True and I spent four days on a river in Borneo.
First, we flew to Jakarta from Hong Kong and spent an afternoon and evening at a wonderful hotel before leaving for Borneo by plane the next day. The pool had an olympic-size swimming pool.
We flew to Borneo early the next day and arrived on the river in the town of Kumai to board our boat.
We saw mudskippers on the shore. They are an amphibious fish that breaths through its skin when it is out of water and walks with its fins.
We boarded our boat and were off on the main river.
The cook brought up lunch.
It was delicious - fries with hot sauce, fish with tomato sauce, soybean with peppers.
True ate with gusto!
Then we settled in to enjoy the ride.
We headed up a narrow river and stopped in the afternoon to walk into the jungle to see our first orangutans.
We followed a boardwalk above the tangled jungle floor and later followed a path through the trees.
This was the first orangutan that we saw - a huge male hanging motionless in a tree. It looked spooky and surreal. Orangutan means 'person of the forest.'
Later, we saw proboscis monkeys, which are only found in Borneo.
They hang out in the trees near the river. They look oddly human with their large noses.
We also saw gibbons, like this one, and heard their eerie calls at dawn.
There were plenty of macaques around. This one is not yawning - they bare their teeth when they feel threatened.
And there were lots of wild boars, which were unafraid of humans - though the orangutans were afraid of the boars.
We spent one afternoon hiking through the forest. Most of the old growth trees have been cut down within easy access from the river.
But there are some old trees still around...
...like this one.
There are brilliant colors everywhere, from the insects...
...to the birds.
I didn't get any pictures of butterflies, but they were many and varied. The most remarkable ones we saw had large white wings that looked like petals from a delicate flower, or large flakes of ash. They floated, ghostly in the forest's gloom.
These are called 'pitcher plants.'
Back on the boat, True favored the hammock.
Sometimes, he napped on the mats.
At night, we slept beneath mosquito netting. We were fortunate that there were very few mosquitoes when we were there - though sleeping was not terribly comfortable.
The breakfasts were wonderful, though.
True loved the coffee with condensed milk.
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