Motorbike madness

Pita and I headed out on a rented motorbike this morning to do a bit of scoping for possible future socio-economic surveys in the region. Oil palm is being developed to the northwest of the park, and we decided to head to that region to talk to communities and check out their perspectives on the plantation (which happens to be RSPO certified). The road runs very near to Malaysia, and we were tempted to drop the field work and play in the border town for the day, but held to the plan and drove onward to a set of Dayak communities. I had my first Dayak long-house experience when we pulled up to a very small dusun (only 21 households!) along the road. Everyone lived in a rather modern longhouse, which consisted of an outer covered common space, and a row of doors leading to individual living quarters for each family. Quite comfortable – I can imagine that research here would be much easier that research in Melayu villages where households can be spread out over kilometers; in a longhouse, everyone we need to talk to lives under one roof!

After an afternoon of interviews, we arrived back in Badau at about 4 pm to meet with the rest of the group which was focused on heath-hunting and ground-truthing. Marion happened to meet a man from a village about an hour away (in the direction we had just come from, and the opposite direction of our base in Lanjak) who claimed to be from a village – Empaik - surrounded by heath forest. She couldn’t resist checking this out, so instead of going home to our beds for the evening we got back on the motorbike and arrived at said village at about 6 pm. Neli and Pita were planning to travel back to Pontianak the following day so they could not join us, the result being that two white girls knocked on the door of the head of the village of Empaik and asked permission to spend the night. We slept in the house of the man Marion met on the road, and awoke the next morning to a grey sunrise over a very quiet little village on the edge of Danau Sentarum.

As I’ve mentioned before, August is supposed to be a dry month in Kalimantan. We had been lucky for the first week of research, with rain coming only at night. Today (August 14) the rains started at about 7 am, the same time we set off to identify the lowland heath forests surrounding Empaik. Soaking wet but exceedingly happy to find kerangas that was NOT on top of a mountain, we returned to the village at about noon to chow down on a full spread of rice, fried noodles, eggs, sardines, and coffee. We also appreciated the fish swimming around in the back yard, which had been converted into a pond. The arowana is a highly valuable animal native to Danau Sentarum and Kalimantan – it sells for astoundingly high prices, and is gorgeous to watch. Unfortunately, over-harvesting arowana from the lakes means that wild populations are highly threatened.

At about 2 pm we started the trip back to Lanjak. With the muddy, slippery roads, we assumed it would take us quite a while for the return trip so we budgeted extra time. After a quick stop in the border town – Badau – to grab a snack and an iced tea, we continued onwards to Lanjak at about 4 pm. There had been an unhappy sound coming from the motorbike chain since the day before, but Pita had assured me that this was not a problem – the chain was simply slightly loose. I thought about having the bike serviced in Badau, but figured the problem could wait until we were back in Lanjak. Boy was I wrong!

Exactly halfway between Lanjak and Badau at around 5 pm, a link in the chain broke, and the bike was rendered unusable. Marion and I looked at our surroundings and realized we hadn’t seen a village for many kilometers, there was no one else on the road, and it was getting dark. So we dragged the bike to the side of the road, gathered our belongings, and started walking toward Lanjak in the hopes that a village would soon appear or that we could hitch a ride with another traveler. All traffic, however, was in the opposite direction towards Badau, and no one seemed terribly interested in helping two stranded white girls. So, we kept walking. After about 20-30 minutes, we walked into a small Dayak village and asked if someone could come out to the motorbike and fix the chain. By this time it was totally dark outside. A couple of young women led me into the longhouse while Marion waited on the road to flag down a ride, just in case. In the longhouse, we walked down a candle-lit hallway with doors every 10 meters. The longhouse was built of wood, and families were lounging around candles placed in front of each door.

While we waited for the young man who quickly volunteered to fix the chain, a group of young and old Iban Dayak surrounded me and started chattering in Dayak. I was a bit dazed due to the two days of travel, but tried to smile and catch some of what they were saying – they asked where I was from, and urged me to spend the night. Someday I hope to have a chance to return to the village and asleep there, but we were exhausted from two days of travel, our clothes were filthy, and we had another field trip planned for the next day, so I declined in what I hope was a polite manner. Luckily, our on-the-fly mechanic was soon ready and we headed back to the road to repair the chain.

I am constantly amazed at the resourcefulness of the people who live in Kalimantan. They know how to fix/build/cook everything in their lives, because they cannot call in experts. If a car breaks, they cannot have it towed to the car shop, because the nearest one might be hours away. If they want to build a house, they simply go to the forest, gather timber, buy nails and concrete, recruit some neighbors to assist, and start building. Luckily motorbikes are the same way – our young Dayak mechanic brought a spare chain and replaced the chain by flashlight, on the road, in the dark. We were soon on our way, and arrived in Lanjak at about 8 pm where were immediately arranged our trip for the next day, washed our clothes, and fell into bed.