A Complete Guide to Visiting Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan

There is a moment that happens to almost everyone who visits Tanjung Puting, and it happened to me on the second morning. We had anchored overnight on the Sekonyer River and I was sitting on the roof of our klotok — the flat-bottomed houseboat that serves as transport, accommodation and dining room on these journeys — drinking coffee in the early mist, when an orangutan emerged from the forest at the river’s edge, thirty metres away, and sat watching us with an expression of complete and unhurried assessment. We watched each other for perhaps two minutes. Then he turned, reached for a branch overhead, and disappeared back into the canopy. It was, without question, one of the finest wildlife encounters of my life.

What Is Tanjung Puting?

Tanjung Puting National Park is a protected area of around 415,000 hectares in the Central Kalimantan province of Indonesian Borneo. It is one of the largest remaining habitats for wild Bornean orangutans — a critically endangered species — and also home to proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants, sun bears, clouded leopards and hundreds of bird species, many of them endemic to Borneo.

The park is accessible only by river, which means that the klotok houseboat is not just a nice-to-have but the actual mode of transport through it. You sleep on the boat, eat on the boat, and travel on the boat between the park’s orangutan feeding stations. This setup — spending two or three nights moving through the jungle on the river — is one of the more unusual and memorable travel experiences available anywhere in Southeast Asia.

The Klotok Experience

A klotok is a two or three-deck wooden riverboat, typically between ten and fifteen metres long, with a covered lower deck for the crew and cooking, a main deck with basic seating and dining furniture, and an upper observation deck that is the best place to be for wildlife spotting and river watching. They move slowly — five or six kilometres per hour — which means you have time to actually look at the forest sliding past on both banks.

Nights on the river are extraordinary. The forest sounds shift completely after dark — the daytime birds give way to nightjars and owls, the cicadas reach a volume that seems physically impossible, and occasionally something large moves in the vegetation at the water’s edge. I slept on a mattress on the upper deck under a mosquito net with the jungle sounds around me and woke at dawn to find the mist still on the water and a family of proboscis monkeys feeding in the trees on the opposite bank.

The Orangutan Feeding Stations

The park has several ranger-managed feeding stations — platforms in forest clearings where supplementary food (bananas and sweet potatoes) is provided daily to semi-wild orangutans. These are animals that were rescued from captivity or human contact and are being habituated back to wild life; the feeding supports them during this transition period and provides visitors with reliable viewing opportunities.

Camp Leakey is the most famous and the furthest up the river — a research station established by primatologist Birute Mary Galdikas in 1971 that has been continuously operational ever since. The feeding station here is the best in the park: in three visits, I have never seen fewer than four orangutans, and on my second visit watched a large male named Tom — apparently a fixture at the station for decades — carry an entire bunch of bananas up a tree with the casual strength of someone who has never needed to prove anything to anyone.

How to Plan Your Visit

The standard itinerary is three days and two nights on the klotok, which covers the main feeding stations and allows for proper immersion in the river and forest experience. Two days feels slightly rushed; four days is excellent if you want to explore the more remote areas of the park.

Tours are booked through operators in Pangkalan Bun, the nearest town and the arrival point for flights from Jakarta and Bali. The operators organise the klotok, crew, guide, meals and park permits as a package. Prices vary significantly — budget options exist but the mid-range boats offer a meaningfully better experience in terms of comfort and guiding quality. Expect to pay around -250 per person per day for a decent boat with an English-speaking naturalist guide.

Getting There

Fly to Pangkalan Bun (airport code PKN) from Jakarta (Soekarno-Hatta) or Bali (Ngurah Rai). Several Indonesian carriers serve this route; flight time is around 90 minutes from Jakarta. From Pangkalan Bun, your tour operator will arrange transfer to the river port at Kumai, where the klotok journey begins. The drive takes around thirty minutes.

Practical Tips

• Book your klotok tour at least two weeks in advance, longer for peak season (July-August and December-January)
• Bring long-sleeved clothing for morning and evening wildlife walks — the insects are enthusiastic
• A good pair of binoculars makes a significant difference for bird and proboscis monkey spotting
• The river water is a distinctive dark tea colour from tannins — perfectly natural and not a sign of pollution
• Best time to visit: April to October for drier conditions and better river navigation

Exploring more of Southeast Asia? Read our comparison of Coron vs El Nido in the Philippines — another extraordinary wildlife and island destination worth combining with a Borneo trip.