Flirting with the globe in search of the unusual, Christine and I have opted for an adventure about as far away as we can get from home without being on the way back; the world’s third largest island of Borneo. The exotic name tickles our travel taste buds, and conjuring up images of ancient rainforests, orangutans, and ethnic tribes the mysterious island sounds like a wonderful broth of intrigue.
However, our initial gung ho exuberance rapidly wanes during our quest for a room in Banjarmasin. Locals who provide lodging to foreigners have the rigmarole of reporting this to police, which requires filling out detailed forms and paying what’s called ‘cigarette money’. The result is we are repeatedly shunned during our hunt for a room, and if there was a market for frustration we could sell franchises!
During our exasperating search we use a ‘becak’, a three-wheel cycle/rickshaw combo with passengers seated in front of the person pedaling to take the brunt of any collision. Going face first into the turmoil of traffic on lawless streets with ignored traffic lights blinking uselessly we clutch our backpacks in front of us as a shield, praying we don’t end up an integral part of somebody’s front bumper!
Shrouded in the moist mist of dawn today we boat the Barito River to a massive floating market where vendors shaded by straw Tanggui hats offer an array of wares from fish to firewood, and plants to pots and pans from dugout canoes acting as floating stores.
Our plan to travel north to Samarinda and trek to the remote highlands of the Apo Kayan area to see the Dayak tribe unfortunately gets torpedoed by two American doctors recently returning from that very region. They inform us that an epidemic of Cholera is devastating the villages, and since neither of us have our Cholera shots it’s an easy decision for us to probe the globe elsewhere. Our spur of the moment ‘Plan B’ is a flight to the isolated region of Tana Toraja on the orchid-shaped of island of Sulawesi.
To reach the captivating culture of the Torajan people means an 11 hour, 328 km journey in a bus that looks as if it’s been around since back when the earth was cooling! Waylaid by a mudslide in the jungle the percussion of rain assaulting our bus sounds like a truckload of marbles being dumped on the roof, but late evening amid both thunder and lightning prowling the sky we arrive in the village of Rantepao.
With saddleback roofs resembling a boat, the fascinating Torajan houses and rice barns sit atop tall posts adorned with the horns of water buffalo, and eerily watched by giant fruit bats we resort to a cold rainwater shower to sluice away our patina of bus dust.
We are stunned to learn that when a tribe member the mummified remains are kept by the deceased’s family in their homes; often for years, until enough money can be put away to arrange for a proper funeral. In the meantime, the body’s skin and flesh are preserved from decay and they are treated as if they’re sick, not dead. Traditionally the corpses are even cuddled and invited to lunch on a daily basis.
With one of the sacrificial ‘Death Feast’ ceremonies happening nearby we decide to check it out. The gory event involves the butchery of animals as Torajans believe the animal’s soul will follow their masters into heaven; and the more important the person the greater the number of sacrifices required.
Trussed up pigs have a knife plunged into their heart and the blood-thirsty executioner jumps up and down on it to hasten the bleeding-out. Buffalo with predetermined fates are tethered by a leg to a stake in the ground before a powerful double-handed slash of a machete opens their throats. Amid the beasts’ dreadful bellows and terror filled eyes, young lads become ghoulishly accessorized with crimson by using a section of bamboo to catch geysers of the spurting arterial blood. With the corpses continuing to pile up and the barbaric slaughter drawing more blood than the Red Cross, Christine and I quietly make our getaway.
Our hike continues on to the village of Pallawa, known for its large rice barns and giant bats that locals call ‘flying dogs’. The furry freaks feast on the fruits of the forest at night, and return at dawn to rest and digest. Hiding Chihuahua-like heads inside the leathery membranes of stilled wings the creatures of cluster dangle upside down from tree branches looking like grotesque Christmas ornaments.
Next stop on the trek is Lemo, another village known for peculiar death rituals. Effigies of the dead called ‘tau-taus’ peer down from funerary niches cut into sheer rock cliffs. Carved out of jackfruit wood because its yellowish wood best resembles human skin, the silent sentinels are considered guardians of the tomb, and act as a reminder they are ever-present to protect the living.
