Travelfish #345: Tanjung Puting National Park + Sob Ruak + Family travel

Everywhere is on the way to somewhere Hi all, First and foremost, thank you for all the kind messages wishing me a speedy recovery. Thank you—they were much appreciated. [In Tanjung Puting: Whatever you do, don't swim in the river. Photo Stuart McDonald] In Tanjung Puting: Whatever you do, don't swim in the river. Photo Stuart McDonald In site news, this week we have revised coverage for [Sob Ruak]( better known to many as the Golden Triangle, in Northern Thailand. The soapbox is regarding [Tanjung Puting National Park]( and how it could better manage tourism numbers. This week’s interview is with Jeremy Head—a UK-based travel writer, on travel in Southeast Asia with his family. Good travels, Stuart, Sam and the Travelfish crew Support Travelfish! If you'd like to chip in (if you haven’t already) for using the site, we'd love you to sign up for a year-long subscription for just A$35. [See more here](. Soapbox On National Parks and overtourism We’re just back from a family holiday to Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan, Indonesia. In a word, it was fabulous—a once in a lifetime experience—even if the visit was as fabulous as it was expensive! Best known as a location for viewing orangutan in their native habitat, across our three days in the park we saw around ten of the great apes, along with a supporting cast of proboscis monkeys, macaques, (heard but not seen) gibbons, and even two two totally evil looking false gharial crocodiles. Yes, don’t swim in the river. [In Tanjung Puting: Just hanging out enjoying the view. Photo Stuart McDonald] In Tanjung Puting: Just hanging out enjoying the view. Photo Stuart McDonald We visited in off- to shoulder-season, meaning that at each of the feeding stations there were just three other boats, which in turn meant that at two of the feeding stations there were under a dozen of us. There we sat, perched on benches, watching these magnificent animals lurch out of the trees and or undergrowth to settle in for a morning or afternoon banquet of bananas, cane and/or pomelo. In season (European summer), there can be up to forty boats at any one feeding station. These forty boats could easily translate into 100 plus tourists, before you even count guides. According to our boatman, three quarters of the foreign high season trade is and has been for some years now, Spanish. Being at a feeding station with a dozen people was pretty magical. Being there with 100+ people, after clamouring over forty boats tied fore to aft to get to the camp, would be somewhat less so. Yet, according to our boatman, it is this peak season trade that keeps the businesses well, in business. [In Tanjung Puting: Heading up the ‘Coco cola canal’ to Camp Leakey. Photo Stuart McDonald] In Tanjung Puting: Heading up the ‘Coca Cola canal’ to Camp Leakey. Photo Stuart McDonald Simultaneously the local administration would like to see even more tourists visiting the park. Afterall their cold hard cash is more than welcome, but it is unclear just how much of the roughly $70 in park fees a foreign tourist pays (foreigners are charged 20 times what a local pays) for a three day visit actually makes it to the park. The visitor centres were really in a woeful—I’d say embarrassing—state, and while you don’t expect top notch safety in a remote national park, some of the boardwalks, stairs and other infrastructure were just plain dangerous. At least the signage advising how to behave around orangutan was clear! Operators say they need the salad days of high season to keep them going through the low season—guides might be working seven days a week in high season versus two or three trips a month in low season. Some suggest adding extra feeding times at the camps (currently each camp has one feeding session a day) to help spread the tourists out across the day, but more feeding times also means more exposing of orangutans to humans—something many experts argue as being counter-productive when you’re trying to protect the species. There is also talk of not allowing the largest boats down the final waterway to Camp Leakey to ease congestion, but you could just as well argue fewer, larger boats would ease the high season traffic jams on the Sekonyer River, when it can get clogged with dozens of slightly smaller boats each carrying just two or three passengers. [In Tanjung Puting: Magnificent. Photo Stuart McDonald] In Tanjung Puting: Magnificent. Photo Stuart McDonald On one hand, you want to see tourism to the park boosting revenue and creating a range of affiliated jobs in local communities just to show there is a way to create employment and well being through something other than palm oil, but at what cost? We’d venture authorities need to consider