Kalimantan

I am back from my trip to Kalimantan with Khadir, Alyssa and her husband Jason, and it was great!  Of course, the highlight of the trip was seeing orangutans up close, at rehabilitation centers located in the Tanjung Puting National Park in East Kalimantan.  We got to hang out within feet of these guys up close during feedings and walk beside them on park trails.  We saw mothers with their tiny monkey babies, as well as cheeky adolescents.  One was heading down a trail with us when he spontaneously did six somersaults in a row.

We also got the rare treat of seeing the "kings" of the orangutans.  This first guy, Doyok, was a very selfish king, and while he was eating the rambutan and other female orangutans came to share, he sat on top of his food so that they couldn't get at it.

The other king, the king of kings, Tom, was a more benevolent leader and yet at the same time fear-inspiring.  His arrival at the second camp, Camp Leakey, was met with much nervous excitement by our guides.  He was promptly given a big bowl full of soupy slop, which he gulped down, but unlike Doyok he was willing to share.  He kindly patted a baby orangutan on the head, and temporarily held another one while their mothers ate, and then proceeded to basically strut around showing off his amazing cheeks and back muscles.  It was like seeing the Yeti.  Or perhaps, hanging out with Chewbacca if you knew that the wookie had an explosive and unpredictable temper.  One of the guides said he had seen Tom grap a wild boar by the leg and swing him into the ground until he was dead.  Having just seen a wild boar, I knew this was no mean feat so I kept a respectful distance.

The orangutans were not the only wildlife we saw.  There were also MAYBE a crocodile (something definitely crocodile-like moving in the water), exotic birds including hornbills and kingfishers, and all other manner of monkeys including wild probiscus, silver-tailed macaques, and gibbons.  Or, a gibbon.  I only saw this guy but I was totally enamoured of his spooky look and long spidery fingers.

When we weren't busy gazing at wildlife, we were relaxing on the boat that was carrying us by river to the park.  The water was a natural jungle-black, if I understand correctly because it was filled with jungle tannins, so the water looked black from a distance, clear if you peered right at it, but turned everything inside a mystical glowing amber color.  But basically, we kicked back, and Khadir taught me how to strategize my chess game.

After three days on the river we headed to Banjarmasin, a city in Central Kalimantan that Alyssa chose for our next destination.  Banjarmasin was not your typical tourist city, reminding me kind of a booming frontier town, with luxury hotels thrown up to accommodate foreign investors, miners, and other people coming to cull Kalimantan of its natural resources, and little else.  We did see some interesting things, including a night market seeming to specialize in sexual tonics (stumbled upon by accident!), a restaurant that also happened to sell luxury watches and a particular brand of pantyliner, a very low-fi diamond mine, and a precious jewel market.

Banjarmasin is also famous for its floating market; called "the city of a thousand rivers," there are centuries old settlements along the banks, where there used to be no streets at all and all trade and travel was done via water.  We visited the market, and passed many people having their morning baths and doing their morning laundry off the backs of their houses on stilts along the way.  When we arrived, sellers paddled up to our boat and offer us fruits and snacks and hot tea.

It is difficult to tell in this picture, but one of these small boats paddled up to a huge tanker and was doing business via pulley rope with a couple of sailors leaning over the side.

Also, what's that you say?  An example of Banjarmasin modernist architecture?  No, that's a gigantic building, of which they were many, providing homes for the birds that make the nests that are then sold at a pretty penny across China and Southeast Asia for birds-nest soup.  You can see small openings where the birds come in and out to build and visit these nests.

So all and all, it was an interesting trip.  Perhaps the best part was getting a chance to spend time with Alyssa!  Who knew two old Ardsley pals could reconnect in the rivers and swamps of Borneo.

Khadir got sick on December 31, and we DID think we were going to die on the plane ride home, but it was an enjoyable and unconventional way to ring in the New Year.  It was also interesting for me to see another side of Indonesia, one that was raw and opportunistic as opposed to the dense intricate settled world of Java.