A flight north

After writing furiously until 5 am, late enough to hear the morning call to prayer, I slept for a few hours then hopped on a plane traveling north from Pontianak to Putussibau, the capital of Kapuas Hulu district. There are only two planes each week to Putussibau – this should give some clue to the size of the city! The plane ride was rather uncomfortable as the plane flew very low and did not seem to have functional AC. Yet the views from my window were fantastic – oxbow lakes along the longest river (Sungai Kapuas) in Borneo, huge swaths of undisturbed peat forest, and of course massive oil palm plantations being newly cleared.

Putussibau strikes me as a city without a purpose – it used to be the center of logging activity but now that logging is no longer king, the city has no core industry. I chose not to bring my computer on this field trip, so I spent the afternoon waiting for the rest of our team to arrive back from the field by wandering around Putussibau and chatting with random shopkeepers. I quickly discovered one of the main attractions here: krupuk basah. This translates to “wet krupuk”. Usually, krupuk are little crackers made from sago + various flavors, dried in the sun, then fried with oil. These snacks are ubiquitous throughout Indonesia. Krupuk basah is made from sago + fish, steamed, and eaten with hot sauce – thus skipping the drying and frying steps. I’m pretty sure this food would not go over terribly well in the US due to its fishy/spicy nature, but it tastes delicious after subsisting entirely on rice and noodles in the field!