Tanjung Puting Day 1 (Kumai River, Tanjung Harapan)

Arrival

Welcome to day-1 of #rtanjungputingtravelog. First thing first, please throw away your perv mind.

Tanjung Puting is located at Central Kalimantan/Borneo, but to go there, there's a direct flight from Jakarta. No need to go to Pontianak (correction: Palangkaraya), capital of Central Kalimantan first.

From Pangkalan Bun airport, it's only 20 mins car ride to reach this port. Oh well, the port was very modest that there's no way to spot it if there's no locals or tour guide letting you know. At first actually I was afraid that we got scammed. Since well, it doesnt look like a spot for tourism.

We put our bags at the boat (let's just say it 'klothok', perhaps from the way it sounds). Since some other participants hadn't arrived, or perhaps because it's just not the departure time yet, so we were able to find some breakfast.

Well, not many warongs were open, but we were able to find a nasi kuning kiosk then had some meal there. 

Kumai River

Kumai River is actually quite wide, so vessels could go through it. The color of the water is brown though, I expected a clear one since for me, we're like already in the middle of nowhere. So the pollution should be very minimal. But apparently, there are many factors affecting the color of river water.

At around 12pm, our klothok was finally departed from the port. It was heading to the downstream part of the river. Yes, going to the sea. There were other guests too departing with us, some of them were Indonesians, and some of them were foreigners (hi guys!)

On the right and left side of the river, we could see many nypa palms around. It's kinda unique scenery for me, since well, in Java it's not that common afaik

We had our lunch on the boat! The weather was good, and I knew the journey was gonna be exciting!

 

So, the klothok actually went from Kumai River to Kumai Bay (Java Sea), then the klothok turned to enter another river: Sekonyer River (see the pic on the last slide).

We would go to three destinations in Tanjung Puting National Park, and to go there we would use klothok only. Yes, those were located by the river.

If you wanna know how what's on top of klothok look like, just slide the pic. Yes, you could put a bed and the lying on it while enjoying the scenery during your river trip. But ours didnt look like that. Well, perhaps the size of our klothok was similar but the number of passengers is different. If you could put a bed on the "main space" during the day, that means it's like a "private klothok" with very few or no other passengers.

Tanjung Harapan

4:40. First stop: Tanjung Harapan. This area was developed for ecotourism, and hosts the information center, guest house, watch tower and camping ground.

To get off from the boat, we ought to pass thru other klotoks first, by hopping from one to another. Yeah, that's what we always did whenever we want to get to land during our 3 days trip. Sometimes even the parking lot was kinda full, that our klotok had difficulty to find vacant spot.

Actually, when I read the photo, the name of the spot is Tanjung Harapan, but there's a signboard written Pesalat. Actually I'm confused! Even looking at the internet doesnt satisfy me, since it tells me that Pesalat is 45 mins boat from Tanjung Harapan. huft.

Aha! I remember, I have my super-guide, Mas @zulham_tri here in Instagram. Mas, could you let us know the difference between Pesalat vs Tanjung Harapan? :D

And here we go, entering the rainforest! I don't create video with music background, so you could listen what we listened.

14:53. In Tanjung Harapan, the feeding time is scheduled once a day at 15:00. 7 minutes from the time and we ought to not miss it!

The feeding station fortunately wasn't that far from the dock, it was shortly reached by easy trekking.

Well, it's not guaranteed that we could always see the orangutan tho. Remember, this is national park where they supposed to live in the wildlife, not zoo or safari park.

If they're supposed to live in the wildlife, so why they feed them? Is it only for tourist attraction? Please stay tuned for the answer 🤪

Anyway, at the feeding station, we see some staff preparing bananas for the orangutans.

15:04. It's coming! Apparently, the orangutan was pretty on time! It came from the middle of the forest, hanging and swinging from tree to tree, beforing approaching the feeding station.

Ambil dari artikel di liputan6: Feeding yang disiapkan bukanlah sumber makanan utama orangutan. Makanan mereka tetaplah ada di dalam hutan, sementara feeding hanya bersifat sebagai suplemen sekaligus indikator kondisi hutan di Tanjung Puting.

Bila saatnya musim buah tiba, tetapi feeding tetap habis dilahap, itu pertanda ada yang tak beres dengan kondisi hutan. Feeding juga untuk mengabsen populasi orangutan. Jika sudah tak datang lagi, ranger akan mencari tahu kondisi si orangutan.

15:59. We didn't see other orangutans coming, so we decided to leave the spot, and back to the river. Well, when I see some articles, it's said that sometimes the orangutans come even until 5pm.

Found an interesting insect! It's mimicking the shape of a leaf so it's hard to recognize if we don't pay attention.

16:44. Floating by the river, and we found some things. Curious? Stay tuned!

17:00. So, a group of Bekantan were spotted on the trees by the river. Few klothoks ahead of us were already reaching the riverside to get a better view of the Bekantans. You know Bekantan, right? umm, the mascot of Ancol's Dufan is Bekantan. The primate with big and long nose. Well, not elephant's long.

Can you see them? Their color is reddish-brown so they're easily spotted (esp when they're moving of course).

It is endemic to the Borneo and is found mostly in mangrove forests and on the coastal areas of the island.

Apparently, its conversation status is Endangered. What does it mean? Endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction.

So happy that we're still be able to see them in their natural habitat, and hopefully we would be able to see them for a long time coming.

After satisfied watching Bekantan fam, the klothok then moved on.

The sun was gonna set, so where would we go next? where do would stay that night?

 

Sunset at Sekonyer River

Apparently, the driver was seeking which spot where we would stay. Yes we would spend that night on the klothok! Finally the driver and crews found the proper spot (no idea what's the criteria of the spot), but then they hooked up the rope from the boat with the plants.

18:01. Sunset @ Sekonyer River. Look at how beautiful the water mirroring the shapes above.

Well, in the national park, most of the location has no cellphone coverage. No wifi of course, no data network, even we couldnt do simple phone call.

I loved listening to the sound of nature (water, insects, birds, breeze, other animals). But well, you know, growing up in hectic city like Jakarta, sometimes it feels weird. It feels like I miss something if I dont do anything. So, I turned to my kindle and opened it up, since I could read while listening to the nature sound right. But I opted to not put my music on..

18:53. Candle light dinner. So romantic, weren't we? We had our dinner on our klotok, served and cooked by the crews.

Well, the electricity was limited, but that doesn't mean we were totally off the grid. Every once in a while, the genset was turned on and we hungrily charged our phone and other batteries.

After having our dinner, the crews then prepared our beds! so they moved our dinner table as well as the chairs on top of the roof (well, you know what I mean). Then, they spreaded out the bed for us. Not only bed, but they also set up the mosquito net for us. It was necessary since we were basically in the middle of the forest, kinda, where many types of insects were around.

20:13. Not long after everything was set and we entered our "sleeping area", we could see some insects on the outer part of the net. Well, not the scary ones, but it.wouldnt be really nice if they're inside the net.

Aside from that, the crews also set tarpaulin on the sides of the klotok, so the wind didnt enter easily, as well as if there's any rain.

Since there's no signal whatsoever, so we could only do offline activities, such as playing charades, and sleep!