Another 3-day weekend!

My birthday’s on a Saturday this year, and the Monday after is a national holiday.  That means I get another 3-day weekend for my birthday.  Woohoo!  Billy and I are heading to Batu Karas along with 6 of our fellow teachers to enjoy the long weekend.  You might remember that Batu Karas is the same beach that I broke my collarbone at a year ago…  Aside from the crazy Banana Boat rides, it’s a magical place.  I’m really looking forward to going back there again, and celebrating my 32nd birthday in a tropical paradise. 

Bali Digital Scrapbook

Waterfall trip

Last weekend Billy and I went to explore a waterfall with a few of our friends.  It took about an hour to get there on our motorbikes, then a walk through some farmland to a secluded waterfall.  It was really nice getting out of the city for a day.

We left at 9 in the morning with our friends Melanie, Jim, and his wife, Vini.  We took back roads up to Lembang, North of Bandung.  We stopped along the way for a view of Bandung and the mountains.

It was a beautiful sunny morning, and the air felt fresh and cool.  The ride to the waterfall took us through some small neighborhoods, and I was reminded that I’m living in a place so different from where I grew up.  When we parked our bikes, the locals that run some little warungs (small shops that sell food, snacks and/or cigarettes) let us leave our helmets with them while we explored.  It was a nice walk through farmlands to the waterfall.  I’m not sure what the crop was, but we think it might’ve been watercress.  The land was like a rice paddy, with little elevated walkways, surrounded by pools that held shallow water with plants growing in them.  We had to walk single-file, as the walkway was quite narrow, and in some parts also muddy and slippery.

When we got to the waterfall it was about 10:30, and the waterfall and its surrounding water was in a shadow.  We sat on some rocks and relaxed in the strong breeze and mist from the waterfall.  At around 11:00 the sun peeked around the hillside, and the waterfall and it’s pool were in the sun.

After basking on the rocks for a while, we decided to climb a path that led up the hillside by the waterfall.  From high on the hillside you could see the waterfall and some of the surrounding greenery, as well as the farmlands that we’d walked through on the way to the waterfall.

After a little hiking, and a lot of fresh air, we were pretty hungry.  We stopped in at a modest little warung nearby for some lunch and had some tofu with peppers, tempe, fried fish and rice, with sweet iced tea.  After that we went to another place that Jim and Vini knew for some fresh juice.  Billy and I each had a Mango/Orange combo, and they were only $0.50 each.  Then, on our way back home Jim insisted we stop at a popular ice cream shop for some of their ice cream popsicle things.  The ice cream was good, but I thought I was going to burst before I had that. 

It was early evening by the time we got home, and Billy and I were both exhausted.  We ended up taking a nap for a couple hours, and decided to just have a quiet night at home with a good night’s rest.  It was a great mini adventure, and Jim and Vini have suggested that we go on a weekend-long trip for another waterfall adventure soon.

Back from Bali

We had a great time in Bali, and came back to Bandung yesterday.  I think Lonnie and Eve are just boarding their plane now to head back to Seattle.  We had a lot of fun with them while they were here.  I just wish I’d had time off work while they were in Bandung, so we could’ve checked out the city together.  Oh well.

We left Friday morning from the Bandung airport and had a short layover in Surabaya before heading on to Bali.  We decided to start with a few days in Ubud.  We got to Ubud and had lunch, then Eve and I relaxed in a little cafe while Billy and Lonnie went out exploring and found us a hotel.  The hotel was nice with lots of Balinese Hindu style.  It also had a great swimming pool, which Eve and I used a lot.  There were lots of birds, and it was just off Monkey Forest Road.

We went to the Sacred Monkey Forest one of the days, and the next day we did a walk through Ubud’s rice paddies.  We got a bit lost on our walk, but we had a great time exploring.

After three nights in Ubud, we struck out for a beach.  We’d looked at the Lonely Planet Guide Book a lot, and  Billy suggested we check out a nearby island, called Lembongan.  It sounded like a tropical paradise.  We had to take a boat from Bali.  It was a nice little boat, but it was kind of insect-like.  It had pontoons and three arms on either side that lead to the pontoons.  It gave the look of a big skiing bug.

