Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Borneo to be wild
With great apes and fearsome dragons, exploring Indonesia’s jungles and islands is a thrilling adventure from start to finish
For years I had dreamed of visiting Bali but, just 15 hours after I finally set foot on the island, I was leaving again.
It might be Indonesia’s most fashionable destination but it makes up just 0.3 per cent of the huge archipelago, which spans three time zones and is as broad as mainland USA.
Abandoning my dream, I set off to explore the other 99.7 per cent. Well, some of it.
A somewhat complicated journey had us flying from London via Doha to Bali, on to Jakarta, and finally to our ultimate destination – Borneo.
That plane from Jakarta skimmed over the treetops of a vast green jungle, coated in a layer of mist and interrupted only by a wide, grey river snaking through the landscape.
We finally touched down in Borneo, at a small military airport in the remote city of Pangkalan Bun, where numerous mosques were blaring out the call to prayer at sundown.
They were also our alarm clock at 4am for a trip to the nearby port where we clambered aboard our klotok: a boat on which you can spend days in the rainforest.
We sailed down the wide river for 15 minutes, then took a sharp left into the towering green trees of Tanjung Puting National Park – as casually as though turning onto an A road.
The boat chugged along happily for hours. Suddenly our guide whispered: “There, in the trees!” as we came to a stop. An agile orangutan swung from a branch, her tiny baby’s pale face peeking through a mass of orange hair.
She stared at us calmly for a few minutes as we snapped away with our cameras and smartphones, then retreated into the forest out of sight.
There is something inexplicably magical about seeing these familiar creatures in the wild, now only possible on Borneo and one other island, Sumatra, also in Indonesia.
We hopped off at a feeding station and found a clearing in the trees with a small wooden platform covered in bananas: an orangutan all-you-can-eat buffet.
Rangers’ eerie screeches pierced the humid air as we waited, becoming increasingly hot and sticky, until the cracking of a branch just metres away caused everyone to hold their breath.
Striding slowly but purposefully towards her lunch was another mum and baby, who casually settled down to munch their way through the feast.
When you see these great apes’ remarkably human eyes and mannerisms up close, it’s unsurprising to hear we share 97 per cent of their DNA.
They even take their name from the Indonesian words “orang”, meaning person, and “hutan”, for forest.
At Camp Leakey rehabilitation centre we met more “forest people” – and their babies – before returning to our klotok for a candlelit dinner
cooked by the crew in the tiny galley. We then lay under the twinkling night sky and wished on shooting stars as we sailed past trees where fireflies glittered like fairy lights – a perfect end to our jungle adventure.
A couple of short plane journeys east took us to the backpacker paradise of Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores, where we donned hard hats to explore the Batu Cermin cave: a limestone time capsule filled with fossils and bats. Thankfully, nobody told me about the bat-eating spiders until we’d left...
I spent a glorious afternoon sipping cocktails by the pool at the luxurious Atlantis Beach Club, eventually dragging myself away from the lounger and on to the sand for the most breathtaking sunset I have ever seen.
Dinner was at Kampung Ujung, a seafood market, where we ate succulent, spicy fresh crab cooked on the street in front of us, before resting our heads at the Komodo Boutique Hotel, a rustic little place with charming gardens.
If you have cash to splash, hire your own villa with a private pool at the upmarket Plataran resort on a truly gorgeous stretch of beach. The town’s main draw is its boat rides to Komodo National Park, the only place in the world where dangerous dragons lie in wait.
An early start meant we were on board to watch the sky transition from black to pink to blue, revealing craggy islands rising menacingly out of the choppy waters around us. This truly is Jurassic Park country.
To explore Komodo you have to stay close to stick-carrying rangers who smile as they inform you the huge lizards’ teeth and claws can rip through soft human flesh. If that doesn’t kill you, their saliva contains 57 types of bacteria which can prove fatal and, as if that wasn’t enough, they can run at 12mph. Fantastic.
Walking with our ears tuned for any small sound, we soon came across two dragons dozing in the shade near a watering hole. Our ranger
decided to lure one from its slumber by pretending he had food and for one gutwrenching moment the beast, now awake and feeling peckish, trained his beady eyes on us.
When another bold lizard started walking a little too quickly in our direction on his stumpy legs, licking the air with his long forked tongue, the ranger quietly advised: “Move. Now.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
A quick pit stop on neighbouring Padar Island is rewarding if you can manage the sweaty 30-minute hike up a steep path. Padar’s summit grants a stunning view along its spine from which five pristine beaches curve off to the left and right into the glistening sea.
You’ll want to cool off afterwards, so treat yourself to a swim at Pink Beach, named after its distinct colour created by minuscule grains of red coral in the sand.
I popped on some fins and a snorkel and opened my eyes to another world beneath the waves, with countless types of fish – I giddily found Nemo and Dory – and colourful coral swaying with the turbulent tide. A refreshing contrast to the hot, sticky jungle.
In all honesty, I had no idea how vast Indonesia really is – and neither do Indonesians. They’ve never managed to accurately count all of their islands but the latest estimate is more than 18,000. I had dreamed about visiting Bali – and maybe someday I will! – but I’m so glad I got the chance to venture beyond.