I highly recommend this trip. It’s a great for photography as there is plenty of space on the klotuk (riverboat) to keep your camera at the ready while you relax and watch the reflections of ancient plants in the river or study it for the snouts of patient crocodiles. I saw more than twenty orangutans, not just at feeding stations but in the trees and swinging between them as well as on the foot trail. Along the river were dozens and dozens of proboscis monkeys, an alpha and his harem of females and kids, plus the rival group of bachelor males vying for their opportunity at procreation. Long tailed macaques brewed up trouble with their playful antics, one made off with our bananas by leaping to the river and swimming across to the other side. A lonely charismatic white cheeked gibbon swung through the trees like a child’s toy. Many birds are visible, lots of kingfisher species and storks and croaking hornbills and other technicolor dream coat varieties flying and singing overhead. The boat is comfortable, much like a house, with plenty of space to store your stuff and a comfy bed to sleep on with a mosquito net. There is your knowledgeable guide, a helpful deck hand, the skilled captain and the cook who made three wonderful meals a day. (Guide Vera, Cook Ira ,Capt Dedet, Boat assistant Agus)
They make sure you are very well taken care of. We did short treks (about two hours each) during the day to see animals and plants like pitcher plants or fungi or local medicinal plants, plenty of cool insects, the most colorful and varied butterflies you’re likely to see anywhere, truly kaleidoscopic, giant ants matching, industrious termites, and moths. At night we trek hunted for nocturnal species and found frogs, lizards, spiders and mouse deer. The ammoniac whispers of the nocturnal tarsiers were everywhere. Only the creator who fashioned this rainforest and its denizens via evolution knows what is was truly like over the last hundred million years. But floating along the tea black river will at least give you glimpse of the forgotten eons of time, like shaking the hand of a centenarian and looking into their ancient eyes.
Dylan
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