On the boat trip we saw some little flying fish. That was pretty cool.  At first we thought they were little birds just skimming the surface of the water, then we saw them disappear into waves.  They were small, probably no more than 6 inches long, and they could fly for quite a distance, but never very high off the surface of the water.

We got to the island, and the boat let us off by a bunch of small fishing boats and seaweed farmers.  It wasn’t all that inviting.  We met some locals on the beach that insisted they new a better beach to stay at on the island, so we got on the backs of their motorcycles and they took us to Dream Beach.  It was a small beach, with a restaurant and just a few little beach bungalows made of woven bamboo with thatched roofs.  We ended up staying there for 3 nights and really liked it.  The water was cool and clear, and the waves were at times pretty  rough, but we had a lot of fun playing in them.

We rented a couple scooters while we were there so we could check out the rest of the island.  We did a snorkeling trip one of the days, and had an amazing time.  I think it was the nicest snorkeling I’ve experienced.  The water was so clear, and there were so many colorful fish and coral of different kinds.

Yesterday morning as we were about to leave Dream Beach we walked down to the beach for the last time, and saw a giant sea turtle on the beach.  There was a guy from the Nature Conservancy checking on it.  He took a photo of Eve and I with the turtle.

We took the boat away from Nusa Lembongan, back to Sanur on Bali.  We had breakfast and lunch there, then went to the airport.  Lonnie and Eve flew from Bali to Jakarta.  Billy and I flew from Bali back to Surabaya and Bandung again.  It was sad to say goodbye to Lonnie and Eve.  We had so much fun with them while they were here.

But it’s good to be home to cool, breezy Bandung.

Great time at the beach!

We returned from our beach trip yesterday. We had a fantastic time, and I didn’t break any bones this time. We went with a bunch of other teachers from our schools, and there were eight of us total. Billy did an excellent job of organizing the trip. Everything went smoothly, and a great time was had by all.

We left Bandung at 11:30 Friday night, and arrived at Batu Karas beach at around 5:30 in the morning. We were exhausted, but the beach was deserted, and felt like it was our private beach. We had some breakfast and checked in to our hotel early. We stayed at the Java Cove Beach Hotel again. We love that place, and the owners are incredibly nice.

The first day we did some swimming and drinking, and just relaxed. The second day I had surf lessons with my friends Gabrielle (from Australia), and Melanie (from Canada). None of us had ever surfed before, and it was cool having the support of our friends if we had any problems. It was hard getting the surfboard out to the waves, as there’s a strong current that just pushes you back to the beach. But, after we got through the whitewater (with the assistance of the instructors helping us), we had a lot of fun. I stood up several times with the instructors’ help, and a couple times all on my own. It was thrilling. Even though I’d been working out, I was really sore for a couple of days after the surfing lesson.

The next day, we went to nearby Pangandaran beach. It’s a much bigger beach, and although we like it, we prefer Batu Karas. Billy organized an Angkot (public mini-bus) to take us all there and back. We had some lunch and a couple drinks in Pangandaran, then the girls and boys split up. We girls hopped a little fishing boat over to Pasir Putih (white sand), a wildlife reserve, and the boys swam on the beach, and just hung out around town. We had an hour in Pasir Putih before the boat took us back to Pangandaran. We saw two different kinds of monkeys, and had a nice time walking along the beach collecting seashells and coral. The sun set as we were leaving Pasir Putih, and the driver of our boat pointed out the gigantic bats that were flying out over the water. They must’ve had a wing span of about 3 feet. Incredible.

We met back up with the boys, and headed to the Pangandaran fish market. There are probably a dozen restaurants with fresh seafood on ice. You choose which fish you want, tell them if you want it grilled or fried, what kind of sauce you want, and they weigh it and cook it all up for you. We had one really big grilled fish with a spicy sauce, 2 crabs, and a kilo of fried calamari between 6 of us, along with rice and water spinach. We were all stuffed, and I think it cost about $5 each for the feast. Nothing beats fresh seafood!

We got back home yesterday around noon.  We missed most of the holiday traffic, and stopped for a nice breakfast on the way home.  The whole trip was a great success, and I can’t wait to go back to the beach again.

Yogyakarta

We had a fantastic time exploring Yogyakarta. It’s a beautiful place, with so much art and culture. Very fascinating. I don’t really feel like going into all the details about the trip, so I’ll just make this a brief entry with photos.

