Sightseeing on Kalimantan

Kalimantan is the Indonesian part, the southern two-thirds, of the island of Borneo. It is mountainous and covered in the most dense rainforests in the world. Parts of Kalimantan are still unexplored because the jungle is so thick. The original ethnic group is the Dayak people. They were hunters or farmers, and decorated their bodies with tattoos. They wore long, heavy gold or brass earrings. Their houses were built on stilts because of floods and wild animals. Travel on the island is mostly along a network of waterways, rivers and canals lined with stilt houses and floating hoses.

One popular tourist experience is river rafting, shooting the rapids in traditional bamboo boats or rubber rafts. Boat trips along the Mahakam River can give visitors glimpses of freshwater dolphins, orangutans and other wildlife. Trekking through the forests by the river, visitors can see wildlife such as monkeys and hornbills. The Dayak people believe that one kind of hornbill, the rare black hornbill, is the carrier of the human soul. In the forests of Kalimantan the largest flower in the world, the Rafflesia, can be found.

In the Tanjung Puting National Park there is a rehabilitation centre where orangutans that have been in captivity are taught the skills they need to return to the wild. Visitors can see the work that is done there for this endangered primate. The park covers an area of over 300,000 hectares, and much wildlife thrives there, including proboscis monkeys, hornbills, drongoes, gibbons, eagles and crocodiles. There are many species of orchid there. There are forest trekking trails, and accomodation lodges for trekkers.

If you use any of this information in your own work, acknowledge this source in your bibliography like this:
A Trip to Indonesia (2001). [Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au

Back to Sightseeing Tours menu
Back to A Trip to Indonesia main menu

Updated August 2001