The original incentive for coming to Indonesia was to see the orangutans. Since it is nature and nothing in nature is guaranteed, we planned several opportunities to see these gentle giants if our first encounter/s didn’t work out. We were continually cautioned that sightings are “uncertain.” Our first opportunity in Sumatra was a success and it was the only opportunity to see them totally in the wild. the three that we saw had no need, or desire, for human contact. They just swayed back and forth to go from tree to tree and were oblivious to the cameras clicking below them.
Our second opportunity was in Malaysian Borneo. We went Semenggohto Wildlife Center which is a six stage orphanage and feeding station to educate infants who have been taken in for eventual reintroduction into the forest. This was very interesting and enjoyable in spite of the fact that it was an organized, on the tourist trail ,paved roadways, and well-regulated attraction. The tour buses line up in the parking lot and disgorge their load of tourists of several nationalities who walk the walk and talk the talk.. There is a nice information building (air conditioned) and a snack bar for juices and all the amenities of a must-do tourist attraction.
It’s an orphanage because infant orangs’ mothers are often killed by poachers and people wanting to rid the area of them so that they can turn the land into a rubber or palm oil plantation. The orangs only bear an offspring once every eight years, so reproduction is limited and fragile. The wildlife center takes them in as infants when they are orphaned and teaches them over the course of several years to learn how to be orangutans again, eventually releasing them into areas deep in the rain forest and away from humanity, as much as that is possible these days. The orangs climbed and swung on poles and ropes put there for easy, unblocked photo ops and a path to the feeding station where fruits and orangutan goodies were distributed on the lowered deck. Easier for photos than from the higher, tiered bleachers. So it was a really nice experience, but a very touristy one…no complaints about people because I, too, got those same photo ops and was happy for them. I got to see the orangutans a second time…. It was a very different look to see them going hand over hand along a 100 foot rope suspended about 30 feet in the air instead of obscured in the forest.
So because we had fulfilled our limited expectations, our planned trip up the Kumai River and into smaller rivers in Indonesian Borneo, called Kalimantan, to see remote feeding stations was a pure gravy trip…if we saw some, great, if we didn’t okay, we were okay with that. It would be a really relaxing and restful three days.
Well, we truly hit the Orangutan jackpot. Three different feeding station, each one more remote than the one before, each one with special experiences.…At one, I had some extra phone batteries in my pants pocket and one mother with baby attached approached and poked my pocket to see if it was food, I was later told…finding it solid, she ignored me and went on her way to the feeding platform. We were told that we shouldn’t have anything loose like purses or such because the orangs will take it and you do not get into a pulling match with an animal that outweighs you and is 8 times stronger….just give it to then, they said…they will probably drop it soon and you can retrieve it….When the orangs come on the ground, all the guides and boat personnel who are there with water and rain ponchos quickly put them on their back so that they were not loose which attracts the orangs.
Another time the four of us were sitting on the front row of an old, very creaky two row benches. Cody’s eyes got really big and his jaw dropped as he looked past me. I turned and saw an enormous orangutan come out of the forest about four feet away, look at me directly, and he passed us in the passageway between the two benches. He literally almost brushed us as he lumbered past. It was an exhilarating moment for all of us. This was “Tom,” the reigning male and from the numbers of babies clinging on desperately to moms, he’s on the job. He passed behind us and just went down and plunked his butt on the end of the bench with a big ring of people snapping photos and video….an old American joined them after he got his system cooled down from the adrenaline rush. “Tom” just sat there like some Hollywood star in front of the adoring fans and posed for photos for a long time before he got bored with the whole thing and went to the feeding platform where he dominated the food table.
At another we were entertained by the swinging orangs, On one occasion, one mom with adolescent offspring not attached any longer climbed up high into the trees with junior following, and let their body weight bend the tree toward the next one where she disembarked and waited for junior. Since he didn’t have the body weight to make it bend to her tree she placed her weight so that her tree would bend towards junior’s. Not so far as to make it easy for him, but close enough were she would put out her arm and force him/her to trust and reach out into no-man’s-air and grab hold whence she pulled him onto her tree and they went across the canopy this way. It was like watching a lesson in orangutan development in how their world operates.
They just move so slowly but gracefully. Unlike monkeys who swing and leap into the void to descend to another tree below….Orangs just ever so slowly let body weight take over and gravity do its thing and they rustle their way from tree to tree…They spend most of their lives in the trees where they are not vulnerable…they build a different nest every night of large fronds and large-leafed branches and one that is strong enough to support the weighty (up to 300+ pounds) body with a child or two still hanging on.
Cody and Carolyn were perfect boat mates. I never did a crossword puzzle or read my Smithsonian magazines because we always had something to talk about…their travels, their history, their seven month back-packing, no frills (until this one) tour of South East Asia…They had such open minds and were so inquisitive in their search to understand what they were seeing. They even taught English in a rural school for three weeks. Cody, it turns out is from Portland and is a big Blazer and Duck fan, so we even had sports to talk about. Carolyn is from Minnesota and they were both students at American University in DC. I truly admired them both as individuals, as a couple, and as travelers.
The feeding stations all had orangutans coming which doesn’t always happen so we were just fortunate all the way around…in August, they say that there are so many boats on the water that at some stations there are literally hundreds of people vieing for that perfect spot. There are a total of 84 klotoks on the river and while we were there, only about 10 were plying the river and they weren’t all at the same place at the same time.. At one station we and another couple were the only ones there.
We all slept on the deck on comfortable mattresses in two separate canopied tents to keep the mosquitoes out and the heat in without real ventilation and you had a tolerable, if not good, night’s sleep. Throw in great food, a night forest walk that produced HUGE spiders, nearly invisible walking sticks, a snake above our heads and an assortment of moths, a tree reforestation stop where we planted trees and left markers showing who we were, and all in all it was a wonderful experience. It would have been even without the orangs, but they just pushed it over the top on the fulfillment scale.
We saved it for our last hurrah on the trip. Then it was on to Jakarta, that impossible city that we avoided as long as possible but now loomed for a three-day stop before coming home.
