Days 50-51, September
5-6 “Across the Java Sea to Find Adventure” Borneo: An exotic land located in the farthest reaches of the globe. A land of headhunters, pirates, isolated tribes and impenetrable jungle. A land of true adventure. I first encountered this name and its romantic associations at the age of eight or nine. A team of adventurers was attempting to trek across the whole of this wild and vast island, the third largest in the world, and one of their gear sponsors had written a PR piece about their expedition. It sounded dangerous and grueling, an adventure in the truest sense of the word. I was fascinated by the description of this island and pictured untouched jungles, raging rivers and strange animals. My naive images also included primitive tribes living in isolated bliss in a pristine and primordial environment. Certainly no cities could exist in such a place. But while the article had sparked my imagination, I did not think I would ever actually ever visit the mystical island of Borneo. Thirteen years later I sit at the port in Semarang, Indonesia, waiting to board the Pelni ship K.M. Lawit to Pontianak, an Indonesian city on the island of Borneo. I remember my youthful daydreams; now older, I know most of my Borneo fantasies were just that. Still, I hold out hope that some remnants of them are still out there. The Lawit is late—this is Indonesia, after all. We have already been warned about the Pelni line and its economy class—dangerously overcrowded, hot and dirty. People camped out in every possible space, including yours truly; beer bottles rolling around and human waste not always staying in the toilets. But for only 71,000 Rp, we decide that this is something we must experience at least once. Besides, flying is the easy way out—a wild land such as Borneo deserves an arduous and rough 36-hour sea crossing. Of course, we are aware that several hours into the trip we may already be trying to jump overboard! The Lawit finally arrives and unloads its passengers, and the deckhands wash the sides with a powerhose—either a good omen that the company actually cares about upkeep, or a bad sign that the ship received a nice coating of seasickness. After several false alarms, the gates are opened and the crowd shoves its way through. We try to figure out where to go in the chaos, as we have some sort of cabin number on our ticket. We eventually find our expected home for the next thirty-six hours, the lowest passenger floor in the bowels of the ship. Each side of the ship has row upon row of six bunks, with a bulkhead occasionally breaking up the pattern. We pay some random guy for a couple of mats (could we see your Pelni badge, please?) and settle into our assigned berths to watch the remaining crowd stream in. After two hours the ship finally pulls away from its slip and we could accurately gauge the living conditions. People were everywhere, but it was not the despondent scene that had been described. No one tried to sit in our berths and the people in our area were very friendly. Even the cockroaches falling from the ceiling on my head weren’t too large. We took out our books and settled in for the long haul. Three hours later we decided for a change in venue after hearing rumors of a deck outside; while economy class had so far proven to be bearable, the confined atmosphere and the impending monotony just didn’t seem appropriate for a voyage to Borneo. After some exploration, including an illegal jaunt through the officers’ deck (oh sorry, we didn’t know we couldn’t go there), we ended up on the top deck with the sky above us. Though it was the length of half a football field, the whole place was deserted. (One man later wanders up and tells us that the locals don’t like the noise of the “machines;” meanwhile, stereos blast out music and TVs scream with Kung Fu movies down below. Up above, we barely notice the steady rhythm of those machines.) Standing above the wheelhouse, we gaze out at the wrinkled surface of the Java Sea as a slight breeze blows on our faces. Flying fish shoot out from the bow, traveling over the water for an impossibly long time and distance before going back under. We stare at the vast expanse, feeling the adventure blowing in from the island we cannot yet see. Like the explorers of yesteryear, we are traveling in style; soon we break out a whole package of chocolate chip cookies. (Livingston eat your heart out.) The sun retires for the evening and the captain turns on the running lights—in this case a ragtag string of bulbs running from bow to stern. Once painted red, blue or green, much of their coloring has flaked off and many are burnt out. Feeling very much like stowaways, we find a corner out of the wind, stretch out on the mats and fall asleep under the stars. The ship rocks gently as it makes it way north. Twenty-four hours and one very hot afternoon later, we are in a holding pattern off the coast, waiting for high tide to allow the ship to enter the estuary leading to Pontianak’s waterfront. The voyage has been deceptively calm to this point—rolling seas and wispy clouds that fail to convey the wildness that awaited. But now the darkness that envelops the island is broken by flashes of lightning that illuminate the whole sky and scream power. When we finally start to head into the estuary, the wind intensifies and a light rain soon turns to a tropical downpour. We take cover one deck below on the outside walkway and peer into the storm. The figure of a ship appears off the port side, an old wooden trawler that apparently wrecked on a shoal, probably in weather like this. We pass the ghostly ship and are soon chugging up the Kapuas River. Cargo vessels of all shapes and sizes line the docks. Balls of flame dance from factories and the sound of sawmills fills the dead of night. The scene is wild and exotic, but not of the pristine nature I had associated with Borneo and its romantic image. This is the heart of industry, not the heart of darkness. Though tales of the past have captured my imagination, I am no longer the wide-eyed kid reading about far-off adventure. I now know that Borneo is changing, that it is