Borneo Island, Indonesia
In this blog: motorboating on marshy lakes, surprise football, dancing at a funeral, and a tour of a tugboat
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This is part two, of a three part journey up the Mahakam river. I suggest you read the first part before this so it makes a wee bit of sense.
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| Our route up the Mahakam river |
Still in the stilt village of Muara Muntai, we wanted to hire another ces motorboat to get to our next destination, but unfortunately our idea of just walking to the river and sorting this out in five minutes didn't quite happen. This was a town where barely a word of English was spoken, which is actually quite rare, and we spent nearly three hours walking around trying to find a boat with no luck. Some girls tried to help us, a guy gave us a ridiculous price, we felt pretty stuck. Meanwhile an ice cream man with a pushcart played the same irritating ten second melodic sound non stop for over two hours, which echoed around my skull all day like white noise. It was a hot and frustrating morning, but eventually someone was willing to take us and with negotiations done by a mixture of sign language and passing a pen and pad forward and back drawing maps and crossing out prices, we were eventually on our way and the day got much better.
The boat set off up the main river before darting off down a tributary which then entered a marshy lake. A path had been cut through the reeds and we turned quickly through the bends - it was great fun, from our low viewpoint sat on the floor of the boat.
Jantur
We reached the village of Jantur, said to be the most interesting on the journey up the Mahakam river and which barely sees any foreigners. Once again it was far from any roads, and built on stilts on a bit of solid ground amongst the marshes. We passed a small but noisy sawmill on stilts, and a yellow mosque with a shiny polished dome before getting out for a walk. All the houses were brightly painted, and many families lazed on decks and verandas outside their houses, often smiling or waving as we passed - this was one laid back village. Men fished on the waters edge using huge hand-held nets that they repeatedly swept through the water, pulling out a little catch each time. A pair of girls around six wanted us to take their picture, then kept following and posing again and again. It was another world.
We met the boatman at the other end, and set off on a pleasurable journey across another huge open lake where the other side was but a glimmer on the horizon, and after half an hour or so reached the village of Tanjung Isuy.
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| The boardwalk at Jantur |
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| Jantur, the most laid back village in the world? |
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| Jantur |
Tanjung Isuy
This was a traditional Dayak (native tribe) village, and being being well off the tourist trail (or so we thought), we had high hopes of not seeing any other westerners for the whole week. This sounds a bit anti-social I know, but the idea of entering completely into a world unaffected by tourism greatly appealed. This was broken however when we came across a group of ten French tourists on a tour, who had come a much shorter route by road. The village was unaffected by tourism though, barring the lovely bare-wood traditional longhouse where we stayed, which had been converted from homes to a guesthouse.
Rene and I went to get some lunch and were met with a surprise when we came across a big volleyball and football match happening side by side on a large park, set like a village green in the village centre. Far from the olde world we'd come from and expected, everyone had proper kit, the pitches were properly marked out and referees looked thoroughly professional. We watched the end of the girls football then the first half of the boys - it was some sort of local championship and it seemed everyone in town was around the pitch watching and cheering. We felt very fortunate to have arrived on this particular day, but it wasn't the only stroke of luck on this journey up river.
We explored further, passing a man carving out totem poles from tree trunks, a traditional longhouse, and along dirt streets lined by wooden homes - we could honestly have been in the seventieth century at this point were it not for the motorbikes parked up. It was very strange, a real journey back in time, and so unique. This was more the tiny sleepy village we expected.
That evening we headed out to grab a bite to eat and got much more than we bargained for. Outside our longhouse, the French tour group had paid the locals to do some traditional dancing. I hate that sort of thing, it seems so fake, not a proper cultural experience and quickly left, whilst wondering if that was a bit of an arrogant attitude for me to have. The only cafe we found was just closing, but a guy eating there offered to lead us to another one hidden away nearby, strangely leaving his toddler sat alone on a chair without a word to the owner. A few hundred metres up the road, then down a dark narrow path we were at a tarpaulin and dirt floor place, where we ate very tasty stay chicken served with a kind of rice sausage. Many locals were heading down a dirt track to the side on their scooters, so intrigued, we went for a look. What we found under another tarpaulin tent was basically a gambling hall, despite the fact that both gambling is illegal in Indonesia, and we were directly behind the fence of the Police station! I guess some bribes had been paid...
The fifty or so people barely batted an eye when we walked in, they were so into their games. One table held a card game, another had a felt mat with markings and people throwing money into the centre from all angles, and another table used a special type of card with patterns that seemed to match up. None of it made an ounce of sense no matter how much we tried to decipher it.
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| Dancing at a funeral, though we didn't know it! |
Wild ride
It was onwards again the next morning, and we hired a ces boat for the third time to take us back to the Mahakam river to catch the ferry upstream. The boatman was a nice guy who spoke some English but was very reluctant to go on the route we requested, but somehow we persuaded him. We started out across the same lake as the day before, before half an hour later reaching the exciting bit, where without warning he powered straight into the marshy looking reeds. Woah! Yeah!
He was actually looking for a proper channel that was cut through, but had got a bit lost and we suddenly understood his earlier reluctance to go this way. The stern parted the reeds whilst the propeller got a bit tangled a few times, but he kept battling through until finding the clearing. Except it appeared to be seldom used and full of debris - logs, leaves and branches. He hesitated for a moment before again laying down the power and barging through, the boats hull echoing the racket of impacts below.
The scenery then changed again, as we entered a narrow meandering river through the forest and I couldn't help but smile straight away - it was the sort of jungle river journey I'd always dreamed of finding one day. We saw a couple of monitor lizards swim across in front of us, and some macaque monkeys foraging in the undergrowth on the banks. For forty-five minutes we weaved through these muddy waters, killing the engine to soak up the atmosphere for a few minutes along the way, and passing the odd fisherman manning Chinese fishing nets - large wooden contraptions with nets that dip into the water for their catch.
This was one of the best parts of the whole trip up the Mahakam - so exciting, beautiful and interesting, a real adrenaline rush.
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| On a ces boat passing down a passage through the reeds |
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| ... then entering the jungle! |
Muara Pahu
We reached the small village of Muara Pahu around 2pm, and were dropped on a jetty where we were told we had to wait until night time to catch the ferry upstream. Some said it would arrive at 10pm, others as late as 1am, we had no idea. All we knew was that we were hungry and drained by the heat, so after lunch dozed for an hour or so in an open-sided waiting room by the river. It was at this point Rene said 'well this isn't a bad way to spend your birthday'. What! A birthday! I treated him to dinner and an orange juice that night. It cost me 75p!
We went for a wander around the village, and whilst stood by the riverbank a young tug boat driver waved to invite us onto his boat, so we went for a look. It was a bit rusty and old, and fairly small by tug boat standards being only able to pull small barges and boats around, but it was interesting to check out, and I even enjoyed a good poke around the engine room. He kindly offered us a soft drink, and despite the lack of mutual language we managed to converse a little by pointing a lot, and saying place names. We managed to while away the nine-hours of waiting quite easily, and at 11.30pm saw the lights of the ferry coming around the bend. As advised by the locals, Rene stood on the end of the pier flashing his torch and waving his arms to get them to stop, and we were soon on board, and led upstairs to an open area where everyone slept on thin narrow mattresses - eighty of them, and we settled down for the night under the drone of the loud diesel engine.
(Continues in two days time)
(Continues in two days time)
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| Net fishing at Jantur |
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| Volleyball match, Tanjung Isuy |
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| The traditional longhouse we stayed at in Tanjung Isuy |
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| Basic but all you need |
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| Kids playing in Muara Pahu |
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