6 days in the Wehea Rainforest

On to the Wehea protected forest- we drove 4x4 from the wehea dayak community out into the rainforest to the research station where we will spend a full week. As we drove here we talked about how much we needed to re-charge, unwind, and reflect… the last month has been quite a ride, and we are all very thankful to have some time to appreciate the things we have seen and have a home-base for more than a couple of days.

The forest on the drive in was immediately different from the forest we saw in Kutai, the trees are taller, the sense of majesty about this place is just MORE somehow than what we already experienced in Kutai. This place really is straight out of ‘The Land Before Time’, as Jesse mentioned on the way in… there were probably two spots the entire drive in where we could actually see out from the top of a hill through the trees and over the forest, the rest of the time the vegetation is so thick that it was impossible to see anything but what lined the dirt road.

We have 6 nights here in the rainforest, running the generator for power only a few hours a day, and cooking our own meals for the first time on this trip. We have been given a bit of a break from blog and video assignments for the duration of our stay in Wehea, and we are planning to take advantage of that. When we bounced and rattled our way up to the buildings in the middle of the forest where we would spend our time, we had one of those collective sighs- there is a river on one side with clear water (the first of it’s kind we’ve seen) and a stream feeding into it with a beautiful swimming-pond fed by a small waterfall, and dense forest on all sides.

(6 days later)
The time we have had here has been so needed, as we all expected. The meals have been quite healthy (we’ve eaten mainly rice, with some changing flavors here and there) and we’ve been active, still with time to relax. The rangers here have had our ‘help’ with their forest surveys- we’ve been able to participate in the ‘biodiversity survey’ where the rangers walk along the road after a rain, and note all of the different animal tracks. Also the ‘orangutan survey’, in which we count the nests (orangutans make a new nest to spend the night in every evening, and it’s the most effective way that’s been found to get a sense of their numbers) and evaluate how old the nests are. There has been night walks, night’s spent out at some look-out towers, river-tracings, class times and educational/informational talks from various rangers, and just lazy days around the camp.

My birthday was pretty awesome- I was woken by demands for me to put on a vine-crown, hold a wooden staff and wear a jungle-leaf skirt… it was pretty funny. The kitchen crew for the day went over the top, and cooked some delicious meals, and even smuggled in a delectable Guinness to go with dinner, which they cooled in the river- probably the best beer I’ve had.

I have not actually taken many pictures of this magical place- I guess that is partly because the surveys etc did not really present the opportunities… while the lazy days around camp were not really that photographically exciting. I still feel like I slacked off a bit, because now that I’m wanting to share where we were and what we saw, I don’t really have the means.

I went on an orangutan survey with Jesse, one thing I did take a couple of pictures of. The survey took us most of the day to complete, and only involved a kilometer of forest transect. We were looking for orangutan nests, as I’ve mentioned, and it’s amazing how hard they can be to spot in the canopy above. The rangers-in-training we trekked with spotted most of the nests, and the supervisor Pornomo only had to point out a few. This one is the most obvious one we saw, and is really the only one that came out in pictures, since the others were all so obscured by branches and trees.

We played lots of guitar, and each group took their turn cooking the meals for a day. We went out to sunrises and sunsets at the lookout towers as I mentioned, the view out over the rainforest was spectacular, and the mists and clouds that hang above the trees were beautiful. There were many cool bugs, everything seems to be just Bigger… I played with one praying mantis that was attracted to my headlight one night, it was big enough to make me seriously question why I was letting it crawl all over me (something I’ve never been worried about with praying mantis before). And this rino-beetle, I don’t have anything in the images to help you understand how big it is, but it was not that much smaller than a clenched fist.
It was crossing the path as I walked to the water-hole for a midnight dip with the fireflies.

