Wonderful relaxing and informative weekend

“We flew from Jakarta on Friday and stayed the night at Aquarius hotel (probably best available even though only mediocre, but food surprisingly good, especially dinner)

We were picked up at 8.30 am by Eva who proved to be an excellent, charming, chatty, well informed and intelligent guide who really made the weekend an excellent one. The company should be very happy to have her on the staff, even though the others were also good and friendly.

Everything was good or excellent:
– two of us had the boat to ourselves -in fact the only improvement would have been some extra interesting guests – but we enjoyed it anyway
– ample, delicious food
– interesting trip to the village, even though rather more modernised than one might hope – apparently it’s now rather difficult to find a genuine untouched forest village
– charming “”oldest man”” who sold us some delicious spiced coffee made with beans from his own garden
– beautiful, serene boat trip on the big boat, and even better when we switched to the small boat for the last trip through the swamp to the information centre
– awesome trips in the small boat round the islands where the Orang Utans live before they are released – boat is better than walking as you can get very close without disturbing them
– highly informative and thought-provoking briefing at the information centre

Important thing to remember is that the Borneo Orang untan Society are doing a great job for an animal which shares 97% of its DNA with humans and showed us many aspects of their behaviour (such as the playful greeting at the information centre) which made them seem like us. They are also successful both in rehabilitating, reclaiming habitats and educating people not to kill the animals. And every trip with Wow includes a donation to the BOS, as well as showing local people they can earn a living from conservation-related activities (in line with their traditional beliefs of respect for nature).”