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...