Borneo River Travel

Borneo conjures up romantic images of wild tropical jungle and rightly so. Fortunately, you can very easily get deep into its wilderness. A perfect trip to include on any Southeast Asia travel is a river journey to visit the endangered orangutans of the Indonesian side of Borneo, called Kalimantan. The orangutan tour was the highlight of our travel in Indonesia and many friends have said it was one of the best experiences of their lives. It is a trip that is difficult to beat.

The journey began with a short flight from Jakarta into Kalimantan where we were met on the tarmac by our guide. He checked with us to make sure that the menu was to our liking and picked up some additional supplies that we requested. We then launched onto the water aboard a klotok, a small Borneo river boat.

We lived on the klotok for four days. We slept under the mosquito net, in the open air. At night we watched the stars and listened to the sounds of the jungle. During the days we would watch for monkeys congregating in the trees beside the river as we slowly glided past. Each day we stopped at a nature reserve or an orangutan rehabilitation centre where we could wander jungle paths and visit with these fascinating creatures.

On the third day we visited the famous "Camp Leakey" which was founded by Dr. Birute Galdikas and is an active orangutan research centre. There we received an educational tour about the efforts to protect the orangutans. We also met many of the orangutans featured in Dr. Galdikas' book Reflections of Eden. We read her book during the trip and it made the visit that much richer.

The trip was very affordable and was completely organised by Adventure Indonesia. A professional company that can even arrange your flights. We were very pleased with their service. It would have been hard to beat their prices even if we had arranged everything ourselves on the ground. The guides and staff were polite and helpful and made an effort to meet all our needs, though it was hard to find cold beer once we were in the jungle.

This is a trip that we hope to do again with children. It is safe, easy, fascinating and memorable.