, and stopped whenever we saw something interesting: wild orangutans peeking in from the left shore (the national park was mostly on the right), probiscus monkeys, long-tailed macacs, tropical birds of different sorts. The speeders missed all that.
So, on to the park:
Orangutans
Aside from the couple we saw from the river, which the guide told us was rare, we stopped at two feeding sites, one along the river, and another at the Louis Leakey Camp. They were each set back from the river, the Leakey Camp one, about a mile back, I’d say.
Here’s the drill: Picture a clearing in the forest with a wooden platform, perhaps four by eight meters in size, about two meters off the ground. There are some rudimentary benches set up at the edge of the clearing, a bleachers of sorts. At a prescribed time — I think it was 10:00 am at the first site — two rangers walk up with big baskets on their backs, carrying 100kg of bananas. One climbs up and sweeps the debris of yesterday’s feast off the platform, then they pile the bananas on. You wait.
At the first site, a mother shows up with a baby in her arms. She swings onto the platform and they begin to eat in a more-or-less leisurely fashion. Another female shows up with a baby. No luck. She gets chased off by the larger female. A dominant male shows up and helps himself. All the while, there are other individuals hanging from nearby trees, obviously too intimidated to approach.
Eventualy the dominant ones leave, some taking bananas with them. Then the less dominant ones come in, stuff themselves quickly, grab what they can, and run off. While waiting their chance, they sometimes rip off small branches from the trees they’re hanging on. Mimicking grazing behavior? Well, one of them dropped one of these branches, the size of a bouquet of flowers, on my head!
After looking around the Leakey Camp a bit, and watching the feeding there, we headed back. Instead of just returning to Rimba Lodge, as had been planned for us, we opted to have our boat take us back to Pangkala Bun, to stay at a more conventional hotel.
In about half an hour we will take a cab to the airport and proceed to Surabaya, to begin the next leg of this journey. I hope to have some more sketches and/or watercolor to show you in my next post.
