To Borneo and Back

One week ago we boarded an eight meter boat for a three night, four day excursion into the Tanjung Puting National Park in the Indonesian part of Borneo. Todd and I and our crew of three snaked down the Sekonyer River mid-morning on Saturday. A few short hours later we found ourselves watching orangutans (from 'orang' which means 'person' and 'hutan' which means 'forest') emerging from the canopy of trees. We fell silent listening to the sound of their arms grasping branches or their mouths chomping into a banana. It was awesome in the most profound sense of that word.

We met some characters throughout our stay in the park. There's Pedro who chased down two females to mate with in the short time we watched him at Camp Leakey. On the dock we met Siswi who was in poor condition because she found some soap and ate it. We saw the suds on her arm. There's Tut who likes to hang out below the dock. See she is older and quite comfortable in the shade there. Princess and her two kids, Putri and Percy, are known as the genius family. Princess can row a boat. And, if you ask her what she wants she will tell you (with her hands) that she would like some water. Then there's Tom. He is the dominant, uncompromising king of Camp Leakey. Everyone knows when Tom is coming because the other male orangutans run the other direction.

These friends put a face to the forest. Sadly, Borneo's forests are rapidly disappearing. A UN report predicts that 98% of the orangutans natural habit will be destroyed by 2022 as a result of illegal logging and palm oil plantations. Deforestation accounts for 20% of the world's green house gas emissions. In Indonesia it accounts for four fifths of all carbon emissions. In addition to articles on deforestation in Borneo, you can also check out the Orangutan Foundation International website for more information.

Here's a slide show of photos from our trip, during which we also celebrated Todd's 30th birthday. The crew celebrated the end of Ramadan, Idul Fitri, aboard the boat.

Beautiful digits

We passed a date with a beautiful number: 09/09/2009. Before it's a distant memory, let me just say if it was a hand phone number here in Indonesia, it would cost a bit more than your average sequence of numbers. A nomor cantik (beautiful number) is placed in a premium category, where the numbers are more appealing for the repitition, the order, the ease with which they roll off the tongue. It's not a huge difference in cost to buy a beautiful number, so it may be worthwhile for the one who will want to turn heads in hopes of hearing "Hey baby, those are some beautiful digits you have."