capping entrances in high season to a number experts feel is truly sustainable. Simultaneously Tourism Indonesia would be well served to better promote off- and shoulder-season travel to the park. What’s a bit of rain in the scheme of things? Want to see some pics from out trip? [We’re added a primer to the forum here](. Good travels Stuart Premium members only: Book a round the world with [roundtheworldflights.com]( (must travel from the UK via Asia, Australia, New Zealand AND the Americas) and get £30pp off your trip. Offer valid for departures to December 2019. Log in to the Member Centre on Travelfish now for your coupon code and [start designing your own round the world trip »]( Talking Travel Meet Jeremy Head Every week we publish a Q&A, this week we’re talking to UK travel writer [Jeremy Head]( on travelling in Southeast Asia—with the family. Can you tell us about yourself please I’m a writer and photographer based in the UK. Most summers my wife Karen, our eight year old son Joe and myself drop everything and travel around Southeast Asia for a whole month. Travel breaks down barriers between different cultures. Agree or disagree? Absolutely agree. Conversely, travel can be about differences too. One of the things I love about taking Joe on trips is that he gets to see that people do stuff differently in other parts of the world. They eat bugs in Thailand! Different isn’t bad or scary—it’s exciting, challenging, a learning opportunity. It’s a chance to grow as a human being. You mention travelling with your son Joe, who is 8 (but was I think 6 when we met on [Ko Pha Ngan]( what would you say was a challenge travelling with a child and how did you resolve it? I have vivid memories of playing “pass the child” when Joe was younger. “I’ve done my hour building sandcastles my dear, now it’s your turn!” We turned the corner that year we did our first Southeast Asia adventure when Joe suddenly got into reading. I remember looking up from my book to see both Karen and Joe sat reading theirs too. Wow did that make a difference! [Haad Rin on a good day. Photo: David Luekens] Haad Rin on a good day. Photo: David Luekens So being equipped with a good supply of books and a few games that are easy to carry is important. We were utterly delighted to find there’s a great little street with second hand bookshops in [Chiang Mai]( even had kids’ books so we could replenish the supply. Joe is seriously allergic to milk, though in Southeast Asia this is less of a problem than in Europe as milk doesn’t feature as much in the diet. A great tip if you have someone with an allergy is to print up a card in the local language of the place you’re visiting explaining your allergy with some simple symbols too—like a jug of milk with a big red cross through it. It works really well. [Glittering Doi Suthep. Photo: Mark Ord] Glittering Doi Suthep. Photo: Mark Ord Are there things you pack to keep Joe occupied during your travels? We pack travel sized games (Travel Connect 4 is a big fave) and we do take an iPad—just for long journeys. Paper and a pen is good—we’ve had heaps of fun playing hangman. If you had one piece of advice for parents considering travelling to Southeast with a young child for the first time, what would it be? Don’t worry! Southeast Asian cultures are really kid-friendly. And having a kid with you breaks down barriers really well. We have met some lovely people (both locals and other tourists) because they had started talking to Joe. And kids mingle with other kids really easily—despite language barriers Joe has had fund kicking around with Thai kids, German kids, French kids. In all your travels, what has been Joe’s favourite experience? How do you factor in what his interests are into your travel planning? [Joe speaking] “The temples at [Angkor Wat]( are the best. I just loved exploring them. The fact that it was all crumbling down and old was so cool. And there are so many of them too. I was pretending I was an explorer on a mission to solve an ancient mystery. Some of them are really spooky!” [A rare quiet moment at the Bakheng. Photo: Caroline Major] A rare quiet moment at the Bakheng. Photo: Caroline Major [Me again] We tend to try and do stuff that Joe will like. It’s just so fun seeing him learn new stuff and try new things. He has grown up being dragged around temples, eating at street food stalls, wandering around markets—so for now at least we all tend to quite like similar things. He tends to find other cultures really fascinating. We try and factor in down time, particularly in hot places. And we try to stay at hotels with pools quite often so he can have a splash around. Does Joe carry his own bag? Aged six on our first big trip he had a Trunky—which is a hard plastic case on wheels. You can sit your kid on top and pull them