We stayed at a really nice guesthouse-type place, called Setia Kawan Losmen. There’s a beautiful mural on the wall in each room. This was our room:

We went to Borobudur, the 8th century Buddhist temple about 1/2 hour from Yogyakarta. We left our place at 5am to make it there just after sunrise. It was beautiful.

The next day we went to Prambanan, a group of ancient Hindu temples. Unfortunately many of the temples were damaged by an earthquake, so there are a lot of people working on reconstructing them right now. As a result, we weren’t allowed to get very close to the temples.

Only a week of work left

I can’t believe how fast a year’s flown by. Thursday is the last day of our contract. We’ll go to Yogyakarta in Central Java for a short vacation before we head home to Seattle. Yogyakarta has many ancient historical buildings and temples in and around the city, including:

• Borobudur – said to be the largest Buddhist monument in the world, dating back to the 9th century.
• Prambanan – a collection of Hindu temples, that were built during the 10th century.
• Kraton – the palace of the sultan of Yogyakarta.

We’ll be in Yogyakarta for a few days, then back to Bandung, and on to Seattle for a month.

Extended weekend at the beach… and my first broken bone…

This past weekend was extended due to holidays on Thursday and Friday (as I previously mentioned). Billy and I decided to go to the beach with our friend Russell. Billy and Russell both have motorbikes, Billy’s is a Honda Suprafit and Russell’s is an older Vespa. They’ve talked several times about going on a roadtrip here, and we decided that this was the time for it.

We set out on Thursday morning at about 5:30 am. There was traffic from time to time, and we stopped often to have coffee or stretch our legs. The weather was pleasant and it was nice to get out of the city for a few days. It took us about 8.5 hours to get to Pangandaran beach, where we stayed the night on Thursday. We had really nice fresh fish and squid for dinner… way more than the 3 of us could eat, and it only cost about $10.

Friday we headed over to Batu Karas, another beach about an hour from Pangandaran. It’s a small cove with only a few hotels and small restaurants. The water is warm and clean, and a good place to surf (though I haven’t tried that yet). There was only one room left in Batu Karas, so the three of us shared it. The owner had an extra mattress dragged into the room for us, and apologized that it was the worst room he had. Not very charming, but it did the job, and the owner was incredibly nice.

We lounged around Batu Karas for a few days… swimming, drinking beer, and just relaxing. On Saturday we decided to go on a Banana Boat ride. There were signs posted around Batu Karas that said:

Banana Boat Rides
Safe and Fun

It sounded like a good time, and it was only Rp. 35,000 (less than $4) per person. We waited for maybe an hour for our turn. We’d watched them go out with many other people, and it looked like a lot of fun. They’d usually have families with adults and children, and the driver would take sharp turns in the boat just to tip the Banana Boat over and throw everyone into the water. The passengers would climb back on and get thrown off again a minute or so later.

When the 3 of us went on the boat I think the driver decided that he could go faster… no children on board, and no older folks either. The first time we were thrown off the Banana Boat we all screamed and laughed, then climbed back on… the second time we were thrown off I hit the water so hard that it felt like I hit a brick wall with my shoulder. I yelled, and swore a lot because it hurt REALLY bad. I tried to get back on the banana boat, but I couldn’t reach up with my right arm to grab onto the handle. I reached with my left hand, pulled myself onto the boat, then realized that I didn’t have enough strength in my right arm to keep me balanced when we started moving. There was a lifeguard with us, and we were all wearing life jackets. The lifeguard told me to get on the boat that was towing us, so I could recover. I was in pretty serious pain for the rest of the ride, and when we got back to the beach the lifeguard had a masseuse come over to work on my shoulder. It didn’t help, and Billy and I were both convinced that there was something sticking up that shouldn’t be there.

We sat down to have some cold beers and figure out how I’d get back to Bandung on Sunday. We all figured that if my shoulder was still bothering me, there’d be no way I’d be able to handle being on the back of Billy’s bike for 8 hours on twisting, bumpy roads. A few minutes after we sat down, we saw a guy that we know from Bandung. He said he was returning to Bandung on Sunday, too, and he had a rental car and driver with room for another person. Problem solved.

The masseuse came by our hotel yesterday morning for a follow-up massage. It was incredibly painful, but a lot of people there told me that he knew what he was doing, and often treated surfing injuries with massage. I was in tears from the pain, and it didn’t give me any relief afterwards.

