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Pangkalan Bun
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
city · Indonesia

Pangkalan Bun

Recommended stay: 3 days
Getting around: Pangkalan Bun has a small airport with flights to Jakarta and Semarang, serving as the main gateway to Tanjung Puting National Park. From the airport it's a short drive to Kumai, the port town where multi-day klotok (traditional wooden houseboat) trips into the park depart; these boats serve as both transport and accommodation, drifting up the Sekonyer River between feeding stations where semi-wild orangutans gather. Nearly all park visits are arranged as an all-inclusive package covering the boat, guide, park fees, and meals.
Hours: Orangutan feeding platforms at Camp Leakey, Pondok Tanggui, and Tanjung Harapan operate on set daily feeding schedules, generally late morning and early afternoon, and klotok trip itineraries are built around reaching each platform at the right time.

Pangkalan Bun is the gateway to Tanjung Puting National Park, one of the best and most accessible places in the world to see wild and semi-wild orangutans, and the primary reason most visitors come to this part of Kalimantan at all. The standard way to experience the park is a multi-day trip aboard a klotok, a traditional wooden houseboat that serves as transport, dining room, and sleeping quarters (usually on a mattress laid out on deck under mosquito netting) while drifting slowly up the Sekonyer River, stopping at feeding platforms where researchers have habituated formerly captive or rescued orangutans.

Camp Leakey, the park's most famous station, was founded by primatologist Biruté Galdikas in the 1970s and remains an active research site as well as a viewing point; visitors typically also stop at Pondok Tanggui and Tanjung Harapan, seeing not just orangutans but also proboscis monkeys, macaques, and abundant birdlife along the river. The slow, immersive pace of a klotok trip — typically two to four days — is much of the appeal, offering a genuinely different rhythm from Indonesia's more conventional tourist circuits.

The town of Pangkalan Bun itself and the port of Kumai are unremarkable and purely functional, existing to service the park trade; almost nobody visits this part of Kalimantan for the towns themselves.

Pangkalan Bun FAQs

How long should a Tanjung Puting orangutan trip be?

Most operators recommend two to four days aboard a klotok houseboat; two days covers the main feeding stations, while three to four allows a more relaxed pace with better wildlife-spotting odds and less rushed river time.

What is a klotok?

A traditional wooden houseboat used for multi-day Tanjung Puting trips, doubling as transport, dining area, and sleeping quarters (typically a mattress on deck under mosquito netting), crewed by a captain, guide, and cook as part of an all-inclusive package.

Will I definitely see orangutans at Tanjung Puting?

Sightings at the established feeding platforms (Camp Leakey, Pondok Tanggui, Tanjung Harapan) are close to guaranteed since semi-wild orangutans are habituated to come for scheduled feedings, though truly wild individuals deeper in the forest are seen more by chance.

What is Camp Leakey?

The park's original and most famous research station, founded by primatologist Biruté Galdikas in 1971 and still active today, both as an orangutan rehabilitation and study site and as the highlight stop on most klotok itineraries.

How do I get to Pangkalan Bun?

By a direct flight from Jakarta or Semarang into Pangkalan Bun's small airport, followed by a short drive to Kumai port where klotok trips depart.

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