The Jungle VIP

After a relatively pleasant and thankfully short flight we landed in Pankalan bun where were greeted by our guide Majid. After a quick chat and what have you, we piled into a taxi for the 45 minute journey to the river where our Klotok (Long Boat) would be waiting for us. We hopped out of the taxi and walked along a short jetty to our boat, where lunch had already been prepared for us. (Great welcome that was!)



Majid talked us through what we would be doing over the next three days and much to our surprise and pleasure we found that we would be seeing Orang-utans that very afternoon! Alex’s program had only included seeing the Orang-utans on the third day at one of the camps. Now we found out that we would see them once that day and then at two more feeding stations / camps the next day with a jungle trek on the final day!! This was great news and we were now officially very excited! The boat started up as the rain clouds gathered and we headed off out into the main river as the rain began to fall.


Now what with me being a keen angler, I kind of have the eye for spotting things. It was our intention to try and see as much as possible on the route up into the jungle and take it all in. So once the rain cleared we raised the screens so that we could both sit and look at the surroundings and what was going around us. As we turned off the main river the river became flanked by very large palms which gave it and enclosed feel. As various vessels carrying various cargos made their way up and down the river you had locals out in their boats, moored up to the palms fishing away for their tea no doubt some even may have been fishing for the aquarium as many tropical fish from the river fetch good money.


We were taking in the surroundings, looking at the fishermen in their boats when something caught my eye. I saw some palms being wrenched about. I had to check, double check and check again in order to get my head round what I was looking at! It was a large male Orang-utan right on the waters edge ripping up the young palm shoots and having a feed!!! We couldn’t believe what we were seeing, a proper wild Orang-utan doing his thing! I made a bit of fuss about this and shouted to the young lad on board (who was the only one on the top deck), who just smiled and nodded. We assumed that this must be so common that the lads on the boat were going to be a bit blasé about it. We were pretty chuffed but maybe felt a little silly that we had made such a fuss.

So we carry on and I then spotted more palms moving around rather suspiciously! This time Dipi banged on the roof of the boat and we shouted Orang-utan!!! This time the boat slowed as we scrambled for the camera and video camera! This was really exciting and we caught a good glimpse of the Orang-utan stretched between two palms, fur all matted from the water. As the boat slowly glided back with the flow of the river the Orang-utan spooked a little and hid in the palms. We could still see the palms moving around and the guys on the boat were trying to coax it out. But with one lat crash and bang through the palms she was gone. Wow!!!! Now Majid tells us that this is very rare and that the last time one was spotted was more than two months ago! Get in eagle eyes Gander!! All those years of angling was paying off here. We can only assume that the lad didn’t understand us before when we spotted the big male.

Then only a few miles up stream I spotted another! The crew were very surprised by this and said that it was very rare indeed! It was a similar encounter to the last apart from managing to get a little closer this time.

Sadly we have no photos of these proper wild Apes. We did manage to get some shaky video footage which is good. We can’t describe what its like to see these great apes in the wild. The best word is probably unreal! We felt really lucky to see them in this way, something that not many people get to see on the trips.

Now, without going into detail with regards to each day, we would prefer to summarise as it may get a little tedious to read! Basically there are three camps where Orang-utans are re-introduce into he wild. They joining the wild orang-utan community but because at some time in their lives they have been dependant on humans these re-introduced Apes will never be truly wild. Therefore they still depend on the feeding stations situated within the camps. This is where you can get close encounters with the Orang-utans. They are obviously all different characters and each Aspects different to the next. Therefore some are more friendly than others. We visited one camp on the first day, and two the next day. The first one was an afternoon feeding and the two different camps the following day were morning and afternoon respectively.

Here are the photos from each camp.

Camp Tanjung Harapan.




Camp Pondok Tangui




Camp Leaky
There were a couple here that came out onto the jetties and sat watching us!

They were proper friendly! (as long as you had a guide near by)

This camp had the most Orang-utans

And the Biggest male! King of the swingers, the Jungle VIP!


Quite a few of the females had babies, which was good news!


On the last morning we went for a short trek through the jungle which was very cool, even if it was very hot and sticky! Majid filled us in on all sorts of plants and animals, and again we were very lucky to see a large cobra like snake and a lizard that even he has only seen twice before!

The lizard


Medicine Plant


Sandlewood


Pitcher Plants


Mad Vines (Majid is explaining how to get water from this one)


Gibbon


Dipi!


Along with the river trip along the jungle where we took in some of the jungle sights……


…where, on the boat, we ate wonderful food by candle light and chatted to Majid who was a top guide…


…where we slept on the top deck out in the open air and awoke to the sound of gibbons and all sorts of other animals (we also had many sounds to keep us occupied during the night, mostly fish splashing around and perhaps the odd crocodile!)….

…we also got close to one of the greatest and rarest creatures on Earth! The whole trip was truly magic!!