Jesse Spencer and myself went on a really awesome river-tracing excursion, wading through water of varying depths with slippery rocks and hanging branches and vines… We spent an hour and a half goofing around and taking some video footage of the area on our way,
and being able to appreciate that we were deep in the rainforest up to our necks in clear beautiful water for the first time this whole trip was indescribable. We stopped for lunch for an hour or so, and laughed while threw perfect skipping stones out over a slow-moving section of the river, while we enjoyed our lunch of a very fishy rice. Veronica, Elise, Nadine and Gillian came around the corner as we were packing up and we headed around a few more bends in the river to the big water-hole, where we were able to dive off of the rocks and float around while the rays of the sun passed over the trees.

The smaller swimming hole was a beautiful place to take a dip before bed-time, the clear water from the small waterfall felt like it had imbued healing properties. A couple of nights in the camp I took my underwater strobe-light and placed it on the bottom of this pool so that the light glowed up from the bottom making it like a grotto where the ripples played with the light in the trees, and the fireflies would come over and blink around with the incredible bright starry skies above… this was really only possible later at night because the generator would be turned off after 10 or 11 pm, but it was glorious.

Sadly we packed our bags on the last day to leave this incredible forest sanctuary.




After another 8 hour 4x4 out of Wehea and North to Tanjung Redeb, here we are again with internet at the Hotel Sederhana, where we will be for the next few days meeting with some university students and governmental people in meetings etc… and we should have fairly good internet for these few days, so I will/should be able to update pictures and other fun things like that.

Wehea Community

Driving to the Wehea Dayak community was a seven or 8 hour ordeal- bouncing around in a mitsubishi 4x4 truck, all of our gear tarped up in the back. Out the windows we watched all kinds of deforestation pass by; palm oil plantations, mining, forestry, etc etc. We stopped for lunch and stepped out of our air-conditioned cab and ate, sweating heavily as usual, in a nice hut overlooking treeless hillsides covered in rice-fields (not paddies, rice grown like wheat out of the ground) with palm oil seedlings ready to take the place of the rice.

When we arrived several hours later in the Wehea Dayak community, I was surprised because there was no rainforest that we had passed on the way in- while this community is so incredible partly because of it’s commitment to protect the rainforest. We were greeted warmly with a welcome ceremony, a chicken (chick actually) was sacrificed, and we had to have it’s blood applied to our foreheads, before we could participate in the dancing and singing that followed.

We were split into groups after this for our homestays, and moved our bags into their houses. My homestay family was so great, Hedrus the father, his wife, 5 children including infant Maya who was adorable.
I shared this homestay with Shandel, Micheala, Gillian, and Elise- we all felt blessed to have been selected to stay with such a wonderful family. Hedrus spoke some English, and we were able to communicate with him fairly well- he was very good to us, making sweet tea for us every chance he had.

We woke early to attend a ceremony that was being held for a baby in the village, she was days old, and they were celebrating her birth. We helped (mostly got in the way I’m sure) to put some of the bamboo segments filled with sticky-rice, coconut shavings and milk wrapped in a banana leaf over the coals of a cooking fire, and went across the river on small dugout canoes with buckets of slop to feed and entice the pigs there so that we could capture one for the sacrifice required in the ceremony. There was quite a lot of squealing and struggling- but a pig was bound up and carried back to the hut on the other side of the river by the Moss Brothers Tim and Matt.

By the time the ceremony was over and we had watched the pig being sacrificed, the singing, chanting, blood smearing and cooking in earnest, it was 9AM an time for us to pile in the back of a pickup truck with 10 other people to go to the community gardens. Hedrus was concerned for our white skin and brought us beautiful hats to protect us from the sun, and we went to his part of the farm with our whole group to see what the community is doing in the areas that have been already deforested. There is a community initiative to make the leftover grasslands from the deforestation useful by converting them first to ‘gardens’ with banana trees, peanuts, corn etc with rubber-trees which will grow up much more slowly, and eventually take the place of these other crops. The rubber trees provide the community with a valuable source of income, and are much ‘better for the environment’ than dry grass fields, even though they too end up being a monoculture.


