Borneo: Where the Forest Still Speaks

Many people, including domestic tourists, still don’t know about the beauty of Derawan Island, which rivals that of Bali.

By Masri Sareb Putra, M.A.

Few places in Southeast Asia hold as much quiet mystery as Borneo, or Kalimantan, as Indonesians call it. From the moment your plane dips through the mist that hangs above its endless canopy, you sense a world that breathes differently. Borneo doesn’t shout its beauty; it hums it softly through the rustle of sago palms and the distant song of hornbills.

At more than 743,000 square kilometers, it is the world’s third-largest island, shared by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. Yet it is the Indonesian portion, Kalimantan, that remains the greenest lung of the island, home to rainforests older than the Amazon, rivers that still dictate life and myth, and cultures that have endured quietly, sometimes defiantly, against the tug of modernity.

Here, tourism unfolds slowly. Unlike Bali or Phuket, Borneo’s appeal isn’t in curated resorts but in its sincerity: longhouses that welcome strangers with rice wine, forests that whisper ancestral names, and rivers that still serve as the only highways.

Tanjung Puting: Where the Forest Still Watches You

Deep in Central Kalimantan lies Tanjung Puting National Park, both sanctuary and statement. Spanning 415,000 hectares, it remains one of the last refuges for orangutans, those flame-haired primates whose eyes reflect something uncomfortably close to human thought.

Visitors float along the Sekonyer River aboard klotoks, wooden boats whose rhythmic chugging feels timeless. At feeding stations like Camp Leakey, orangutans emerge from the foliage, not as exhibits but as dignified residents of an older world.

Dr. Biruté Galdikas, the Lithuanian-Canadian primatologist who has lived here since the 1970s, once called Tanjung Puting a “test of humanity’s conscience.” Her words remain painfully true. Despite decades of conservation, the park still faces threats from illegal logging and palm-oil expansion. Yet, amid these pressures, the forest endures. Watching a mother orangutan cradle her baby high in the canopy, you understand that endurance itself is a quiet triumph.

Derawan Archipelago: The Coral Dreamscape

If Tanjung Puting is Borneo’s heart, the Derawan Islands off East Kalimantan are its pulse. From the air, they appear as turquoise halos scattered across the Celebes Sea, thirty-one islands in all, some barely larger than a soccer field.

Maratua, Kakaban, and Sangalaki are the stars of this seascape. Kakaban hosts a lake filled with non-stinging jellyfish, a prehistoric oddity that feels like swimming through liquid light. Maratua, by contrast, offers cliffside lodges that open directly to the ocean and sunsets that turn the sea into molten glass.

The Derawan Islands are a fragile paradise. According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (2024), coral coverage has declined in some parts because of unregulated fishing and rising sea temperatures. Yet, local initiatives such as community-led reef restoration are quietly stitching life back together, one coral branch at a time. In this part of Borneo, diving isn’t simply recreation; it is an act of witness.

Mahakam River: The River that Remembers

Stretching over 980 kilometers, the Mahakam River is East Kalimantan’s artery, a serpentine memory that binds Dayak villages, floating markets, and oil towns into one meandering lifeline. For centuries, it has been the stage on which the story of Kalimantan unfolds, part trade route, part spiritual passage.

From Samarinda, you can travel upstream for days, stopping in towns like Tenggarong and Muara Muntai. You’ll pass floating houses built on ironwood stilts and mosques whose reflections tremble on the water’s surface. Somewhere near Muara Pahu, if fortune is kind, you might glimpse the pesut Mahakam, the elusive freshwater dolphin now critically endangered.

UNESCO has listed the Mahakam as a potential biosphere reserve candidate because of its cultural and ecological importance. To those who live along its banks, the river is far more than an ecosystem; it is a mirror of fate. “If the Mahakam dies,” one elder once told a visiting researcher, “so will our stories.”

Living Heritage in the Highlands

Inland, the rhythm slows further. The heartland of Borneo belongs to the Dayak, an umbrella term for more than 400 indigenous groups who once lived in near-complete autonomy. Their traditional longhouses, or betang, are living archives. Stretching up to 200 meters, they are not merely homes but entire worlds where generations share fire, song, and belief.

Visiting a betang in Kapuas Hulu or Sintang feels like stepping into a breathing museum. Carved motifs on wooden pillars tell of cosmic journeys; woven mats record the hands that made them. The community gathers for gawai, harvest festivals that last for days and merge music, rice wine, and ritual into a single rhythm of gratitude.

Today, many young Dayak return home not to escape modernity but to redefine it. They run eco-lodges, teach traditional crafts online, and document oral histories through digital storytelling. In this quiet revival lies something profound: a reminder that cultural preservation is not nostalgia; it is resilience in the language of memory.

The Island as Testament

Borneo does not yield its beauty easily. You earn it through patience, by sitting long enough beside a riverbank to watch fog become light, or by walking through the rainforest until the silence begins to speak.

In an age when travel too often seeks spectacle, Borneo offers instead a lesson in reverence. To visit is not to consume, but to listen. The island does not perform for us; it invites us to arrive with humility.

Somewhere in that exchange, between visitor and forest, between human and story, you begin to realize that perhaps the true destination of Borneo is not its landscapes at all, but the way it quietly redefines what it means to belong to the earth. 

Verified References

• Biruté M. F. Galdikas. (2023). Reflections on Tanjung Puting and the Future of Orangutan Conservation. Orangutan Foundation International.
• Indonesia Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy. (2024). Sustainable Marine Tourism Report: Derawan Archipelago. Jakarta: Kemenparekraf.
• UNESCO. (2023). Mahakam River Basin: Cultural and Ecological Assessment. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
• WWF Indonesia. (2024). Community Conservation in Kalimantan: Challenges and Success Stories. Jakarta: WWF Indonesia.
• Sillander, K. (2022). Local Traditions and Modern Adaptations in Dayak Communities. Leiden: KITLV Press.