We left our little sanctuary in Yogjakara,the one with the meditation hut and peaceful waters running through the grounds for our run to Semarang, our jumping off point for getting to Borneo and our three day upriver excursion to see the Orangutans. I checked several sources to find a hotel similar to the one we left, but could not find anything that didn’t have serious drawbacks. In the end, we opted for the Holiday Inn Express….ordinarily, we are loathe to stay in one of these on our trips, preferring to do local hotels. However, that wasn’t gonna happen so there we were entering our room and wondering if we were really in Java. It could have been Stockton, Kalamazoo or Tucumcari since it has the same sterility. But it was cheap, the showers had hot water and a shower head that worked, and a breakfast that was tolerable.
After a good night’s sleep with our choice of hard or soft pillows we got a cab to the airport to catch our 11:50 a.m. flight. We arrived a couple of hours early and went to the counter to check-in and were met with blank stars and the words: “Flight gone.” WHAT?....Since that was the only English that I was getting I was directed outside the airport to the Kalstar Airlines office where a girl with only a slightly better vocabulary eventually got through to me that that there was a schedule change and that they had sent me an email. I showed her that I received no such email as a young woman entered the office to speak to the girl, her friend. I asked if she spoke English and she said she did. I explained that there was a schedule change, but I didn’t receive any notification.
She talked to her friend and said: “Give me your passports, maybe I can help. Trusting soul that I am…ha ha…I did so and in a few minutes later she returned with two tickets on her airline which had a flight leaving to our isolated destination leaving just one hour later than our original schedule…Amazingly, Kalstar refunded our TOTAL price, and I paid Garuda an extra $5.80 extra and we were on our way. Only, when I got to my hotel in Kalangon Bun an outpost in Borneo did I discover that I had indeed received an email but it was sent to my Junk Mail. But, as always, things have a way of working out for us in our travels, and this was just further confirmation that nothing bad happens on our trips. The truly amazing thing in the whole episode was that Kalstar refunded our entire ticket price and that I got a new ticket for only $5.80 more…don’t think that would have happened at home.
We spent the one night in this frontier town of 200,000 before beginning our Klotok, boat, trip upriver. Our fellow passengers were a young couple who had been traveling all over SE Asia for 7 months. They traveled in the same style and spirit as I did when I was in my 20’s and they had wonderful stories of budget/backpacking adventures in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Really whet my appetite for a future trip but definitely not as shoestring as their trip. But I remember the mentality so clearly…every $8 hotel, as opposed to a $40 one, meant extra days traveling and more adventures to be had. They were a delightful couple, bright in spirit and a joy of life to go with their happy spirits..
Heading up the wide chocolate-colored river, brown from the decomposition of organic matter and the erosion and pollution up river, and past the ocean-going freighters loading and unloading goods, the armada of moored klotoks not yet booked for trips, and past the 4 story tall concrete structures with no windows and plenty of holes. It was explained that they were buildings where swallows would build their nests and then they would be harvested from catwalks inside and are a cash-crop and for locals who sell the nests to restaurants. Apparently it’s quite a good business. A bowl of birds next soup in Jakarta will cost you $25. A small red and white striped Indonesian flag tethered to the loops in a broken fishing pole fluttered gently in the breeze created by our movement.
We turned off the big river onto a much smaller one about 100 feet wide and chugged against the gentle current with the foam from the runoff of mining and palm oil plantations giving stark evidence to the fact that Borneo wilderness is under severe threat. We stopped at a village along the way for a little reality check of the lives of river people. The river water flows out onto a bayou type of terrain and we walked on a roadway above the water. The houses were very, very simple and required a catwalk go get to higher ground on which the houses were built. Solar panels gathered energy to light the brick walkway of the single street and provided light for the houses in the section of each solar panel.
An elementary school and a rudimentary medical facility accounted for the entire infrastructure of the village. Bright eyed little children greeted us with smiles and waving hands as they posed for their photos to be taken. Old women sat on their porches and motor bikes whizzed by even in such a remote village in the rainforest.
