Situated in Borneo, Indonesia, Tanjung Puting National Park sits on a peninsula that juts out into the Java Sea. The peninsula is low lying and swampy with a spine of dry ground which rises a few feet above the omnipresent swamp. The park is the habitat for the world’s largest Orangutan population and as a result draws visitors from all over the world.

Most visitors to the park rent a Klotok riverboat to move around the park and access the jungle trails which take them deeper into the jungle where wildlife will be found. This might be the place Joseph Conrad was contemplating when he wrote Heart of Darkness.

Two deck Klotoks are simply laid out with guests occupying the top deck and crew members occupying the bottom deck.

Local indigenous people live in or near the park and travel through it to local villages.

Orangutans are the prime attraction in the park and are the main reason that visitors from all over the world visit the park.

Humans share 98% of their DNA with Orangutans and when seeing these magnificent animals you can often observe traces of human behavior and emotion

The other mammal in the park that draws significant visitor interest is the Proboscis Monkey. They are large monkeys whose most prominent feature is a comical Jimmy Durante nose.

Females are considerably smaller than the males but carry the same odd facial feature.

Like many monkeys, Proboscis monkeys are capable of jumping amazing distances. This male jumped across one of the main park rivers. His brood followed him but some fell short and plunged into the river. No matter….it was simply a needed bath!

Gibbons are one of the monkey species in the park and have an incredible ability to move among the trees. Their ability to swing themselves from branch to branch with such ease and velocity is stunning.

Macaques are bold and fearless. This one stole his orange from a bowl of oranges on the deck of my boat. I was sitting less than 10 ft away from the bowl when he swung onto the boat from a tree ran onto the table and escaped back to the tree in a couple of seconds. He didn’t appear remorseful for his theft!

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Frank Binder

http://www.frankbinderphotography.com