It took me about 7 1/2 hours to get home yesterday from the beach. Billy and Russell were on the road for about 8 1/2 hours on their bikes. It was stormy throughout the afternoon and evening, and it made me even happier to be in a car, rather than being soaking wet on a motorcycle.

This morning Billy and I got up early to go to the hospital. My shoulder hasn’t gotten any better, and I’m in a good deal of pain. It took 2 1/2 hours to see a Dr, then I had to get a couple of x-rays, then go back to see the Dr again. We got to the hospital at 9 AM, and didn’t leave until about 1 PM. Found out I’ve got a broken collarbone. No wonder it hurts so much. The xray showed a very clear break, with the bone looking like it’s misaligned by about 1/2 inch. The Dr said that by immobilizing it with a brace and sling it might be able to heal without surgery. The brace pulls my shoulders back, and puts pressure on my collarbone supposedly forcing it back into alignment. Of course, this doesn’t feel very pleasant, and he gave me some mild painkillers for the discomfort. I go back on Wednesday morning for more x-rays to see if the brace/sling combo is working.

Since this is my right shoulder, and I’m right-handed, I can’t work. I have pretty limited range of motion in my arm right now, and I’m having to do everything with my left hand. Billy’s been helping me a lot. Taking a shower and getting dressed are difficult and rather frustrating.

I’m hoping for a speedy recovery, and not having to have surgery. Please keep me in your thoughts.

Borneo adventure… part 2

The second day of our jungle trek was far more difficult than the first. We hadn’t slept well on the floor of the longhouse, and woke up stiff and sore (and still really dirty). Tailah made us breakfast of toast, scrambled eggs and coffee. We had a little time to relax in the village before setting out on the really challenging part of the trek.

We walked along a nice, level path for maybe 10 minutes, escorted by a couple of young Dayak men. These men had an agreement with Tailah to help lead us to the next village. The one that led us most of the time had a sideways baseball cap on, and kept playing with his cell phone… But he still seemed really knowledgeable about the jungle, and would make bird sounds from time to time, or hack a branch off of a tree so we could drink the water that came out of the branch.

Suddenly, the path changed… Now it was a really steep climb up a big hill. About 20 minutes later we collapsed at the top, panting. The guide sporting the baseball cap pulled a cucumber out of his backpack/basket, and sliced it up for us. There was also a really old man that had followed us to this point, then he said goodbye to us and headed his own way. I think he barely broke a sweat, while Billy and I, and our German friend Lobe, were drenched in sweat. We rested for only a few minutes, then pressed on.

There were several points during the trek when it felt like we really weren’t on a trail anymore. Even though the guides had machetes that they used to hack at the tropical vegetation, we were constantly ducking and weaving to avoid being hit in the face by branches or ferns. The path also twisted and turned a lot. In some areas it became quite treacherous with slick clay, narrow winding paths, and steep drop offs. I lost my footing several times, but once I was unable to recover on my own, and I went sliding down right behind Billy. His cat-like reflexes kept me from falling more than a couple feet, as he caught onto my bra strap. I scrambled, and eventually caught my footing on some roots. Tailah hurried to my side to make sure I was okay. For the rest of the trek he kept a close eye on me.

We stopped for a snack shortly after my close call. We at banana cookies and drank lots of water that we’d brought with us. Billy also noticed that he had cell phone signal, so he called our friend Russell in Bandung to update him on our vacation. While we were taking our break, Tailah mentioned that the last woman he’d taken on the trek had cried on the second day. He said that woman often cry on the treks when they get difficult. But not me. Somehow even though I was dirty and exhausted, I still managed to laugh. Tailah mentioned this many more times to us.

We started up again, and felt more energized from the little break and cookies. The trail was a bit more level, though still quite narrow and overgrown in parts. Our spirits were high, and we were making the best of being tired and dirty in the jungle. Man! We were in Borneo for God’s sake! It seemed appropriate to be dirty, sweaty and tired in a jungle there.

We probably walked on for another hour or so before we stopped for lunch. We’d noticed along the way that the baseball cap guide had hacked down a couple of big poles of green bamboo, and he dragged them along beside him for a good distance. We were a little confused by this, but figured there must be some reason for it. Sure enough, it would be used for our lunch… not to eat, but to use for cooking and utensils.

