Orangutans in the Mist

TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia — The guide brought a finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence and pointed with his other hand to the sky. “Longbeak,” he whispered. I was too late to see the hornbill but I could hear the swoosh of great wings as it lifted from a treetop 30 feet above: perhaps to return to the spirit world that the people of Borneo believe is its home.

The hornbill was probably frightened by my noisy approach. My guide in flip-flops moved effortlessly along the trail that was an obstacle course to me; the toes of my boots caught on gargantuan tree roots that lay intertwined like pythons embracing on the marshy forest floor. I had been in Tanjung Puting National Park on the island of Borneo for two days and had yet to see a hornbill. My neck ached from looking skyward. The young guide must have sensed my frustration. He picked up a long, black hornbill feather and offered it to me as compensation.

Hornbills nest in the tall trees found only in tropical rain forests such as Tanjung Puting. There used to be far more of these trees on the island Borneo but by 1971 most of the primary timber already had been logged. In 1982, the remaining 124,000 acres of tropical heath and peat swamp forest of Tanjung Puting became a national park, one of the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia. The park protects the habitats of large populations of birds, crocodiles, monkeys, snakes, wild boars and, its most famous residents, the orangutans: red-haired apes found only in the Asian jungles of Borneo and Sumatra.

One of the driving forces behind the park’s creation was Birute Galdikas, a professor of anthropology who came here in 1971 to study orangutans at the request of the late Louis Leakey, whom she met at UCLA during the ‘60s. (She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from UCLA in 1978). Like her compatriots Jane Goodall and the late Dian Fossey, who went to Africa to study the other primates--chimpanzees and mountain gorillas--Galdikas has devoted her life to the conservation of orangutans and their environment. In her autobiography, “Reflections of Eden” (Little Brown & Co., $25), she explains her dedication this way: “A walk in the rain forest is a walk into the mind of God.”

The intensity of that sentiment is what lured me to Tanjung Puting. I wanted to experience the source of such inspiration and perhaps meet the remarkable person who made it her vocation.

*

Galdikas began her efforts at what she called Camp Leakey, named after her mentor. I compared her arrival in 1971 to mine in June. We both flew to Pankalanbuun, in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, on a small propeller airplane that hugged the southern coast and flew low over the horseshoe bends of muddy rivers. My 10-mile taxi ride from the airport to the park’s permit office in the small town of Kumai--jumping off point for entry to the park--took 15 minutes. Twenty-five years ago, Galdikas traveled the same distance in the back of an open truck that took five hours. Motorized boats from Kumai can reach Camp Leakey in four hours. Galdikas’ canoe trip took many more hours.

The river itself was the only element I could share with the past and it still functions as the highway--indeed, the only way--into the park. So my plan was not to make Camp Leakey in the shortest time possible. I hired a longboat called a kelotok that takes its name from the steady rhythm of its diesel-powered engines. I visited the market in Kumai first and purchased enough rice, eggs, fruit and packaged noodles for four days. Eighteen-year-old Madjit was both my captain and cook. He was assisted by his younger brother, whose main duty, I learned, was to lower himself into the murky waters where crocodiles lay so that he could untangle roots from the boat’s propeller. My bed was a foam cushion on deck under the stars.

We departed just before sunset against a sky the color of cantaloupe and a Kumai waterfront lined with teak schooners with cargoes of timber lashed to their sides. A mosque’s summons to evening prayer could be heard faintly over the engine sputter. We followed the Kumai River to the mouth of the Sekonyer River, where we moored at a bank covered by a dense border of nipa palms. Galdikas, I thought, could probably identify each invisible creature making the unfamiliar noises filling that black night.

Shortly after dawn, we continued upriver through evaporating mists and air charged with the humming of insects and the calls of birds. The palms had given way to the larger trees of primary forest, where bands of feeding macaques squabbled over their breakfast of fruit. Excited talk from Madjit (who spoke some English) alerted me to the impressive form of a 10-foot python swimming across the river.

My first park destination was the Tanjung Harapan station, an alternate orangutan rehabilitation center established in the late 1980s as one of three in the park. (The other two are Pondek Tanggui and Camp Leakey.) Tanjung Harapan was originally the site of a village where the people practiced slash-and-burn agriculture in the surrounding forests and hand-loggers worked openly. When the national park was formed, they were forced out of that spot but simply moved to a new location just outside the park.

Galdikas’ original objective, a long-term study of the wild orangutan, was not an easy one. No one had ever undertaken such a task and little was known about the great apes. She first needed to locate the elusive, solitary, migratory animals in the forest and then habituate them to her presence. She spent hundreds of hours observing them under difficult conditions. In her autobiography, she described the hardships of field research in a jungle: deep swamps, biting insects, falling branches, poisonous plants and unexplained illnesses. Yet what she feared most during those first difficult years was a failure to find the wild orangutans. “As much as I itched and oozed,” she said, “I think I suffered most from impatience.”

Within months of her arrival in Borneo, however, Galdikas was presented with another pressing problem: the rehabilitation and reintroduction into the forest of what she refers to as “ex-captive” orangutans--usually animals taken from the wild as babies, sold as pets or circus attractions and later abandoned. As loggers felled trees and killed mother orangutans, the number of orphaned babies received by Camp Leakey increased.

