Our flight took us to Pankalan Bun, where we took a taxi for
30 minutes to our destination of Kumai, the jumping off point for exploring the
jungle and meeting some orange friends! This is what I had been waiting for and
was so excited. And we saw so many amazing animals! This island is the second
or third most ecologically diverse place in the world, behind the Amazon and
possibly the Congo.
When we first got to Kumai, we just asked the driver to bring us to a hotel. But we quickly experienced a slight sense of doom as we climbed the rickety wooden stairs in a narrow passage between a restaurant and a convenience store. When we asked for a room, the nice lady communicated that she would clean one and promptly walked away, so we felt obligated to accept the accommodations when she returned from cleaning. So, we stayed in a small dark room with a small fan and twin beds and a stapled-down linoleum floor. It wasn’t terribly dirty, but the common bath was slightly terrifying. The toilets here are squat toilets, meaning that you actually step on the seat, which is just above ground level, and squat all the way down. These are actually kinda nice – they’re certainly better than the holes in Ghana and are actually quite, um, conducive to what you need to do...just don’t forget your own toilet paper. ;-) After you’re done, you scoop yellowish water from a basin into the toilet to clear it. Then you scoop more water to wash your hands (don’t forget your own soap). The “shower” is just another room with a larger water basin and the same pint-size scoop, and you scoop, scoop, scoop yourself to a cleaner you. Luckily, the cold water feels lovely in the heat. Okay, enough about that.
Look who I found in Kumai!!
When we first got to Kumai, we just asked the driver to bring us to a hotel. But we quickly experienced a slight sense of doom as we climbed the rickety wooden stairs in a narrow passage between a restaurant and a convenience store. When we asked for a room, the nice lady communicated that she would clean one and promptly walked away, so we felt obligated to accept the accommodations when she returned from cleaning. So, we stayed in a small dark room with a small fan and twin beds and a stapled-down linoleum floor. It wasn’t terribly dirty, but the common bath was slightly terrifying. The toilets here are squat toilets, meaning that you actually step on the seat, which is just above ground level, and squat all the way down. These are actually kinda nice – they’re certainly better than the holes in Ghana and are actually quite, um, conducive to what you need to do...just don’t forget your own toilet paper. ;-) After you’re done, you scoop yellowish water from a basin into the toilet to clear it. Then you scoop more water to wash your hands (don’t forget your own soap). The “shower” is just another room with a larger water basin and the same pint-size scoop, and you scoop, scoop, scoop yourself to a cleaner you. Luckily, the cold water feels lovely in the heat. Okay, enough about that.
Look who I found in Kumai!!
We signed up with the first English-speaking guide we could
find out of pure laziness and wanting to make sure we could head out the next
day. We probably could have found a better guide and a better boat, but Adi was
really nice with his broken English and eagerness to please.
**Side note (mom's and sister, please don't be concerned, Charles is totally, completely healthy as I'm writing this):
Charles had a rough night sleeping the first night in Kumai because he was
alternating between hot and cold. As we found out later, he “probably” had a
bacterial infection of somekind. Unfortunately, this meant he spent the entire
jungle river trip more or less feeling like crap. Other than a few hours of
remission the first night, he had a high fever and was either sweaty or
cold (in this heat!)…poor guy. Luckily, we were well looked after with great cooking, lots of
bottled water, fresh fruit, and a healthy dose of concern by Adi and the
crewmembers. We ended up cutting the boat trip a day short and taking a
nighttime, dramatic speedboat ride back to Kumai to visit a doctor after hours, at Adi's insistence.
The nice doctor gave us paracetemol (Tylenol), vitamins “for stamina,” and said
we should go to the hospital to get malaria testing. So Adi took us to a nicer
hotel with air conditioning. When he came (two days later) to bring Charles to the hospital, I
was out hunting up some food and water and came back to an empty room and the
receptionist handing me the room key and simply saying, “Adi.” Eek. Since I had studied as many medical words as I could find in Adi's English-Indonesian dictionary, I was anxious to be there with them. So, I went to the only doctor's I had seen, who ended up being a dentist. But the extremely nice guy let me hop (side-saddle, as women do there) on the back of his scooter, and took me to the hospital. I just barely caught them - Adi and Charles were just getting back on Adi's scooter when I arrived. Phew. At any rate, it ended up that the test was negative, thankfully, and
Charles was given some antibiotics and was sent on his way. Adi very kindly refused our offers to pay any doctors fees, and arranged our airport transportation for the next day! So nice. So, we went back to the hotel and put Charles back to bed to rest for our flight to Pontianak the next day, where we hid in the confines of an extremely upscale hotel and ate all of our meals in the hotel restaurant - basically we didn't see the outdoors for three days except when Charles ventured out to get water.
Anyway, getting back to the jungle river boat trip... In between wiping Charles's brow with a icy wet cloth, I did get to enjoy sitings of many of his furry cousins! And so did he. Actually, when we first started off on the trip, Charles was napping on the deck while Ludo (a French guy we invited to share the trip with us) and I excited searched the canopy for orang utans. After about two hours of this, Charles rolled over, wearily lifted his head, and immediately pointed out our first orang utan! What a brat! :-) After that we were lucky enough to see quite a few wild orang utans before getting to the area where the semi-wild reintroduced orang utans congregated. We also saw long-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys...and maybe even a gibbon, which are notoriously hard to see.
