Christmas in Borneo

As most of you know, I spent this Christmas with some friends on a little jungle adventure on the island of Borneo. We started our journey traveling upriver by boat to the Tanjung Puting national park in Kalimantan (The island of Borneo is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. Kalimantan is the Indonesian area of the island, occupying the entire lower portion.) We went to the park because it is home to an orangutan reserve and rehabilitation center. Due to illegal logging and deforestation, thousands of Borneo orangutans have been displaced and/or killed. For this part of our journey, we had a guide take us to the reserve and we stayed in an eco-lodge in the forest.

Even in the jungle, we still found a little of the Christmas spirit...a very Charlie Brown-looking tree in the eco-lodge:

A few other teaching fellows and me on our boat:

Our first day in the organutan reserve...we got there just in time for the afternoon feeding. The dominant male eats first, then the others can come and eat.

The next day we got to hang out with some mothers and their babies. As we were walking down the trail to the feeding station, a group of them came to show us the way. If we stopped, they too would stop and wait for us...I think they wanted to make sure we didn't get lost! I think this one is trying to tell us something...

Rules of the park...unfortunately, we didn't see any crocodiles in the river.

Snack time:

3 days in the national park, one frightening bus ride, and a very scary hotel later, we arrived in Banjarmasin, which is the capital city of Kalimantan. We were happy to have a little civilization in which to spend Christmas day. And lo and behold, a Christmas miracle: karaoke! Truly a great Christmas day...dinner at Pizza Hut and then an all night karaoke session!

The next day we traveled about 5 hours to the village of Loksado in the mountains. We stayed in a great guest house right on the river, and a guide took us on a little trek to see some local hill tribes. We also got to go for a swim at a nice little waterfall:

After hiking to the waterfall in the morning, our guide asked us if we wanted to take the "long way" back down the mountain. Little did we know what the "long way" entailed...a 5 hour crazy jungle trek, complete with Indiana Jones-style bridges, stream fording, and mudslides. Of course, our guide did all this wearing little rubber flip-flops...and he still had to wait for us to catch up!

Tony, Susannah, and Kendra crossing a stream:

Finally, our trip to the mountains ended with a ride down the river on a bamboo raft. The guide on our boat was amazing...machete in one hand (to chop off tree branches that got in the way) and a bamboo pole in the other to steer, he kicked ass! And of course, he did all this with a cigarette in his mouth most of the time....

For a more detailed description, check out this link to my colleague's blog (I'm too lazy to write it myself!)

http://anthonyzak.com/2008/01/03/wrapping-it-up/#more-314