Indonesia
Tanjung Puting
A wooden houseboat drifts blackwater rivers where wild orangutans cross the canopy overhead.
The klotok pushes upriver through water the colour of strong tea, nipa palms giving way to peat forest. Somewhere above, branches move: an orangutan travelling, unhurried, while the boat's cook sets rice and sambal on the open deck.
Tanjung Puting protects four thousand square kilometres of peat and swamp forest in Central Kalimantan, home to one of the largest wild Bornean orangutan populations on Earth. The classic visit is three days by klotok from Kumai, sleeping on deck under a net, mooring by night and walking to ranger-run stations by day, with Camp Leakey's research history reaching back to 1971. Proboscis monkeys crowd the riverside trees at dusk, and every sighting is wildlife on its own schedule, which is the point of travelling at the river's speed.
Solo
A shared klotok gives one traveller a crew, a guide and company at the deck table.
Couple
A small boat of your own sets an intimate rhythm: engine off at dusk, fireflies on.
Family
One floating base, no repacking, and a forest that unrolls at deck height for children.
- The park holds one of the world's largest wild Bornean orangutan populations.
- Three days aboard a klotok makes the river itself the accommodation and the route.
- Camp Leakey has run orangutan research here since 1971.
- Proboscis monkeys gather in the riverbank trees at dusk along the corridor.
The klotok's own cook feeds the trip: rice, vegetables and the day's protein on the open deck.
Everything aboard is provisioned in Kumai before the river leaves the shops behind.
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