When we stopped for lunch by a river, the guides gathered dry bamboo and had a little fire going really quickly. Tailah started boiling water in a pot over the fire, then they started a second fire nearby. They cut some of the green bamboo to about a 3 foot length, then filled it with water from the river, and leaned it against a huge rock that was next to the fire. This worked like a kettle… since the bamboo was green it wouldn’t burn, and it allowed the fire to boil the water it held. Tailah added some fresh cinnamon bark to his boiling pot of water, then added fresh vegetables and instant noodles. While he was doing this, one of the other guides was taking smaller pieces of green bamboo, and stripping them down to about an inch wide and cutting them into spoons for us to use for our soup. The 3rd guide was cutting one of the green bamboo poles into pieces about 10 inches long, stripping off the outer layer, and making them into cups. When lunch was ready, they used leaves as hotpads to wrap around the bamboo “kettle”, and pour boiling water into our bamboo cups so we could have tea or coffee. The soup was really tasty, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching the whole preparation.

This photo didn’t turn out very well, but you can see the fire on the left with the bamboo “kettle”, the guide on the left cutting the bamboo into spoons, and Tailah cooking the soup over the fire on the right.

After lunch we felt pretty good.  We were feeling refueled after our meal. We walked and walked under bamboo, rubber trees, rattan trees (palm trees used to make rattan furniture), cinnamon trees, and other trees that the guides didn’t know the English words for. We were shown some really tall trees that had bamboo poles fastened to them, extending high up into the canopy above. They explained that the Dayak people love honey, and people would climb up the bamboo poles to get to the beehives in the treetops.

We saw flowers and beautiful sights along the way, but with the path being tricky at times, I was reluctant to get out my camera. Plus we just wanted to get through it, as it was the most physically taxing thing I think I’ve ever done. The whole experience really tested our endurance, but now that I’ve done some trekking in Borneo, I feel like I could do anything.

I think it was around 4 pm when we made it to a waterfall. We were told it was safe to swim there, and after not having a shower/bath since the morning of the day before, we happily jumped it. The water was fairly cold, but so refreshing. We had a short swim, then changed into clean, dry clothes.

We were in the homestretch. The next Dayak village, where we’d be sleeping, was only about a 20 minute walk. I kept commenting on how good it felt to be clean and dry. How it changes your whole attitude, and I just felt so much happier being clean and in nice, dry clothes…. Then the rain started… not too bad at first… then increasing into a tropical downpour for the last 10 minutes of our walk, turned run. We arrived at the village soaked through. Our backpacks were sopping wet, and their contents were at best moist. I had one more shirt that I changed into, but since my hair was dripping, the shirt was soon wet, too. Tailah brought me a sarong, so I could change out of my wet jeans, and hang them up to dry (or maybe “hang them up to damp” would be more appropriate?). We had dinner of more vegetables with some rice and tea, then handed out clove cigarettes and candy to the villagers.

We slept again on the floor of a longhouse, but this time there weren’t animals under us, or if there were they were really quiet. It continued to rain off and on through the night. After dark, but when it was still somewhat early, Tailah asked us if we’d ever seen glowing mushrooms. We joined him for a short tromp through the wet night to the edge of the small village, to see some little mushrooms that really did glow in the dark.

Back in the longhouse I took some bandrek from my backpack. It’s a sweet and spicy ginger drink from Bandung that I’ve really grown to like… and it’s especially good if you’re feeling cold. The people in the village hadn’t heard of bandrek before, and they all seemed to think the idea of drinking ginger was strange… but a small group of boys, who were maybe 10-12 years old, kind of took it as a challenge. I was enjoying my hot cup of bandrek, and they had us fix them a glass that they passed around between themselves, taking a sip, then wincing at the slight burn of the ginger, and passing it to the next boy. It made me laugh.

I slept a lot better the second night, though I think a lot of that was just due to exhaustion. I woke up feeling stiff and congested (I’d been fighting a cold before we left for Borneo, and I think the wet weather wasn’t helping things).  Overall though, Billy and I talked about how we felt surprisingly well, all things considered.