not the same as it was five years ago (the publishing date of our guidebook), let alone during the age of exploration. The rainforest is rapidly being cut down, sometimes replaced with palm oil plantations, sometimes left as a scar on the land. In 1995, the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the northwestern side of the island only had 20% of its primary forest remaining, its neighbor Sabah a slightly higher 40%. The International Tropical Timber Organization reported in the early 1990s that Sarawak was cutting down its forests at 8-to-10 times the sustainable rate and that they would be depleted within a decade. (The Malaysian government counters that this is necessary for development and to catch up to the West.) Left alone, the vast clear cuts will eventually fill in with vegetation, but the unique ecosystem that once stood in the spot will be gone forever. Borneo’s rainforest is the oldest in the world at 130 million years and is one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth—one 25-acre section of rainforest contains as many plant species as in all of North America. Other romantic images of Borneo are gone or are changing too, even if they never were entirely accurate. Headhunting was stamped out by missionaries and the colonial governments by the early 20th century, though it enjoyed a brief revival during WWII in resistance efforts against the Japanese. Piracy, if it ever deserved to be romanticized, certainly is not now. The remaining pirates (and Islamic insurgent groups) cruise the Sulu Sea between the Philippines and Sabah and are known for ruthless acts such as killing local fishermen just for their outboard engines. The island is also becoming more urbanized. Several large cities sit on the mouths of the great rivers, complete with fancy hotels and shopping malls. Such “progress” is less evident the farther upriver you go, but Borneo is less remote nowadays. Tourists abound in the larger cities and accessible sites. Meanwhile, the lives of those “primitive” people in the jungle is also changing. Borneo has 100s of different indigenous ethnic groups and they have felt the impacts of colonialism first, then logging and other forms of resource exploitation by the government. Most of these groups lived or live in longhouses, shelters shaped like name implies and which can hold upward of 100 families. The longhouses were built off the ground to protect the people from marauding headhunters (not all the groups thought that skulls were the piece de la resistance of longhouse decoration) and were rebuilt whenever their wood planks became too old. However, this manner of living was not popular with the missionaries who have been streaming in since the first European explorers to convert the “heathen” tribes, nor with the newly-independent Malaysian and Indonesian governments, which associated communal living with communism. Since the late 1800s, many longhouses have either become a shadow of their former glory or have disappeared all together. As for the missionaries, say what you will about their message, but their methods often seem questionable. They taught their new converts that Christians were supposed to live one house to a family and attacked other customs, such as tattooing the skin, as well. Though criticized in recent times for their heavy-handed manner since the early days of colonialism, such insensitive practices apparently continue to this day. The author of our guidebook relates a story about flying into a remote village in East Kalimantan. Next to the local school, which was constructed out of jungle woods, sat a number of aluminum roofing pieces. The school teacher explained that the MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) was slowly flying these in to build a new school. The locals were fine with the old one but the MAF insisted. The author silently questioned the logic of making the people reliant on technology that had to be flown in. To me it seems like missionaries are a lot like the World Bank. Today the Bank is criticized for its policies of promoting one model of development in the 1960s and 70s, regardless of each country’s unique socioeconomic and geographical characteristics. The missionaries, despite their good intentions, seem to insist on only allowing one model of what could be called a Christian lifestyle. Teaching the tenets of the religion seems appropriate, but why can’t Christians live in longhouses? The missionaries are not solely to blame, however. Other elements of indigenous culture are fading away too. Villages are coming into ever-closer contact with the outside world, and many of the people are leaving their homeland for jobs in the coastal cities or the logging camps. Many of the traditions will die with this current older generation. Where “authentic” longhouses and traditional activities do exist, it is usually because the government has encouraged preservation for the buses carrying the large tour groups. This is not to say that these people can or should remain frozen in time. But can’t there be a compromise between the old and new, a mixing of both elements? From what I have read, many of these art forms and traditions are fascinating—it would be a shame if they are lost or only exist as cheap copies for tour groups. Rainforest destruction, urbanization and lost traditions—it paints a bleak picture. But Borneo still remains one of the more remote and wild places on earth—for now. It’s just that these places are ever deeper in the interior. There are still stands of virgin rainforest—many in national parks, of course. There are still areas that remain difficult to get to because of dense forest, dangerous upstream rapids, steep terrain or inclement weather. And there are still longhouses left with people practicing cultural traditions passed down through the generations. Borneo remains an exciting place to travel in, an island that, despite recent changes, remains very much a frontier. I am hoping to travel to some of the remote regions, to see where the island has been and where it is going, and to experience some of that adventure I read about many years ago. |