My early morning arrival at Camp Leakey had not been early enough. I missed the first feeding and spent the day in camp waiting to attend the midafternoon one. Unfortunately, I also had missed Galdikas’ return to camp by a few days. But Michelle Dujmovic, one of the graduate students from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where Galdikas lectures, had competently stepped into her shoes. Dujmovic introduced me to Siswi, an adult female orangutan who remains a somewhat permanent resident in camp. Galdikas calls these animals who continue to seek human companionship “bi-cultural.” Siswi was the first orangutan to be born to an ex-captive orangutan at Camp Leakey. She now had her offspring clinging to her back. She held one of Dujmovic’s hands, then gently took one of mine, and in this way the three of us headed for the feeding area.

The feeding platform at Tanjung Harapan was a 30-minute walk from the river into the forest, a trek made difficult by mosquitoes that found any repellent-free patches of skin, even between the fingers. As we neared the platform, the park ranger began hollering--a kind of yodel sound--for the orangutans. Two arrived for breakfast: a 12-year-old pregnant female, who hung with lithe grace from the safety of a tree, calmly surveying me below; and Bobby, a 7-year-old male who stole my heart as well as my hat.

*

Interactions with orangutans can lead a well-intentioned visitor to encourage their misbehavior; one reason why park rangers stand by for guidance. At Tanjung Harapan, a young female made repeated attempts to sneak onto the boat and grab my belongings and lunch. She paid no attention to me, a woman, but would immediately disappear under the dock when Madjit approached. I assumed that she sensed my amusement rather than anger. However, I later read in Galdikas’ book that great apes differentiate between men and women: Whether orangutan or human, an adult male is feared and obeyed.

The park’s guest book revealed that it receives about 50 visitors a month. Bill Dalton, the writer whose “Indonesia Handbook” (Moon Publications, $19.95) I carried with me, had signed in the week before. There were seven other travelers at Camp Leakey that day, including two men from Hollywood with a proposal for a film about Galdikas’ life, similar to “Gorillas in the Mist,” about Dian Fossey’s.

The men from Hollywood roared away in their speedboat from the wooden pier that connected the river to the simple buildings of Camp Leakey and crossed the 600 feet of peat swamp Galdikas had to wade through 25 years ago. I was content to retrace my route downriver more leisurely and was immediately rewarded with the sight of a 12-foot-long crocodile lurking below water the color of teak oil.

Madjit and his brother bathed every day in the Sekonyer River. They washed the dishes in it. The village children played in it. It is safe, they told me. I was not convinced. In the late 1980s, gold was discovered near a village called Aspai, which is several hours past Natai Lengkuas, another of the park’s research centers, this one devoted to the study of proboscis monkeys. People arrived by the thousands to sink traditional mines. Chemicals such as mercury now contaminate the river. There have been crocodile deaths reported. “During Ramadan [the Muslim holy month of fasting], all the miners go home for a month,” said a guide, “and the rivers become clear again.”

As Madjit turned the kelotok downriver, carelessly steering it with his toes, I didn’t want to consider the consequences of river pollution or the number of orphaned orangutan babies I had seen in the park, testimony to the ongoing destruction of trees and their parents. Nor did I want to ponder the horrible fact that decorated orangutan skulls are for sale in some Kalimantan souvenir shops. I chose instead to concentrate on Galdikas’ achievements. More than 100 orangutans, including some circus animals, are successful graduates of her program. The trade of captured orangutans overseas has been stunted. She has established the Orangutan Foundation International in Los Angeles, with chapters around the world. Her beloved Tanjung Puting is a national park.

The late afternoon sun was turning the brown river to orange. It was my last night under an immense night sky where perspectives are regained and priorities righted. I felt as fiercely protective of my enjoyment of these moments as Galdikas is of Tanjung Puting. From the sky came a sound like the rattle of hollow wooden instruments and a pair of hornbills flew over the boat in a noisy benediction. Soon the air was busy with them, their stork-like silhouettes disappearing into the distant wedge of fading light.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Borneo Primate Park

Getting there: Garuda Airlines flies from LAX to Jakarta, with two stops but no change of planes. Or fly Singapore, Philippine Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Air New Zealand, Eva Airways and Malaysian Airlines from LAX to Jakarta, with one change of planes. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $1,060. Merpati Airlines flies from Jakarta to Pangkalanbuun, the closest airport to Tanjung Puting National Park. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $390.

From Pangkalanbuun Airport, take a taxi ($5) to the town of Kumai.

Where to stay: The Blue Kecubung Hotel is considered the best in Pangkalanbuun. Rooms are $15 to $30.

The Rimba Lodge, located across the river from the park’s Tanjung Harapan station, is the only commercial accommodation on the Sekonyer River near the park. Rooms are $20 to $60.

For reservations at either the Blue Kecubung or the Rimba Lodge, call the Blue Kecubung at 011-62-532-21211 or fax 011-62-532-21513. The Blue Kecubung offers two-hour speedboat service to the Rimba Lodge.

For more information: Indonesia Tourist Promotion Office, 3457 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 104, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 387-2078; fax (213) 380-4876.

Orangutan Foundation International, 822 S. Wellesley Ave., Los Angeles 90049; tel. (310) 207-1655. They sell an $8 park guidebook written by Birute Galdikas and Gary L. Shapiro.