The 3rd day of the trek was by far the highlight of the trip. We had maybe a 10-15 minute walk to a river, and boarded a couple of bamboo rafts. Tailah had brought along some heavy-duty plastic bags to put our backpacks in, and the guys that ran the rafts secured them with some kind of leaves… maybe rattan?

Billy and I were on one raft, with a “driver”, and Tailah and Lobe were on the second raft with their “driver”. It was really quiet and peaceful on the water, except when we hit the occasional rapids that threw water up over us. There were trees and bamboo growing out over the water, and we often had to duck under them, coming up with spiders and bugs on us. I had a few spiders about an inch across on my at different times, but after our jungle trek they didn’t phase me all that much.

The other raft was in front of us for a while, and they were going under a big branch when the “driver” lurched forward, and spun around really low, pointing to the branch. There was a big monitor lizard sunning itself on the branch just a few feet from the raft. He’d thought it was a giant snake when he first saw it, and it scared him. Our “driver” hit the branch with his bamboo pole, which jolted it and caused the monitor to lose his balance, and fall into the river. He quickly swam away.

At the end of our bamboo rafting, the miserably hot, old van, that we’d taken on the first day, was waiting for us. I think it took us maybe 4 1/2 or 5 hours to get back to Banjarmasin, as the traffic was atrocious. We got back to the hotel, and stopped at the front to have the driver take a quick group photo of us.

Billy, Tailah, Me and Lobe

The first thing I wanted to do when we got back to the hotel was have a long shower and scrub off the grime… then it was off to grab dinner and cold beer, and get a good nights sleep.

Borneo adventure… part 1

Sorry for being so bad about updating this site lately. Somehow I’ve just been thinking that it’s such a daunting task to remember all the details to put on here, so I haven’t wanted to do it.

We returned from our Borneo vacation a week ago. We had a good time, though it wasn’t quite what we’d planned.

When we’d decided to go to Borneo, we planned to visit Tanjung Puting National Park. It’s said to be the highlight of Indonesian Borneo. We bought our plane tickets to fly into Kalimantan’s biggest city, Banjarmasin, and we were told by a travel agent in Bandung that we’d have to buy tickets on a small plane from there to a city close to Tanjung Puting, called Pangkalanbun. The travel agent said it wasn’t possible to buy the tickets in Bandung. We arrived at the tiny Banjarmasin airport and went to the ticket counter for the other airline… only to find out that the airline hasn’t had any flights since December due to some problem with their airplane. Our only option for getting to Tanjung Puting would be an 18-hour bus ride, that had a 50/50 chance of having A/C… and it was HOT.

Instead of spending 36 hours of our 1-week holiday on a bus, we decided to just stay around the city. We stayed at SAS Hotel, which was mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide book. It was reasonably-priced and had A/C. The bed was really comfortable, but the walls were paper-thin, and the floor would shake when people walked down the hall, or in the room next to us. There was also a mosque nearby, but Billy and I are so used to the sounds of mosques that we slept right through the morning calls to prayer. It mentioned in the Lonely Planet that breakfast was included… I didn’t think that 4 slices of white bread (not even toasted) with a little pot of coffee counted as “breakfast”. Hmm…

Shortly after checking into the hotel, we met a local guide named Tailah (pron. Tie-la). He’s mentioned a few times in the Lonely Planet as the best guide in Banjarmasin. He’s a very small man, about my height, but thinner than me. He’s incredibly friendly, and loves to joke and laugh. We talked with him about trying to get out of the city to see some jungle. He told us about a 3-day trek that he offers, and we decided to do it. We told him we wanted to check out Banjarmasin a bit before we headed out, so we agreed that we’d start the trek on Monday. We also met a guy from Germany, who was in the same boat as us… wanting to get out of the city, to explore the jungle. He decided the next day that he’d join us on the trek.

Sunday we headed out for a two-hour tour to see some proboscis monkeys on a nearby island. These endangered monkeys are found only in Borneo, and look hilarious. They have huge noses, and pot-bellies. My photos didn’t turn out, but this is a picture of a proboscis monkey from wikipedia.com:

Our new friend, Tailah, jokingly called the proboscis monkeys “tourist monkeys” because of their big noses and bellies. He led us on the tour, and we were able to go into the edges of a mangrove forest in our boat, so we could see the monkeys jumping overhead. At first we were a bit nervous, afraid they might leap into the boat or something, but we got used to them, and just sat there quietly amazed.

