Gula aren
Indonesia has a sweet tooth. Syrupy snacks and cakes are hugely popular, and it can be challenging to order a cup of tea or coffee without it being liberally dosed with sugar. I’ve been asked, somewhat incredulously: “Apakah Anda benar…
Jokar Photography
John Boyd Macdonald
Jokar Photography
John Boyd Macdonald
Category Plants
Orchids
There are about 15,000 species of flowering plants on the island of Borneo, around 5,000 of which are endemic (i.e. they aren’t found anywhere else in the world). And amongst that number are known to be at least 1,700 varieties of…
500 metres per hour…
If you take a short cut through the forest, it’s only about 500 metres’ walk from the Visitor Centre at the Kebun Raya Balikpapan to the Orchid House (Rumah Anggrek). But this morning it took me nearly an hour. There…
Forest floor
I spend a lot of time at the Kebun Raya Balikpapan looking upwards, craning my neck to see birds, monkeys, fruit, flowers and treetops in the forest canopy. But the ground below is sometimes uneven, and very often slippery, so…
Anggrek du jour – Thecostele alata
Thecostele alata, a lovely terrestrial orchid which can be found from Northeastern India across to The Philippines, including East Kalimantan, where this one was collected for the Koleksi Anggrek (Orchid Collection) at the Kebun Raya Balikpapan (Balikpapan Botanical Garden). I…
Durian Season
The dry season has begun here, and the smoke has started to thicken from the countless fires across the island of Borneo (especially our part of it…!). Soon it’ll be mask-wearing time again. The smoke is likely to worsen from now…
Danau Sentarum National Park
Danau (Lake) Sentarum drains into the Kapuas River, not far to the southwest of the Betung-Kerihun National Park. In the dry season there’s just a network of snaky rivers there, but now (at the end of the wet season) there’s a huge and…
Betung-Kerihun National Park
Dear All We’re now in Malaysian Borneo (Bako National Park in Sarawak), with the sound of waves on the beach, evening light glowing and a balmy sea breeze coming in from the South China Sea. It’s hard to believe that…