Into the Jungle

This morning I woke up in a hotel room with room service, air conditioning, and running water. Tonight I’m going to bed in room with three other people, in a village in the middle of the rain forest with no electricity and where you must bathe in the river. The village is called Baya, and it has the strongest Dayak culture of any the places I’ve yet visited.

My day was dominated by traveling. After checking out of my hotel room, I hired an ojek to drive me by motorbike to the bus station. I’ve stared to use my foreign-ness as a bargaining chip – the 20-year old ojek driver agreed to knock down the price (from $2 to $1.50) for the chance to get a cellphone photo with me, the buleh. After arrive at the bus station ½ hour early for a bus that was leaving at 11 am, I then proceeded to wait two more hours until the bus finally left at about 1:30 pm. Indonesia! This is the first time I’ve taken the bus in Ketapang, and it was similar to an ojek, but instead of feeling like I was going to be squashed by every truck encountered along the way, I had the impression that the bus driver was trying to run down every small child, old person, vegetable salesperson, dog, and bicycle rider along the side of the road. To my near disbelief, we made the trip with zero deaths or accidents! In Telok Melano, I met the rest of the team and we quickly hired a boat to take us upriver, to a port from which we would then try to find ground transportation to our final destination, Baya.

A small digression. This year our team consists of six Indonesians, plus myself. This is the same group of people I worked with last year, and we have already developed a comfort in living and trust in work that I have rarely experienced in my life. Each of us has our strange quirks and moments, and each contributes to the team in essential ways. Dessy is our fearless leader, well-spoken and the oldest in the group. Yadi is a great interviewer, and is as hippy as a devout Indonesian Muslim man can be. Windi is the social heart and logistic coordinator of the group, and because she is married has broken more than a few hearts in Ketapang. Pita is small and adorable, but is infinitely competent and had this sarcastic sense of humor that I appreciate, because it is rarely found in Indonesia. Neli is quiet and tall, and has a calmness about her that keeps everyone in the group grounded. The baby and only Christian/Dayak of the group is Tono, a smart and goofy young man who is rain-forest-smart. I’m about to share two intense weeks with this team.

Back to my story: Finding ground transport was a bit of a shot in the dark – transportation is never guaranteed in Kalimantan, especially if it is 1) early evening, 2) not booked in advance and 3) you don’t know anyone in the village where you are going. Perhaps the rest of the team was worried about this sticky situation, but I was so blown away by being back in the jungle I successfully ignored the fact that we didn’t know where we would be sleeping in the evening. The boat ride was gorgeous. Packed in to a small speed boat with all our belongings, there was nothing to do but look for monkeys in the trees along the river. And the monkeys cooperated – I saw three species during our 1.5 hour boat ride. One of the biggest similarities between humans and monkeys is our shared love of making noise – like humans, monkeys here in Kalimantan seem to chatter constantly, and supplement this chatter by shaking branches and screaming. Thus it was not hard to locate the primates eating fruit from trees overhanging the river as we zipped by. I have been too long in cities – even the air smelled sweet as we entered the jungle.

Upon arrival in Matan, the final river port, we disembarked from the boat (I couldn’t feel my legs for approximately five minutes) and asked the locals if there was anyone willing to drive us to Baya. Amazingly enough, a truck was leaving to Baya at that very moment…so we quickly piled our belongings in the back and commenced the third leg of our trip, into the mountains. By this time it was getting dark outside, so we stood in the back of the truck (it was sort of a dump truck, but the back was filled with people and belongings) and appreciated the sun set over the mountains to the west. The reason that we could see the sun set (usually not possible in the middle of a rain forest) is that we were driving through endless oil palm plantation, newly cleared so that the trees were no taller than 2 meters. As with most transport in Kalimantan, we were going so fast that all bumps threw us (the passengers in the back) into the air. My feet spent much time flying during the giddy trip to Baya. After sunset, the trip became truly trippy/giddy – the sky was totally clear, a nearly full moon was rising, and we were ducking oil palm fronds and trees as the truck thundered into the older part of the plantation.

Finally arriving in Baya was a relief. Please realize that there are no hotels/guest house or cell phones in these villages – we could not sleep in a place especially reserved for guests, nor could we call ahead to inform the villagers that 7 people plus belongings would like to spend the night. Luckily people in Kalimantan are usually extremely welcoming to guests – we were immediately introduced to the village customary leader, fed noodles, and offered a couple rooms to sleep in.