While we were here my group of 4 (Jesse, Nadine and Spencer) decided that as an early birthday present they would buy me 23 rubber-tree seedlings that we all planted in some of Hedrus’ property (still grassland) next to his existing garden. It was a very, very cool birthday present, and one that I was certainly not expecting at all- I was very touched by this beautiful gesture both for me but also for the community- very thoughtful.



It was late morning by the time all of this was done, and we jumped back in the truck which drove to the rice-fields, where we had lunch. This was a very incredible experience because we were able to participate in the whole process of preparing an amazing feast- the same rice-coconut-cooked-wrapped-in-banana-leaves-inside-bamboo, along with vegetables cooked in wider segments of bamboo.

It was delicious of course, and everyone ate way too much because it was so tasty.

I spent the rest of the day mostly sitting on the large front porch with Micheala and Hedrus’ children trading friendship bracelets that we made and –playing some guitar. The children thought it was very funny when I read a couple of parts from a story-book in Indonesian to them- they corrected me on the pronunciation of almost every word. Later that night we were sooo lucky to have some of the village elders sing us a couple of their traditional songs,
it was wonderful to be a part of this cultural exchange- even though we felt we were far more on the receiving end. Later on Hedrus showed us his traditional dance-garb, and asked us to try it on for some pictures.



The following morning we took a few pictures of our host family and then some group shots to hopefully have printed in Balikpapan and send back to the village for them to put on their wall. Hedrus was quite excited to have these pictures made, because the few pictures he has of his family together are from quite a while ago when there are less children, and he so wanted to have something more recent to hang on his wall. I am looking forward to sending the pictures as a thank you for their wonderful hospitality.

Kutai National Park

I am now sitting in the “hot spot zone” for internet in Sangata… to be sure it is an improvement on the last internet, I’m glad the images loaded- although there was supposed to bea couple more images which I am currently trying to include… we shall see.

We are entering the leg of our trip where we travel north, where the description of the word ‘road’ will become blurry. Apparently they are going to become small mud-rivers more than roads. Our drive up to Sangata from Samarinda was the last bit of road we are expected to be able to drive on without the 4x4s that we will be getting tomorrow. From Samarinda we drove up to this hotel in Sangata to drop off our big bags and gear, and pack a small bag for an overnight in the Kutai National park ranger station.

This area is a tragic example of the failure of the National Government to maintain this as a park- the local Government has been encouraging settlement within the forest, as well as logging both illegally and legally.
The coal mine in Sangata is (according to our guide) the biggest open-pit coal mine in the world. And it’s operating beside what was once some of the more incredible rainforest in the world, seeping chemicals down the rivers and into the water-system, and destroying vast amounts of this incredible forest.

Getting to the research station required a short 25 minute boat-ride up one of these heavily polluted rivers. For much of the short trip up-river one bank was cleared of trees, while the other side had much denser forest. One of the longboats ahead of us encountered a cobra swimming across the river, and I guess their boat-driver did not see it and he apparently ran into it mid-water. The cobra flared out it’s hood and reared up over the boat, and I can only say how odd everyone here thinks it is that I would have just LOVED to have been in the boat to see this. There were no injuries, and everyone was quite excited about the encounter. I am filled with cobra-envy haha.

The research/ranger station was quite a cool place, built all on stilts which is typical of the buildings by the river. The walkway and buildings were made of ironwood, the incredibly strong (and very valuable we found out 1000 USD/1cubic foot locally, and 3000 elsewhere) There were beautiful butterflies everywhere, and gorgeous tropical hibiscus flowering along the path up to the main building. We ate delicious forest rambutans which grew beside the path, and were fed some of the best food we’ve had from the amazing cook the rangers brought in for us.