It’s easy to think of them as poor because of the lack of the accoutrements of life as we judge prosperity, but there are no swollen bellies here, no flies settled around the eyes of the people too lacking in energy or spirit to bat them away. There is the joy of childhood as they leap into the canal and exuberantly play in the water with continual smiles and giggles. .
I woke up early the following morning as watched the mist rise from the river and formed an ethereal haze which obscured any vision beyond a hundred yards or so. The rainforest, impenetrable to the eye, blocked any view beyond the lush green shade that was pulled down on both sides of the river. That left only the sliver of water spreading out from the back of the boat to give any perspective to my surroundings. The sky turned from a slate grey to a soft teal color and shapes in the sky began to take form as the mist slowly dissipated. Clouds began to come into view, the forest began to show life as birds started their early morning songs and ever-so-slowly, the world began to take shape. There has always been something magical about waking up in remote areas where intellectually you know that the outside world exists, but there is nothing in your consciousness that confirms that fact.There is only you and the remoteness of your surroundings. Whether it was in the shadow of Everest in Tibet, walking the Inca Trail in Peru, or the Pantanal of Brazil it always awakens my spirit as my body comes back to life.
I watched a troop of long tailed macaques cavort in the trees across the river, little ones exhibiting the derring-do of the 10 year olds weaving in and out of traffic on their motor bikes as they leapt into the empty space from tall trees, falling seemingly forever into oblivion when they suddenly landed on a supple branch of a tree below, with the branches bending and flexing like a springboard. How they managed to grasp the tree and not pin ball their way to the rain forest, or in this case the river, below was fascinating. The big male looked disdainfully down from his perch while the juveniles chased each other up and down the trees with a dexterity that has fascinated me from my youth looking at then in zoos. Again, seeing animals in their natural state makes it impossible to ever think of them in cages.
Crew members from the other klotoks which were moored at the same dock as we gathered, squatted as only Asians seem able to do and drank their morning coffee and smoked their cigarettes all to the continuous laughter and glee of their conversations. Seven men, who plied the river up and down, finding camaraderie in each other’s company and exhibiting that same joy I saw in the children cavorting in the canal earlier in the day.
Slowly, the sky took on real color as the horizon worked its way down to the sun. Pink clouds appeared in the sky with their light blue background, swallows darted back and forth scooping up mosquitoes, the mist rose to reveal the river and Carol and the others on the boat began to stir. My world was coming back into focus and reminded me that remoteness is only a state of mind.
Life is good.
Heading up the wide chocolate-colored river, brown from the decomposition of organic matter and the erosion and pollution up river, and past the ocean-going freighters loading and unloading goods, the armada of moored klotoks not yet booked for trips, and past the 4 story tall concrete structures with no windows and plenty of holes. It was explained that they were buildings where swallows would build their nests and then they would be harvested from catwalks inside and are a cash-crop and for locals who sell the nests to restaurants. Apparently it’s quite a good business. A bowl of birds next soup in Jakarta will cost you $25. A small red and white striped Indonesian flag tethered to the loops in a broken fishing pole fluttered gently in the breeze created by our movement.
We turned off the big river onto a much smaller one about 100 feet wide and chugged against the gentle current with the foam from the runoff of mining and palm oil plantations giving stark evidence to the fact that Borneo wilderness is under severe threat. We stopped at a village along the way for a little reality check of the lives of river people. The river water flows out onto a bayou type of terrain and we walked on a roadway above the water. The houses were very, very simple and required a catwalk go get to higher ground on which the houses were built. Solar panels gathered energy to light the brick walkway of the single street and provided light for the houses in the section of each solar panel.
An elementary school and a rudimentary medical facility accounted for the entire infrastructure of the village. Bright eyed little children greeted us with smiles and waving hands as they posed for their photos to be taken. Old women sat on their porches and motor bikes whizzed by even in such a remote village in the rainforest.
It’s easy to think of them as poor because of the lack of the accoutrements of life as we judge prosperity, but there are no swollen bellies here, no flies settled around the eyes of the people too lacking in energy or spirit to bat them away. There is the joy of childhood as they leap into the canal and exuberantly play in the water with continual smiles and giggles. .
