TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK
Tanjung Puting
National Park is an internationally famous ecotourism destination, which is
located in the southwest of Central Kalimantan peninsula. Visitors from foreign
countries come to this park because of its amazing nature. This is called a
park, but unlike any park that you have seen in your city, this is a jungle! It
is real jungle, which is home to the most interesting animal in the world:
orangutan.
Though the park
is home to many animals, seeing orangutans is usually the visitors’ main reason
to visit the park. Orangutans, which literally mean the man of the forest, are
the largest arboreal animal on the planet. Most of their lives are spent in
trees where orangutans travel from branch to branch by climbing or swinging
with their long arms.
To see
orangutans, we should go to Camp Leakey, which is located in the heart of
Tanjung Puting National Park. Camp Leakey is a rehabilitation place for
ex-captive orangutans and also a preservation site. It is also a famous center
for research about orangutans which has been conducted by the famous
primatologist Dr. Birute Galdikas since 1971. Here visitors can see daily
feedings to orangutans at jungle platforms as part of the rehabilitation
process to their natural habitat. This event gives them opportunity to see
orangutans up close.
To reach the
place, we should take a boat down Sekonyer river. The boat is popularly called
perahu klotok which is a boathouse that can accommodate four people. The trip
by the boat to Camp Leakey takes three days and two nights. You sleep, cook,
and eat in that klotok, night and day during your journey into the jungle.
The travelling in
the boat offer an unforgettable experience. In daylight, on your way to Camp
Leakey, you can see trees filled with proboscis monkeys, monkeys that have
enormous snout which can only be found in Kalimantan. The monkeys anxiously
await klotok arrivals. A troop of 30 light-brown monkeys may plunge from
branches 10 meters or higher into the river and cross directly in front of the
boat. These monkeys know that the boat’s engine noise and the threat of its
propeller scare crocodiles, which find these chubby monkeys delicious. At
night, you can enjoy the clear sky and the amazingly bright stars as the only
light for the night.
Which such exotic
nature, no wonder many tourists from foreign countries who love ecotourism
frequently visit Tanjung Puting National Park. What about you?
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