The three of us sitting down to our first meal on the boat:
Check out the schnozz on this proboscous monkey!
Ludo and I went with Adi for the afternoon feeding of the reintroduced orang utans. This was a bit zoo-like and manufactured for my tastes, but it was exciting to hear them crashing through the trees and coming so close...without a cage or fence. There were about 4 adults and a baby eating when all of a sudden they spread out from the feeding platform.
Moments later, the dominant male came crashing through like an elephant to take over the eating. He had those huge cheek pads and the loose neck skin that looks like a huge double chin. The loose skin is for making their long whooping calls, but researchers don't really know what the cheek pads are for...other than making him look larger. An adult male will only grow them when he has his own territory, regardless of his age.
After the feeding, we returned to the boat and heading further up the river. Charles was feeling better at that point and joined us for another delicious meal and animal watching. We turned up a smaller river arm and crossed over a line between the filthy mining-contaminated water of the main river and into the crystal clear, coffee-colored smaller river. Adi said 20 years ago, before mining began, the water was healthy in both.
By nightfall, we found a spot to "pull over" into - they literally tied ropes to the river plants to keep the boat off to one side. It was a long night. Poor Charles was ping-ponging between hot and cold flashes, and trying dizzily to make his way down the dark obstacle course that was the boat at night to reach the bathroom. Needless to say, I was concerned each time he got up. To get down the boat, you had to step out of our mosquito net and squeeze your way past Ludo's mattress along a one foot wide space bordered on the other side by the shin-high railing that marked the edge of the boat, all while ducking under the strings tying up his net. Not fun for me, and really difficult for Charles. But there were no large crashes into the water that night. But the night noises were amazing! We definitely heard a lot of loud splashing and thrashing sounds coming from the water and many mystery shrieks and yells from animals of the jungle. We could make out the long whooping sounds of orang utans, screeching arguments of the long-tailed macaques and an infinite chorus of insects and frogs and who-knows-what-else.
The next day, we continued our journey up the river to Camp Leakey - the head of orang utan research, and an indigenous community, in the park. As we went further and further upstream, the river narrowed until the boat was brushing past the long leaved river plants on either side. Ludo and I spotted two Gharials, which are like crocodiles, but with really narrow mouths like a caiman. We also saw a large crocodile and a yellow and green-black monitor lizard that was climbing through the leaves of a durian plant just above the water. (Tobin, I suggest you don't read the rest of this paragraph - don't worry, there are no pictures). I saw an amazingly beautiful water snake that was probably close to two meters long! It's head and front third were bright green, then it's middle third was reddish brown, and its hind third was grey-black. Each color faded into the other and it looked just like a dying, broken off leave of the durian plants that lined the river.
I took a short excursion up to the information center while Charles rested and then a half-hour small hike around the area with Ludo and Adi. On the walk we came upon a mother orang utan looking for termites with a juvenile (maybe two years old, pictured below) and a baby in her arms. We stayed and watched them for a while, with the mother taking no notice and this juvenile coming within feet of us to say hello! yay!
On our way back, we came across some pretty tame long-tailed macaques along the trail and one came right up and sat next to me on the walkway! hee hee hee.
After this, I stayed on the boat with Charles while Adi and Ludo went to another feeding. Even though he wasn't feeling well, Charles got to enjoy the orang utans that were hanging around the boat area, looking at the zoo animals (us) in their cages (the boats).
That was the night we decided to call it quits and head back to Kumai just to be safe. So the plan was to bring the boat back to the main river where a speed boat would pick us (Charles, Adi and me) up, then Ludo would stay on the boat for the third day with a different guide.
Back on the main river, we began to see the mystical, magical fireflies! wow! I wish I could have taken a picture. Blinking rapidly, not like the ones in the US, they light up the trees in a glorious sparkling spectacle along a pitch black jungle river. They looked like tinsel, or like white Christmas tree lights flickering like they were about to blow out. And they weren't in each tree, but every few trees. And their groups were so large that they could be described as swarms. I can't describe it well enough, but it was truly magical.
Then we made our oh-so-dramatic speed boat getaway back to Kumai, where Adi had a van waiting for us at the docks. The rest you know. The culture here is so incredibly friendly - although they mostly didn't speak English, and my Indonesian is extremely limited (but I can say, "Can I have some chicken soup please?" very well), just one smile and you are greeted with an ear to ear grin that lights up the face, and maybe a shy giggle, and a greeting of "hello mister!" The food was fabulous. The only negatives are the air-quality (filled with smoke from controlled burnings) and the bathing situation. It's sad that Charles didn't get to enjoy this most adventurous part of our trip, but it is an experience I will never forget.