We found a good Chinese restaurant that wasn’t far from our hotel. We ate there a few times, and had sweet and sour pork each time. It’s funny, there are things that you don’t realize you’ll miss until you don’t have them. Back in the States I didn’t really eat much pork, but since you don’t see it very often in Indonesia, I always jump at the opportunity to have it here. It’s a rare treat here.

Monday morning we met up with our guide, Tailah, and our new German friend, Lobe (pron. Low-bee), in the hotel lobby. We set out at 9 am, starting with a 3-hour bus ride in a really old, very hot van. We were already sweating when we got to the start of the trail, and we had a 4-hour trek ahead of us. The first day’s trek had a great trail, that was paved the whole way to the village where we’d stay the night. It was disappointing to occasionally hear chainsaws cutting down the forest as we were walking. Illegal logging is a horrible problem in Borneo.

We stopped in a village to rest for a few minutes, and distribute candy to the children and clove cigarettes to the adults. Tailah told us that it’s customary for tourists to give these to the villagers. They all lined up, and within seconds there were plastic candy wrappers strewn all over the ground. It’s strange the way Indonesians just throw garbage everywhere.

Between that village, and the one where we slept, we walked through farm areas with “mountain rice”, cassava, banana trees, eggplant, and tomatoes. The Dayak people plant their rice on the mountainside. They don’t practice terracing for their rice paddies. They also don’t use any fertilizers or pesticides on their rice. The downfall to this method of rice farming is that they burn down the forest to clear the area and enrich the soil.

When we arrived at the final Dayak village of the day, it was getting dark. We stopped briefly just outside of the village, so Tailah could show us some trees. He cut off a little bark, and made us smell it…. Ahhh… Cinnamon. It’s one of the main sources of income for the Dayak people. Another income source is natural rubber from the rubber trees that are so plentiful. Throughout our trek we saw a lot of trees that had deep V-cuts in them, and 1/2 a coconut shell on the ground to catch the sticky white sap from the rubber trees. The contents of the coconut shells are eventually put together into wooden boxes, and formed into rectangles of rubber that are floated down the river, and sold to a company in Banjarmasin.

When we got to this village we were taken to the longhouse, in the center of the small village, where we’d sleep. It was up on stilts, and under it a lot of pigs, chickens and dogs took refuge. We were given a dinner of vegetable soup with noodles, and coffee. We were pretty exhausted and dirty from the trek, and longed for a shower. The only water was either the river, or a faucet that was right next to the longhouse. I washed my face and arms, but that was it. Ugh. I was coated in sunblock, insect repellent, dirt and sweat.

The children in this village were really sweet. There were 4 or 5 little girls that kept running up to me and shaking my hand. They’d say “Selamat datang” (welcome) and shake my hand, then “Terima kasih” (thank you) shake again, followed my “Sama sama” (you’re welcome) and another handshake. They giggled constantly, and eventually they started telling me their names… over and over… “Nama saya Linda”… “Nama saya Helda”… then back to Linda again. Always wanting to shake my hand. They were precious.

We slept on the floor of the longhouse on thin cushions. One of the women in the village let us borrow a couple of sarongs, to use as sheets to cover ourselves while we slept. It was easily the most uncomfortable night’s sleep I’ve ever had… and all of the animal noises didn’t help matters. Some pigs started fighting right under us during the night, then well before dawn the roosters started in. There were also dogs trying to get into the longhouse, and at one point they managed to knock the door down, and had to be chased out.

Here’s the outside of the longhouse:

Inside the longhouse there was a “shrine” built out of wood, and decorated with rice leaves. The Dayaks are Animists, and have ceremonies twice a year, once for the planting of rice, and once for the harvest. It was interesting to me that children were allowed to play on the structure, and they would climb it and braid the rice leaves together. Here is the “shrine” and some of the children inside the longhouse

Here’s a photo of more children. In this photo you can see a bunch of cinnamon bark piled up on the right. The children and adults use knives about the size of machetes to strip the outer bark off the cinnamon, then it’s dried and rolled up.

I took a few pictures of flowers around the village, then it was time to set off for more trekking…

Unfortunately we didn’t see (or smell) any Rafflesia flowers, that I’d mentioned in my previous post.