We flew from Jakarta via Riau Air (any travel agent should be able to book you this flight) to Pangalan Bun. In Pangalan Bun we had a guide, arranged by Kiswono, pick us up and take us to our boat in Kumai to go to Tanjung Puting National Park. We stayed on the boat for 2 nights with our 2 children. On the boat we had a simple mattress, mosquito net and a simple toilet. We had a crew of 3, captain, cook and assistant plus our guide. The cook provided us with 3 great (mainly Indonesian) meals each day. Our kids absolutely loved the boat.

Our first jungle encounter was the Orang-utans at Camp Leaky and at their feeding station in Tanjung Puting National Park. Along the river banks we saw Proboscis monkeys & Kingfisher birds all in the beautiful, natural, jungle environment which they live in.

From Balikpapan we took a 3 hour drive to Samirinda where we had our private house boat arranged again for 2 nights. This boat was quite a bit bigger than the first one. We had our own room, again with simple mattresses on the floor, a fan and a simple toilet. The crew consisted of the captain, assistant and a great cook (again meals were mainly Indonesian) as well as our guide Kiswono. The boat drove pretty much all night up the Mahakam River. After breakfast the next morning we got into a motorised canoe which took us across the vast Jempang Lake and small rivers to a Dayak Village. Here we were met by an impressive welcome ceremony with music and dancing. The villagers were awe inspiring and my whole family was so happy to share this experience together. Truly, an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

For the second night we travelled back down the Mahakam River til morning where we moored and visited another Dayak Village. It was here we were lucky enough to come across some very traditional villagers and were even invited into their home to take pictures. After the visit in the village we continued downstream to Samirinda and were then transferred by car (3 hour drive) to Balikpapan where our tour ended.