Anyway, getting back to the jungle river boat trip... In between wiping Charles's brow with a icy wet cloth, I did get to enjoy sitings of many of his furry cousins! And so did he. Actually, when we first started off on the trip, Charles was napping on the deck while Ludo (a French guy we invited to share the trip with us) and I excited searched the canopy for orang utans. After about two hours of this, Charles rolled over, wearily lifted his head, and immediately pointed out our first orang utan! What a brat! :-) After that we were lucky enough to see quite a few wild orang utans before getting to the area where the semi-wild reintroduced orang utans congregated. We also saw long-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys...and maybe even a gibbon, which are notoriously hard to see.
The three of us sitting down to our first meal on the boat:
Check out the schnozz on this proboscous monkey!
Ludo and I went with Adi for the afternoon feeding of the reintroduced orang utans. This was a bit zoo-like and manufactured for my tastes, but it was exciting to hear them crashing through the trees and coming so close...without a cage or fence. There were about 4 adults and a baby eating when all of a sudden they spread out from the feeding platform.
Moments later, the dominant male came crashing through like an elephant to take over the eating. He had those huge cheek pads and the loose neck skin that looks like a huge double chin. The loose skin is for making their long whooping calls, but researchers don't really know what the cheek pads are for...other than making him look larger. An adult male will only grow them when he has his own territory, regardless of his age.
After the feeding, we returned to the boat and heading further up the river. Charles was feeling better at that point and joined us for another delicious meal and animal watching. We turned up a smaller river arm and crossed over a line between the filthy mining-contaminated water of the main river and into the crystal clear, coffee-colored smaller river. Adi said 20 years ago, before mining began, the water was healthy in both.
By nightfall, we found a spot to "pull over" into - they literally tied ropes to the river plants to keep the boat off to one side. It was a long night. Poor Charles was ping-ponging between hot and cold flashes, and trying dizzily to make his way down the dark obstacle course that was the boat at night to reach the bathroom. Needless to say, I was concerned each time he got up. To get down the boat, you had to step out of our mosquito net and squeeze your way past Ludo's mattress along a one foot wide space bordered on the other side by the shin-high railing that marked the edge of the boat, all while ducking under the strings tying up his net. Not fun for me, and really difficult for Charles. But there were no large crashes into the water that night. But the night noises were amazing! We definitely heard a lot of loud splashing and thrashing sounds coming from the water and many mystery shrieks and yells from animals of the jungle. We could make out the long whooping sounds of orang utans, screeching arguments of the long-tailed macaques and an infinite chorus of insects and frogs and who-knows-what-else.
The next day, we continued our journey up the river to Camp Leakey - the head of orang utan research, and an indigenous community, in the park. As we went further and further upstream, the river narrowed until the boat was brushing past the long leaved river plants on either side. Ludo and I spotted two Gharials, which are like crocodiles, but with really narrow mouths like a caiman. We also saw a large crocodile and a yellow and green-black monitor lizard that was climbing through the leaves of a durian plant just above the water. (Tobin, I suggest you don't read the rest of this paragraph - don't worry, there are no pictures). I saw an amazingly beautiful water snake that was probably close to two meters long! It's head and front third were bright green, then it's middle third was reddish brown, and its hind third was grey-black. Each color faded into the other and it looked just like a dying, broken off leave of the durian plants that lined the river.
I took a short excursion up to the information center while Charles rested and then a half-hour small hike around the area with Ludo and Adi. On the walk we came upon a mother orang utan looking for termites with a juvenile (maybe two years old, pictured below) and a baby in her arms. We stayed and watched them for a while, with the mother taking no notice and this juvenile coming within feet of us to say hello! yay!
On our way back, we came across some pretty tame long-tailed macaques along the trail and one came right up and sat next to me on the walkway! hee hee hee.
After this, I stayed on the boat with Charles while Adi and Ludo went to another feeding. Even though he wasn't feeling well, Charles got to enjoy the orang utans that were hanging around the boat area, looking at the zoo animals (us) in their cages (the boats).
That was the night we decided to call it quits and head back to Kumai just to be safe. So the plan was to bring the boat back to the main river where a speed boat would pick us (Charles, Adi and me) up, then Ludo would stay on the boat for the third day with a different guide.
Back on the main river, we began to see the mystical, magical fireflies! wow! I wish I could have taken a picture. Blinking rapidly, not like the ones in the US, they light up the trees in a glorious sparkling spectacle along a pitch black jungle river. They looked like tinsel, or like white Christmas tree lights flickering like they were about to blow out. And they weren't in each tree, but every few trees. And their groups were so large that they could be described as swarms. I can't describe it well enough, but it was truly magical.
Then we made our oh-so-dramatic speed boat getaway back to Kumai, where Adi had a van waiting for us at the docks. The rest you know. The culture here is so incredibly friendly - although they mostly didn't speak English, and my Indonesian is extremely limited (but I can say, "Can I have some chicken soup please?" very well), just one smile and you are greeted with an ear to ear grin that lights up the face, and maybe a shy giggle, and a greeting of "hello mister!" The food was fabulous. The only negatives are the air-quality (filled with smoke from controlled burnings) and the bathing situation. It's sad that Charles didn't get to enjoy this most adventurous part of our trip, but it is an experience I will never forget.
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