We spent just two days trekking through the forests around this ranger station and had some pretty amazing experiences, for example; we saw three wild orangutans (a mother and her baby, and a male right beside the station).
We came upon the mother orangutan early in the first trek, I think we all surprised each other, she was close to the ground just resting with her baby. We looked at each other for a minute or two before she collected the little one and went swinging up higher to feed on some of the leaves and fruit in the upper canopy.
It was a rare and very beautiful experience to see this animal in the wild, and especially since most of us assumed that after samboja we were not likely to see any more orangutans. So imagine our surprise then, when after an incredible hike through the rainforest for a couple of hours, we return for dinner and there is a beautiful male in the top branches of a rambutan tree right beside our dinner-tables!!! It was surreal actually, and as we watched him devour these delicious fruits (they are very similar to lycce, but they have ‘hairy’ red skin on the outside when they are ripe) we were rained on by the shells. The efficiency of his eating was incredible to watch, he was able to devour hundreds of these in a very short period of time, using all four of his ‘hands’ to shell and then deposit the pale juicy fruit in his mouth.
I am quite certain he swallowed all of the pits, which of course helped him to eat faster. As it was becoming dusk, we were sad to see him swing off into the trees. A couple of our group followed him a short way, and then reported back excitedly that he had just made his nest for the night very close to the building we were spending the night in. I was not there to see it, but apparently when the orangutan made his nest, he just pulled two trees together and broke a bunch of large branches to lay down beneath him, and finished with some smaller twigs. He was done in less than a minute! We went to check it out, and he was happily perched way above us, looking down every once and a while to see if we were still watching him.

I was tired after all of the hiking and so in the morning some people got up early to watch him wake, but I sadly slept through this experience. Jesse was up early enough, and even though he did not wake me, he told me that the orangutan woke, stood up, peed for-ev-er, and then had a gigantic poop, before swinging off into the forest. We felt a little bit intrusive, but extremely privileged to observe these animals go about their ‘routines’.


Aside from Orangutans we saw some wicked bugs,
amazing trees, vines and plants, and had an awesome time walking through deep clay banks and swinging on cool vines. Our ranger guides were sweet, and got lost a couple of times while we hacked through wet fronds with their machetes blazing a path. Hundreds of bug bites, and big smiles were the result of this overnight in the small part that is left of this once-expansive incredible rainforest. The next place we are going (tomorrow) is called Wehea, where we are staying in homestays for several days (for my birthday), in forest that is much more pristine and well preserved. I am very excited. I hope everyone is well, and look forward to telling you about the cool creatures and things that we see next!!


Cheers!! Darwyn

The last two weeks have passed so quickly it seems. We have also done and seen so much that it is hard to think that such little time has passed. And so when we boarded this gigantic houseboat to travel up the Mahakam river, I was thrilled at the prospect of some time to reflect. It turns out that on riverboat with 20 people and then crew, there’s not a whole lot of room or personal space.

The boat was fantastic- big common areas, small bunks and amazing food. We piled on with all of our gear (I definitely have far more than anyone else because of my underwater housing and camera equipment… simultaneously a curse and a blessing) stepping over the thick wooden rails of the boat. We traveled all day, and through the night to our destination, a small village from which we would take longboats further north. Along the way we saw huge coal container barges slowly dragged along by tugs, or being filled by the giant conveyer belts that loomed over the water from the banks. There were small river-houses lining the bank, and we were waved at enthusiastically by literally hundreds of children along the way. As we got further away from Samarinda, the green along the bank became more lush and the cicadas were more audible over the drone of the boats big engine.

We enjoyed a stunning sunset the first night, and had our class on the flat aluminum roof of the boat so that we could enjoy our surroundings. Later we played guitar and watched the stars pass overhead and discussed what we had seen so far. I left my camera in it’s bag the whole day, because I have been feeling a little bit lost behind the lens, and was happy to recharge some of that interest in capturing the moments on camera.

