Meet the Men of the forest

In Malay language as well as in Bahasa Indonesia (i.e. the national language of Indonesia, that in fact is a simplified version of Malay) orang-utan means a man of the forest. 

Orang-utans naturally exist only in two places on the planet - the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra. 

The best place to admire them in their natural habitat is Tanjung Puting National Park in the South of Borneo, near the town of Pangkalan Bun. And guess what? That's exactly where we went. We expected the 'meeting' with the apes to be a memorable experience; what came as a great bonus exceeding our expectations, was the best river journey of our trip on the narrowboat that took us to the heart of the Tanjung Puting NP.

The generic name of a boat that brought us upriver is 'klotok'. When we saw it for the first time, the same thought crossed our minds: 'Isn't it a bit too big for just the three of us?' It's a double-decker barge, about 15 meters long. The whole upper deck was just for us, so we could never complain about the lack of living space :). 

To make it clear, as usual in Indonesia, any luxuries are not to be expected. The facilities consisted of a table, which we could call the 'tasty table', as we were served excellent meals on it (we don't know how they do it, but food on the boats always tastes great!), 

and three mattresses on the deck that served as our beds at night and loungers during the day. At night a huge mosquito net was slung over the beds, large enough to cover even four mattresses, all our backpacks and high enough even for Raf to stand inside. The boat is a perfect means of transport through the rainforest – far enough from it to be free from most of its insects and predators, and still close enough to admire its vegetation and animals on the way, in particular macaques and proboscis monkeys jumping in the canopy; all kinds of birds perching on the branches and lizards jumping in and out the river. The boat was also a perfect shelter at night, we felt as if we were in the middle of the forest, we could clearly hear all its sounds (and the chants of all the birds, insects and other beasts are a remarkable harmony and cacophony of sounds) and yet the narrow strip of water protected us from all big carnivores and the thin mosquito net from all small blood-suckers.

The orangutans in Tanjung Puting, similar to gorillas in Uganda, are 'habituated', i.e. they live wild in their natural habitat, but they are used to human presence. 

The key difference between the Impenetrable Forest gorillas and the Tanjung Puting orangutans is that the former are never given any food and each day move from one place to another (hence you need to track and find them, which sometimes takes several hours), whereas the latter have several feeding platforms where they come for breakfast, lunch and dinner (so you are sure to always find them in the same spot, where the walk takes no longer than half an hour). 

Raf and Marco (on the way to the feeding platform)

Of course, the feeding platforms are there not for the welfare of the tourists, but as a part of the programme to increase the population of the apes (or at least bring it back to the previous levels). It is not a zoo in any respect, the animals are in their kingdom and humans are only guests who are required to comply with strict safety and animal well-being rules...

Usually the platform is occupied by a dominant male who just sits there for a long time and slowly consumes the big stack of bananas. 

You can recognise the male by the 'padded' cheeks

Standing there near the feeding platform is fun, like watching an action and comedy show...

This one seems to be very greedy :)

The dominant males are not too happy to share their bounty, that's why others just try to grab as much as they can and run away quickly. However, the big guys have more tolerance for mothers with babies (maybe this is their offspring?). So the females come one by one with their babies gripped to their bellies, backs or arms.

Out of the blue the male very abruptly left the platform, as if he was running away, 'why was that?' we asked ourselves. A few seconds later another male ran in, but instead of jumping straight away on the bounty, he started chasing the former one up the tree. A fight ensued, there were lots of roars and shaking branches, but the fight did not last long. The winner soon came back to enjoy the well-deserved (or rather fought for) lunch and after lunch stretching.

When orangutans jump from one tree to another, the trunks bend as if they were made from rubber; it's amazing that they have such a flexibility, how come they do not break? Sometimes they do, actually, once we even witnessed a tree that cracked under the weight of this big ape – lot of noise. 

Sultans of Swing?

Sometimes other species also sneak in for the feast...

Gibbon is another ape that lives in the forests of Borneo, slender, very fast and funny :)

Also a shy little squirrel tried hard to join to party

Atmosphere was jovial and relaxed until 'Big Tom' came and (most likely) said: 'gentleman stupid jokes are over!'

Tom is the real king here, which is certified by his 'royal collar'

Sometimes Tom looks more like the new reincarnation of Darth Vader

During the day Tom is the boss of all the bosses in the jungle, whereas at night the forest becomes the kingdom of insects. A multi-species and multi-coloured kingdom. Enjoy the views... 

Hell can be beautiful

We are about to interrupt the chronology of the blog (we mean we have still a couple of stories from Indonesia, that we will do our best to post shortly) as we've just had a couple of unusual experiences that we'd like to share as they're still 'hot'. In short, we have seen one of the most spectacular sites of our trip, we took an 'air-taxi' to get there; on the way back we had our first ever emergency landing; then we moved to the island where a prototype of bungee jumping has been practiced since at least 200 years and as regards the clothing of the local people - thatch skirt and (only) a leaf wrapped around the penis are still in fashion for women and men respectively.

We are in the country called Vanuatu - the archipelago located in the Pacific Ocean with New Caledonia to the South, Fiji to the East and Salomon Islands to the North West. If these names do not tell you very much, just bear in mind that the country is more than three hours flight away from Sydney, the opposite direction from Europe :). Vanuatu is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire so it should not come as a great surprise that the most amazing place to admire on the archipelago is ... an active volcano. The volcano, Mount Yasur, is situated on the Island of Tanna. Tanna's airstrip can only accept very small airplanes, so to get there we hopped on an air-taxi - a nine-seater, twin propeller engine driven aeroplane (actually it is an eight-seater, but the co-pilot place was taken by our fellow tourist, so the machine got upgraded to a nine-seater) . 