along. He didn’t carry it though! He now has a day pack which he carries himself which has toys and books in it. But we still carry his clothes. We have packing down to a fairly fine art now. Tell me about the best bit of travel gear you own that cost less than $50? Why is it awesome? Ear plugs and a sarong. Don’t go anywhere without them. These days I even carry earplugs on the train at home in the UK in case someone is listening to music on cheap headphones that leak noise. Do you try and learn some local language when you travel? Yes. Always. As an English speaker it’s easy to be lazy as so many people speak English. But just the basics like please and thank you bring a huge smile to people’s faces and immediately you have more of a connection. We’ve taught Joe to ask for the bill in about ten different languages. [Welcome to Nong Khai. Photo: David Luekens] Welcome to Nong Khai. Photo: David Luekens If you could go anywhere in Southeast Asia tomorrow, budget be damned, where would you go and why? We have lots of favourite places we’d go back to at a shot. We stopped for a day at [Nong Khai]( in Thailand just across the border from Laos last year. We were booked on the night train to [Ayutthaya]( and we were a bit gutted we weren’t staying a while. It’s just a typical regional Thai town but it’s a lovely place. There’s a walkway along the river which is thronging with people and food stalls in the evening. Everyone is super friendly. It’s just the kind of place we love. [You can follow Jeremy on Instagram here](. Travelfish partners [Browse the internet safely]( When we travel we always use TunnelBear VPN to secure our browsing. This reduces the risk from dodgy WiFi networks and idiotic ISPs who inject ads into our browsers. Use the internet safely with TunnelBear. TunnelBear offer a free 7-day trial or use it selectively and enjoy [500meg of data per month for free](. Ten things worth reading How to visit Tanjung Puting National Park Our recent trip to Tanjung Puting [summarised into a few pars—with pics](. How not to decolonize your museum “This all may sound innocuous, until one takes a closer look and realizes that, as the leader of the British invasion of Dutch-held Java, [Raffles was responsible for the deaths of thousands]( Airbnb has a hidden-camera problem I wonder [how much of a problem]( this is in hotels as well. The world on a plate, and the business behind it “If you don’t care about the lives and livelihoods of people involved in growing and making your food, [attention to the food alone]( cannot take you far.” NN explains: The Indonesian presidential elections Confused by the upcoming Indonesian elections? [This illustrated primer will help](. Thailand urged to declare emergency in Chiang Mai as air pollution hits disastrous levels “An academic has called on the government to declare a state of emergency in Chiang Mai and most of Thailand's northern provinces over [disastrous levels of smog]( A week in Yangon, on a $52,200 salary [Where to start with this post?]( UN finally tells the truth about Laos “What I hope to do with this statement is convince those that are more self-censoring to [start speaking more freely](. Yangon’s thriving Chinatown shows how food can help heal scars of Myanmar’s past “Many tourists and young people started coming to 19th Street for beer and snacks.” [That’s what we did](. When the going gets tough, Thailand’s billions get going “The March 24 polls, it seems, have [solved nothing]( What we’re reading Salt A World History ”In Vietnam salt is so appreciated that poor people sometimes make a meal of nothing more than rice and a salt blend, either salt and chilli powder or the more expensive salt with ground, grilled sesame seeds.” [On Amazon here](. Travel shot [Tanjung Puting: River like a mirror. Photo: Stuart McDonald] Tanjung Puting: River like a mirror. Photo: Stuart McDonald Till next time [Sam and Stuart.] That’s it from us for now. As usual, enjoy the site’s new additions and drop us a line if there’s something in particular you’d like us to cover in Southeast Asia. Travel light! Stuart, Sam & the Travelfish team [( You're receiving the Travelfish newsletter because you signed up at Travelfish.org. Not interested anymore? [Unsubscribe Instantly](. Make sure you're getting our emails! If you're a Gmail user and would prefer your Travelfish newsletter in your Primary in-box rather than Promotions, just drag this email from the Promotions tab to the Primary tab, and click "yes" when it asks if you want to do that for all of our emails. Better still, [read this newsletter online.]( [Disclosure]( | [Privacy]( | [Unsubscribe]( We want travellers to love Southeast Asia as much as we do. 9 robinson close, hornsby heights, nsw 2077, AUSTRALIA [Unsubscribe]( | [Change Subscriber Options](