The next morning we rose early and ate a big breakfast of pancakes (with the REAL bananas, not those ‘bonita’ wannabes) and then walked around this village built entirely on ironwood (wood ‘stronger than iron’ that this community used for their roads, and structures) These communities are so full of life it seems, or it could be that life is just so much more out in the open here.

While we walked through the market our longboats arrived, (the same style as in Thailand with the open engine and gigantic long drive-shaft for the prop) 3 people to a boat plus a driver, and we cruised off with a small flotilla of colourful boats full of pasty-white tourists, getting waved to frantically the whole way.

As the villages became less frequent we began to see some really amazing wildlife, there were birds diving for fish in the water, monkeys in the trees, even a large poisonous snake one of the boats spotted curled around some branches hanging over the water. We passed through a large shallow lake, and the sky opened up in all directions creating this beautiful contrast of blue against the green fronds of the lake grasses.

We saw Long-tailed Macacs, Proboscis Monkeys, Hornbills, Egrets, Kingfishers, and I filled up my memory cards quickly- but unfortunately not many of the pictures are very useable because the boat engines are so loud that all of the wildlife we saw was seen at a distance, and when we got close enough to take pictures the animals had fled further into the canopy. There are still a couple of pictures I am fairly happy with, but I decided I would love to come back here with a canoe that does not make so much NOISE!

We made it to the Dayak village and were greeted with the welcome ceremony, which was very beautiful- our impressions of this ‘cultural tourism’ were varied, but we did enjoy the presentation. It is difficult to say if we were helping to preserve their culture by being there, or the opposite. Most incredible was being able to interview the chief about his culture and the changes he has seen in his lifetime. We had a guide who translated for us, and his answers to our questions were very wise. We left the village wishing we had more time to spend in this village to learn more about their culture and background.

On the boat-ride back to the houseboat I counted 12 Proboscis Monkeys, which was pretty incredible to me- it seemed that there were so many in this area (which could definitely be because there is less and less habitat for them elsewhere…) We also had another fabulous sunset- I spent most of the boat ride laying on the tip of the bow so that my head extended out over the water, and dragged my fingers along the smooth surface. The noise from the engines of these longboats make talking almost impossible, and so it was nice to have this time for ourselves and to be able to appreciate where we were.


Now we are back in Samarinda, and staying at the most ridiculous hotel, it’s soooo nice, it’s way over the top- but their internet is absolutely the worst. So I’m not sure if I will be able to upload pictures to go along with this blog until I get back to internet again on the 8th… we shall see.

Samboja Lestari-
about an hour and a half bus-ride outside the city of Balikpapan, this is an incredible project where some very committed people have re-forested an area in hopes to create habitat for Orangutans. My first impression of this place is one of wonder, we agreed it could easily have been called Jurrasic Park instead. Down a long 4x4 dirt driveway we passed a sign directing vehicles to the sun bears, and a couple of man-made islands surrounded by moats where we could see some large shapes with orange hair swinging through the branches. Out of the surrounding jungle there is a tower that could be taken out of any fairy-tale. This is where we would spend the next five days.


During our stay here we were spoiled rotten with food, with buffet style meals and dessert plates with fresh fruits of mango, papaya, watermelon, rambutan, mangosteens and many more… We spent time watching and filming the orangutans on one of the islands, and participated in the feeding of the sun-bears. The sun bears are incredible, and reminded me more of the Tasmanian devils than any bears I have ever seen. They are extremely agile, and have long claws on the end of nimble fingers. In order for them to get exercise we hid their food around the compounds in difficult to reach places, up trees, under piles of logs, in burlap sacks tied and hung in awkward places, and along suspended logs that they would have to balance on to reach. The bears would then be released from the cages which they sleep in at night, and would begin ‘foraging’ for their meals. It was pretty awesome.