The outbound one hour flight was surprisingly stress-free, apart from the fact that the sole pilot looked desperately young (in case you were ever wondering why you see so few young pilots in Europe and where the best place for them to gain experience is...).

Once in Tanna, we got on a pick-up truck, and off we went to see boiling and splashing lava. We drove past extraordinarily lush Oceanian greenery that looked very different from the plants we were accustomed to. When we talked about Flores, have we mentioned the Wallace line? Yes or not, a short reminder - the Australian flora is very different from the Eurasian one and the dividing line (called Wallace line after an English naturalist) cuts the Indonesian archipelago into two; Flores and all the area that is to the West of it lies on the Australian side of the line. Hence, it's a constant pleasure to look at the greenery in these parts as it's always full of surprises. 

This photo was not taken on the way to Mt Yasur, though it shows well that the South Pacific flora is unusual :)  

At some point while we were driving (or rather 'bumping' up) up, rather suddenly, this abundant vegetation gave way to a totally barren, black and grey land, laden with volcanic ash. This undoubtedly meant one thing - we were getting close to one of the world's most active volcanos. And this landscape was the best witness that this one indeed kept on erupting every now and then. A short drive afterwards the cone of the mighty Mt Yasur emerged and it was biggie, biggie.

Can you see a white car at the cone of the volcano to the bottom right?

The tip of the cone was covered with an equally biggie plume of steam mixed with volcanic ash. We hopped off the truck and walked up a narrow footpath. As we approached the edge of the crater, the unmistakable smell of sulphur reached our nostrils. After a short hike we reached the rim of the cone (they say that this is the world's most easily accessible active volcano) and then we had our first look straight into the volcano's mouth, it was ... stunning, out-of-this-world, captivating... 

Every now and then (more or less every five to ten minutes) there was a frightening rumble, almost as loud as a thunderbolt during the storm, and lava splashed out form one of the two burning vents (i.e. holes in the ground).

The whole 'spectacle' was remarkably beautiful and at the same time spine-chilling. 

It brought to mind the eerie sight of Mordor from J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings'. 

The time went by and we just stood there, watching down into the crater, as if it casted a spell on us, infatuated us; the sight was so captivating that it was hard to move on. We looked into hell and could not believe that hell can be so beautiful! 

The next day we experienced hell once again. However, this time it was not so beautiful any longer. On the return flight our small air-taxi got trapped amongst very thick clouds. Our brave young pilot was desperately looping and zig-zaging, trying to find a hole in that grey mass of steam ambushing us from every corner. He made so many circles that without the GPS, most likely, we would lose track of where we were going and would get lost somewhere in the Pacific infinity. The fuel gauges looked less and less reassuring and the visibility in Port Villa airport continued to be close to zero. Fuel running low - another brave decision by the pilot: ''hold on tight, re-read the safety notice, we are going to land on an old air-strip'', on the other (sunny) side of the island. So we made another U-turn; shortly after a long, rather rectangular stretch of grassland appeared through the windshield of the cockpit; the plane went lower and lower, a usual couple of shakes meant we were approaching the ground, engines roared even louder (making the whole experience even more spooky) and the plane touched down, and given the circumstances it did that rather smoothly:). Bravo to our pilot – as far as we are concerned, he passed the test to steer larger machines ;). 

As our small aircraft moved along the airstrip overgrown with grass it got very bumpy (not surprisingly as it was just a field), we were being jolted up and down until it came to a stop (at least once the safety belts served their purpose of keeping us in the seat). While driving down the airstrip, we contributed unintentionally to the 'welfare' of the local community by mowing one-and-a-half meter grass with the two propellers of our plane. 

The locals they never miss an opportunity to check out what's going on (when something is going on) and within five minutes half of the village came to say us hello.

So everything ended up well, within an hour a minibus came to pick us up and we got a free 'tour' of Efate Island on the way to our destination. The weather patterns on small volcanic islands makes us wonder - how come one village can enjoy a beautiful sunshine, whereas another village 20 kilometers away (still on the other side of the island and on the other side of the mountain) is bound to endure a torrential rain lasting for hours at the same time? We also found out some interesting facts about emergency landings (since while waiting for the minibus the pilot was eager to get involved in a 'question-and-answer session' on the perils of aviation) – theoretically even if the fuel goes completely down and we need to land on water, we still have 85% chance of survival, though in a small aircraft it is crucial to open the doors just before landing (or rather before touching the sea) as otherwise the pressure of the water would be too high to push them away...

The liana jumping and the traditional clothing are still to come, watch this space...

Visual Extravaganza at Banjarmasin Floating Market

Near the city of Banjarmasin, in South Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, since long, long time ago, no one can really tell since when exactly, the floating market takes place - Pasar Terapung Lok Baintan. On this market you can buy any locally grown product, straight from the boat. We won't talk much this time, just enjoy the views :)...

 It's amazing how neatly the things are arranged on the boats. 

Banana seems to be the king of the market...

Many boats are painted red and white; not a coincidence as the Indonesian flag is red on top and white at the bottom, actually it is just the opposite of the Polish one where white is on top, though it looks like the 'boatladies' prefer it the Polish way :)

 It might seem that there are much more sellers than buyers; not really, the goods are actually bartered, so everyone is a seller and a buyer at the same time ...

Pasar sounds a bit similar to Bazaar, doesn't it? And indeed the origins of the word for a market in Bahasa Indonesia can be traced back to a Persian bazar. Look more closely at the inscription on the boat in the left top corner!

It seems that the only person paying with money was Ievunia, the only Western tourist on the market :)

In the ruthless equatorial sun, a good 'sombrero' is indispensable

On the way to a day nursery :)?

There is also a catering boat...

...so that you never get thirsty or hungry