20121021 ON JAVA SEA ON THE WAY TO BALI
We had thought that today would be relaxing as we cruised to Bali from Kumeih, Indonesia Borneo - where last night around 8pm we exited the Kumeih river and crossed the sand bar at the mouth and said our last Goodbye's to Borneo for the wonderful experiences we had enjoyed there. Overnight the seas had again been calm as we headed South towards Bali, Indonesia.
Bali is an anomaly within the 17,000+ islands of Indonesia with the religion being a form of Hindu whereas everywhere else in Indonesia the religion is muslim It is a huge international tourist destination and welcomes all tourists with open arms - tourism is the number 1 industry within Bali. Unfortunately there was a bombing by the radical Islamists at a night club popular with the tourists in 2000 which the Balinese refer to as "the tragedy" when 100+ tourists were killed, the majority of them Australians. Tourism within Bali suffered greatly after this and has only recently returned to the levels prior to the bombing.
Dr Galdikas came on board ORION II last night and today we had the pleasure of listening to her presentation on Camp Leakey - and her history here starting way back in 1971 - simply amazing! She was sponsored by Louis Leakey to study the orangutan great apes, while Louis Leakey also sponsored Jane Goodall to study the chimpanzees in Uganda, and Diane Fossey to study the gorillas in Rwanda. Dr Galdikas spent some of her childhood in Canada (Lithuanian heritage) and started her University degree at Simon Fraser University SFU and then transferring to UCLA California. Today she is married to a local Dayak (original Borneo tribe) and still teaches some courses at SFU, maintaining homes in Borneo, Los Angeles and Vancouver. She is very easy to listen to, enjoys sharing her knowledge and experiences with an easy smile and dry sense of humour. I highly recommend her book "Return to Eden" - a great history and information source for the plight of orangutans today and the destroying of all the rain forests in Indonesia (which is the orangutans' habitat) and the planting of the hundreds of thousands of palm oil trees.
In 1900 there were over 315,000 orangutans and today there are approximately 50,000 - a decrease of over 80% in just over 100 years due to loss of forest habitat! Only 7,000 orangutans live in Sumatra and are critically endangered - the Borneo orangutan is classified as endangered. Her presentation included startling information like deforestation in the next 24 hours will release as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as 8 million people making a flight from London to New york, and deforestation accounts for 14-28% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately Dr Galdikas also noted that (based on information from Expat business executives and the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy) Indonesia is the most corrupt country in Asia Pacific which is why the deforestation continues unabated.
At the end of Dr Galdikas' presentation(which was way too short for me - I could have listened to her all day long!) there was an auction to raise funds for Camp Leakey.
There were several personal pieces of Galdikas' including a silver turtle pin and bracelet. There was also an already expired "lifetime pass" to Camp Leakey, and a large poster from the movie "Born to be Wild" which is about the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage/Wild Life Trust and Dame Daphne Sheldrick (a passion of ours in Nairobi) and Camp Leakey and Dr Galdikas and the orangutans in Borneo. Well I am proud to say that Sue, Audrey, Terry and I jointly purchased the poster, Linda ended up with the bracelet (she was bidding and Suz and Pete also bid and bought it for Linda!), and Joan tried to get the turtle but was outbid, and Suz and Pete purchased the outdated Camp Leakey lifetime pass! We were all very generous and so happy to help fund raising for Camp Leakey. By the way you can adopt an orangtan (just the same way that we have adopted elephants with the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust), and ORION adopts an orangutan orphan for every passenger on the Borneo Camp Leakey cruise.
After the auction Dr Galdikas signed books for those of us who had brought them along, and also our poster!
It was a great day and finding time to pack our suitcases ready to disembark in Bali the next morning was not a task that we wanted to do and hard to find time to do! Instead we enjoyed the day at sea, visited with other passengers, and enjoyed sunset cocktails and a wonderful dinner - finally throwing all our stuff into our suitcases finishing just before the 7am deadline the following morning!
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