Wild man of Borneo

Day 15 - Tanjung Puting National Park 

We were collected from our hotel at 9am and and driven to the river port in the town of Kumai. We walked through a number of docked boats to reach our houseboat home for the next 2 nights. Our boat had three levels and two bedrooms for the five of us. There were also six others on board - our guide, the boat captain and his assistant, their sons home for the school holidays, and a cook.

We travelled up the main river, past commercial ships before turning into the national park. We spent a few hours spotting monkeys and orangutans in the trees. One side of the river had rehabilitated orangutans, while wild ones were on the other side. 

We stopped at Tanjung Harapan wharf where we first visited the small museum, before walking further into the jungle to the feeding station where the rangers bring fruit for orangutan feeding time. The first orangutan to show was the alpha male who had his fill, then gathered more fruit with his mouth and hands before climbing back into the forest.

Orangutans are solitary apes so once the male had left a mother with a baby and toddler arrived, followed by other females. In between orangutans visiting the feeding platform squirrels helped themselves, and at one point a wild boar scavenged underneath. We arrived back at the boat to find an orangutan hanging out in the tree hanging over the wharf.

After travelling further up the river we went for a night trek. We were lucky enough to see a tarsier, a small nocturnal primate with big eyes, apparently this was the first one our guide had seen for a year. It quickly jumped between trees to get away from us, but we were able to get close enough for some photos.  

At our night dock power was connected to the boat via long extension cords which powered the air conditioners, something we really needed as it was very hot and humid.