Venturing on Sekonyer River, Are You brave?

The Kalimantan (Borneo) is the island in Indonesia with thousands of rivers. Big rivers wriggle as if the dragon divides the mainland which is mainly dense rainforest. The rivers then become main transport route in the island.

However, rivers in Kalimantan should not just as a transport route because they have potentialities to be natural tourism objects. Look at the beauty of Sekonyer river, located in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, or precisely in the Tanjung Puting Region National Park, Kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat. The river offers adventure action.

"Sekonyer river has a potential tourist attraction. Therefore, this potentiality will be developed," said the head of Tourist Destination Development Sector of Central Kalimantan Culture and Tourism Department, Aida Meyarti, SH, in Palangkaraya. According to Aida Meyarti, Sekonyer rivwer has often been visited by foreign tourists. The Sekonyer river is the river route to the TNTP area (tanjung Putin national Park). The Park is used as rehabilitation area of the endangered species, orang-utan.

Comparing with other rivers, Sungai Sekonyer is outstanding for its natural beautiful scenery and there are many interesting and unique species living there. At Kumai river, which is part of Sekonyer, there is a kind of freshwater porpoise. Moreover there are also a species which local people call it dugong-dugong. Dugong-dugong is also known as sea cow because of its habitat is at the seaweed area on the river estuary.

Moreover, when you are on the tour trip on the river using Kelotok (motorboat), you will pass mangrove region, dominated with mangrove tree (rhizophora spp) and Pidada (Sonneratia spp). The later develops breath root (pneumatophore). The other tree in the tour route is kendeka (Bruguiera spp), as well as nirih (Xylocarpus spp).

Quoting a history note, Aida Meyarti explained that Buaya River (crocodile river) was the original name of the Sekonyer River. the name of Sekonyer was taken from the name of a ship which had name Sikuner. Based on Malay language, the name was then changed as Sekonyer.

The story of Sikuner was dated back to Dutch colonial period. It was at the Buaya river estuary, anchored one of the pirate's ships, namely said Sikuner. The ship sank at the river because of being shot by a man called Bujang, using the small gun called "palembang". The gun belonged to an Islamic figure named "Kyai Gede."


The gun could be only fired by the descendants of the Kyai Gede, or by the descendants of ethnic groups Dayak Gambu. because of this incident, the local inhabitants then often used the name of Sekonyer to call the Buaya River.

The trip on the river route will come across the Nipah crop region (Nypa fruticans Wurmb), then Rasau tree region, afterwards goes straight to the Harapan Cape of the Sekonyer Village, Pesalat (the place of conservation education), the Tanggui Hut tourism object, Pondok Ambung, Muara Ali, Danau Panjang as far as the Leakey camp, the location of orangutan rehabilitation.

Note for the visitors or tourists that in the area of Tanjungputing National Park, there is no land road. The only transportation is a boat sailing along Sekonyer river which penetrates in the middle of Tanjung puting area. However, visitors or tourists do not need to worry if they catch a night because proper bed is available on the boat.

Article is translated from Kompas online edition
Images are taken from http://angelinasondakh.blogs.com/
and http://karlan08.files.wordpress.com/