Special on Orang-utans: Riverboat to see the orang-utans of Kalimantan

By Carola Frentzen Dec 20, 2006, 6:00 GMT

A female Orang-utan. EPA/ANDREW BROWNBILL

Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia - Smoke hangs heavy in the air, as it does every year from the fires in the rain forests of Kalimantan before the rains set in.

'It has never been this bad before. The rains simply won't start,' says Anang, a travel guide in Indonesian Borneo who takes the more adventurous travellers on a boat trip lasting several days to the Tanjung Puting National Park.

This is where the orang-utan lives.

It is a long way to this ape paradise, starting at the spartan airport in Pangkalan Bun and taking the traveller from there by car to the small port of Kumai, from where the journey continues by klotok - a traditional Indonesian riverboat - into the jungle of central Kalimantan.

After two hours something red can be seen moving in the treetops. 'An orang-utan,' Anang calls out, as the captain brings the klotok to a halt.

During the course of the days-long tour along the Sekonyer River, the travellers also see gibbons, proboscis monkeys with their unusual noses, crocodiles and swarms of brightly-coloured tropical butterflies.

At night, fireflies can be seen among the palms, making them look like Christmas trees.

'In the rainy season there are large numbers of insects, and also leeches that attach themselves all over the body,' the captain says.

There is a chef aboard, who conjures up wonderful Asian meals in his small galley.

At night, when the travellers stretch out on comfortable mattresses under mosquito nets, the rain forest truly comes to life.

'Sleeping on the boat under the open skies is simply fantastic. This is the way to have direct contact with nature,' says Carlo, an Italian orang-utan lover.

The trip takes the travellers past the Rimba Lodge, the only hotel in the rain forest, before the klotok glides ever deeper into the Bornean jungle.

To the right lies the Tanjung Puting National Park, to the left trees and bushes line the bank.

Behind them a terrifying emptiness can be seen - the result of uncontrolled logging and the subsequent forest fires that have laid waste to the area and will leave their legacy for centuries.

'The situation for the orang-utans and the rain forest is really sad,' according to Birute Galdikas, an internationally-renowned Canadian researcher into orang-utans.

She set up her Camp Leakey - named for her mentor Louis Leakey - in 1971, and this is the ultimate destination of the riverboat trip.

From where the boat is moored, the way leads over a wooden bridge of several hundred metres to the camp, which consists of simple houses in which the rangers live, along with an information centre for visitors.

'Male orang-utans can grow to 1.50 metres and weigh an average 120 kilograms,' one of the information boards reads.

For those who want more than statistics, here is the opportunity to meet the huge 'Man of the Forest' in person.

Just five minutes' walk away, Tom blocks the jungle path, a mature adult male with the typical cheek pads, who is on his way to the feeding platform where the orang-utans get milk every day.

Many visitors immediately seek to put distance between themselves and Tom, as he is so impressive that those unaccustomed to orang- utans are usually frightened.

Orang-utans are not at all aggressive, although they have become expert thieves. They rummage through the visitors' rucksacks or trouser pockets for anything they might find to eat.

Tom is holding firmly onto the hand of Utung, a young female. 'Tom's in love,' a woman from the United States says enthralled.

If the travellers are lucky, they can see as many as a dozen of these hairy red giants at the feeding platform, and there are also regular visitors to the camp, like the affectionate Siswi or the dangerous-looking Unjuk.

Most of the apes around Camp Leakey are orphans saved from the jungle at a young age by Galdikas and then returned to the wild.

Almost all the females have youngsters clinging to their bodies. They are completely able to forage for themselves, finding their food, mostly fruit, in the jungle.

But many of them happily avail themselves of the milk provided by the rangers.

Orang-utans breed only once every eight years, and their natural environment is under increasing threat from deforestation caused by logging and burning.

Their existence has been precarious for years, and according to some estimates, wild members of the species could be extinct within 10 years.

'They are important from a biodiversity point of view and they are also the world's largest tree-living animal,' Galdikas says.

The researcher, who has been living in the rain forests for the past two decades, sees these 'wonderful creatures as the gardeners of the Garden of Eden.'