Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CENTRAL KALIMANTAN
Tanjung Puting National Park
Tanjung Puting offers a safe and comfortable jungle river cruise, open to anyone, that
brings you up close and personal with Borneo's great ape, the orangutan. This winning
combination, part
African Queen
and part
National Geographic
, has made it the most pop-
ular tourist destination in Kalimantan, with many people flying in and out on their way to
Bali or Borobodur. Cruises go up Sungai Sekonyer, in one corner of the huge 4150-sq-km
park, and past three orangutan feeding stations, where you come ashore and watch the
'people of the forest' emerge from hiding - an amazing moment.
Just as amazing, the park is largely the result of a single remarkable woman. Dr Biruté
Galdikas is a member of Leakey's Angels, a trio of young women trained by famous natur-
alist Louis Leakey to study the world's great primates in the wild. For Diane Fossey it was
the gorilla, for Jane Goodall the chimpanzee, and for Galdikas the orangutan. In 1971 the
young primatologist arrived at Tanjung Puting by canoe and soon established Camp
Leakey, where she still lives at certain times of year. Here she made such seminal discover-
ies as the orangutan's eight-year birth cycle, which makes the species highly vulnerable to
extinction. A very personal approach to 'her' orangutans has lost her some supporters in
the academic establishment, but the fact remains that the 6000 wild orangutans living in
Tanjung Puting today form the single largest population in the world.
The park serves as an orangutan rehabilitation centre, where orphaned or formerly cap-
tive individuals are trained to live in the wild. Part of that process is daily hour-long feed-
ings at jungle platforms, open to visitors. Females arrive with their clinging young to feed
on a pile of bananas, which they peel with their lips. If you're lucky, they'll scatter before a
large male, with his enormous cheek pads and powerful body - a most impressive sight.
The highlight is spotting the current alpha male, Tom, but since males range widely, this is
hit or miss. Wild orangutans can also be seen along the river, particularly at low tide, when
they come to eat palm fruit, and around Camp Leakey, where they like to sit on the board-
walk. While some may appear deceptively tame, do not attempt to touch or feed them, or to
get between a mother and child, as certain apes are prone to bag-snatching and occasionally
biting visitors.
The other significant reason for Tanjung Puting's popularity, which should not be under-
estimated, is the
klotok
. The Sekonyer is navigated on your own private riverboat, a ro-
mantic form of travel that leaves you feeling like a rajah. These two-storey, 8m to 10m
