Julia Roberts in Balikpapan

BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan (JP): "Pretty Woman" Julia Roberts was in Balikpapan over the weekend rubbing shoulders with the inhabitants of the Wana Riset Semboja orangutan rehabilitation center.

She arrived here Friday with a crew from Tigress Productions to do a documentary on preserving orangutans.

The 29-year-old actress who became a Hollywood star after her role in the 1990 blockbuster Pretty Woman, led a nine-strong crew from the production company to protected forest in Wain River and to the Wana Riset Samboja Reintroduction Center, 38 kilometers from Balikpapan.

Tracking her down proved quite a chore as she ducked the press and used an alternate name, E. Peele Jr., while staying at the Dusit Inn Hotel.

"She's been staying in our presidential suite since Friday," Ully, a hotel staffer, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

The presidential suit costs US$650 a night.

"This is a very private visit, and no press coverage is allowed," Ully said.

Security personnel zealously ushered journalists away.

"Leave her alone please. Do not take any pictures," one of her bodyguards told journalists when Roberts arrived at the hotel.

She is scheduled to leave here today.

The focus of Roberts visit is the orangutan center in the Kutai National Park.

The center takes orangutans which have been kept as pets and trains them to live in the wild again so they can be returned to the jungle.

It costs about Rp 3 million (US$1,070) to rehabilitate an orangutan and over 250 orangutans have been returned to the jungle since 1991.

Roberts visited earlier the Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan before flying to Balikpapan on a chartered flight.

More information on her visit was scarce and hotel operators refused to connect outsiders calling her room. (42/prb)