The orangutans were fascinating to watch, they are so strong and nimble- and smart!!
They exhibit so many human qualities that make them so interesting. I felt like I was learning about myself as much as about them.
During our stay here we visited a very sad place called Kilometer 38, where there are a group of orangutans that can never be released because they have serious diseases that would harm wild orangutan populations. We were so moved by these imprisoned animals- they are such beautiful and intelligent creatures. To see them reach through the bars at us, triggered for many of us a very paternal instinct. I felt like there had to be something we could do for them, some way we could make a change.

We were extremely fortunate to have Dr. Willie Smits arrive and make several presentations to our group about a great many things, and possible solutions to environmental problems. He is incredibly inspiring and motivational, not to mention quite a celebrity- so our time with him was very interesting in many ways.

Overnight in the Mangroves

So I wrote this blog the other day on the bus- making great use of my time and being as efficient as possible, but later when my computer reached maximum capacity and I was forced to delete a bunch of things I guess the file got moved to the trash. ARRGH!

So to re-cap the happenings of the time spent in the mangroves: In the morning following our sleepless overnight in Stan’s house (due to giant rats running around the rafters, sadistic crowing-all-night-outside-your-door roosters, and neighbors horking and spitting every ten minutes loud and juicy enough to make the bile rise to the back of your throat… among other things)

We woke (from not sleeping) early and made our way to the harbor where we piled into a longboat with Budi (founder of local NGO YK-RASI) who we were helping to conduct this Irrawaddy Dolphin survey. He explained how two people always had to be looking from the front of the boat, one with binoculors and one without, and a third person recording the data (speed, weather, GPS location, Depth etc). Another two people must search from the back of the boat.

We were hoping to see some of these rare dolphins, but in all the time we searched, we did not have a sighting. We did see a Dugong (sea cow- very cool… eats lots of sea grasses and is very threatened) as it came up for a breath of air before returning to grazing.

We boated from the dolphin survey further up the Mahakam River to the field research station owned by Stan Lhota, a primate and Mangrove specialist doing amazing work in this threatened area. We were able to go with Stan at dusk and observe some wild Proboscis Monkeys, as they settled for the night in mangrove branches at the water’s edge. During this sighting we experienced the most intense downpour- it came out of nowhere and was everywhere instantly. We were not anticipating the skies to open up while we observed the monkeys, because it was sunny and beautiful when we left. As it was, I don’t think we could have been soaked faster than if the winning football team dumped their Gatorade water dispenser over our heads. Our reaction was pretty funny… we at first were so shocked that we couldn’t say anything, followed by some of the biggest smiles and then panicked expressions as we hurried to get our cameras under something plastic.

Unfortunately my camera definitely got wet during this downpour, and had some internal condensation which I had to be very careful about. I therefore do not really have many pictures that worked out of this incredible experience, but thankfully my camera seems to be working just fine after I let it live in a bag of dry rice and desiccant packages overnight.

We also saw some Longtailed Macac’s that evening and the following morning, another very cool primate to see in the wild. We were most excited also when an extremely rare hornbill flew right over our heads while we sat quietly in the boat observing the monkeys. Stan was a wealth of knowledge, and taught us many things about the area. We spent the night like I said, in his small research station on the mangrove-lined bank of the river. Mangrove-lined and killer-mosquito-infested. The ‘research station’ is actually a wooden platform with a thatched roof and no walls, on stilts. I slept smeared in serious bug repellent, fully clothed, under a mosquito net, and still carefully counted 48 bug bites in the morning. All of these things together added up to make this experience all the more real and exciting.

The following day on the return trip I was proud to be the one to spot an Irrawaddy Dolphin in the distance- a very special thing as I have mentioned. We killed the engines and floated around while it came up for air a couple more times before it left the area and we continued back to Balikpapan.
It was an incredible couple of days, and our first blogs and video-logs were due the following day, which many of you have already seen or read on the Ethical Expeditions page. The next leg promises to be exciting and awesome, as we are headed to Samboja Lestari- where there will be re-grown rainforest, rescued orangutans, and sun-bears.