Borneo
land of jungles, Joseph Conrad, Kota Kinabalu and Orang Utans. One
of two places in the world where you can see orang utans in the wild.
The other is Sumatra.
We
arrived in Kumai in the southern Indonesian province of Central
Kalimantan (in fact Indonesia call the whole island Kalimantan,
Borneo being the English name) late this afternoon. It had been a
long, slow slog up from Bawean island where we'd made a halfway point
overnight stop to bring us to the entrance to the river just after
midday. More by luck than good timing we arrived at the beginning of
the inward flowing tide and had a knot of current with us. Also by
luck we had a small oil tanker entering ahead of us which we used to
check our route through the shallow patches. It took three hours to
navigate up the dirt brown river passing barges the size of a small
tower block loaded with wood chips, a dredger in the shallow section
and large fishing boats. As we came in we could see the town on the
left hand bank and the anchorage on the opposite side of the river
between the tankers and cargo ships. Plenty of room for us in 10m
of water.
Naturally
there was lots of chatter on the radio between us and our friends who
arrived a few days earlier. They'd been on their orang utan trips
and were keen to pass on their recommendations. The universal
comment was 'brilliant' and 'not to be missed'.
As
soon as the anchor was set, and almost before we turned off the
engine, the first boat boy arrived alongside to sell us his trip up
the river. The arrangement is one leaves the yacht on anchor at
Kumai with a night watchman sleeping in the cockpit while we hop on a
houseboat, know as a kelotok, and embark on either a day, 2 days / 1
night or 3 days / 2 nights trip with captain, guide and cook to look
after our needs. We'd visit the feeding station, see animals in the
wild, do some trekking, bird watching and animal spotting all from
the comfort of our own floating house. This being Indonesia
negotiating a price is king. We have a couple of days before our
friends on Geramar arrive so time to get the low down, shop around
and wait for the best deal we're offered.
Priority
this evening is sleep. It had been a long night passage with
literally hundreds of fishing boats to pass and freighters crossing
our path. Sleep (in air conditioned room due to humidity here) was
much needed.
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