This evening we are anchored 15 miles up the Kumai river in Kalamantn, which is the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. We have booked a 3 day trip on a kelotok - a sort of rudimentary river boat - to see the orang-utans.

The trip up the river was a real experience. After a 450 mile trip from Bali, we arrived at our landfall... and couldn't see land. We were in the middle of a huge river delta and the land was so low lying that it was not until we were within a couple of miles that we started to see trees appear on the horizon.

From 10 miles out we had only a few metres of water under the keel, and at the mouth of the river we had to wend our way through a tortuous series of turns to find enough depth to get us over the sand bars and into the river - nail-biting stuff!

Then for 3 hours we motored up the river with the jungle and its noises gradually closing in on both sides, dodging little river boats criss-crossing in front of us, and the occasional unwieldy freighter (one of which had run aground!). These look unstable when empty because they are so high sided, and unstable when they are full because the sides are only inches above the water!

A sudden thunderstorm after we had anchored completed the atmosphere - the jungle is now dripping and green and buzzing!