Brushing aside our angst we forge on in the equatorial heat along a jungle trail alive with vivid butterflies and endlessly fascinating insects. In the quiet of a beautiful bamboo forest a natural crystal-clear swimming hole on the river beckons us in for a skinny dip. That is, of course, until we notice a few ugly-ass eels of impressive proportions slithering menacingly along the bottom. The slippery mud-dwellers give us the creeps, and their river tenancy extinguishes our enthusiasm for even a toe-dip!
Last on todays’ tropical trudge is the remote village of Londa, where once again we are the only outsiders. Without a word a villager offers a small lantern and motions toward a footpath leading to the burial caves. Feeling a shudder of apprehension Christine and I venture into a spooky darkness drenched in silence.
Together but alone, we crawl through a passageway from one dark dank cavern to another and a fist-sized spider scampers past in the flickering light causing us to shudder. Trying to suppress our overly active imaginings we scan the cave’s floor for any other cringe-inducing shapes we do not want to see.
Tomb it may concern, it feels like we’re starring in our own Indiana Jones movie in the blackness of the cave while maneuvering about rotting coffins and mummified corpses spookily booby-trapped with cobwebs and dressed in dust. At one point our intestines become unraveled by the macabre skeletal remains of an old woman staring up at us from an open coffin through a pair of thick dusty glasses!
Within minutes I do a week’s worth of cardio when the clingy spokes of a spider web brush against my face and instantly turn me into a Karate Master! With a crippling claustrophobia and a severe attack of the heebie-jeebies having their way with us we wriggle away from the cadavers and back out to daylight, ending a morbid entombment capable of raising any adrenaline junkie’s pulse!
After a thrilling week of adventures in Sulawesi, a monsoonal storm begins turning mountain roads into muddy quagmires so we’re off like a bucket of prawns in the noonday sun! Safely back in Ujung Pandang we book a flight to Bali; knowing we’ll find a deep kindliness far less prevalent on all other Indonesian islands.
Lazing about the pool at Bali’s Suji Bungalows soaking up the sizzling heat like an iguana, I believe I’ve found my true calling, but after only a week of sun-induced stupor we’re already missing the pulse of excitement from our Sulawesi escapades and keen to see what other ‘derring-do’ we can muster up.
Reading about a primitive tribe residing in New Guinea’s Baliem Valley gets us excited as it’s one of the last truly wild places on earth. Seeking info about Irian Jaya side of the island we keep hearing it is unsafe to visit, but luckily we happen to bump into a Belgian couple who recently returned from there. They warn us of the difficulties we’re likely to encounter but offer encouragement. That’s all we need to hear, count us in!
Seeking lodging in Jayapura with darkness masking the town and our guts in a gastronomic grumble, we are being shadowed by a deranged nutter. We try to lose him but annoyingly he keeps coming back. Finally having had more than enough of the bothersome boomerang I turn and confront him. Locals rush over to intervene in the kerfuffle, and in Pidgin English inform us that the wackadoodle lost his mind many moons ago. While they restrain him, we quicken our pace and continue the aggravating hunt for a bed.
Unfortunately we’re waylaid for two long days in Jayapura’s intolerable 40° heat awaiting a special permit called a ‘surat jalan’ required to travel to Wamena. With permits in hand we leave before the ink is dry, and head to the lakeside town of Sentani to sort out ongoing transport to our isolated destination. Outside our rustic bungalow, a helicoptering swarm of dragonflies beating the air into submission quickly scatter when a poacher slinks out of the forest with illegally killed and endangered Birds of Paradise clutched in his fists. We find it heart-breaking to see the gloriously plumaged species as casualties.
Irian Jaya is one of the most remote places on earth, and the isolated Baliem Valley is only accessible by a small plane flying through a gash in the jungle-covered Cyclops Mountains; an area that could swallow you up and not spit you out! The tingle of high adventure surges as our twin prop plane begins shedding altitude on its descent into Wamena.
Looking out the plane window we’re spellbound by a group of all but naked natives standing on the dirt runway. Their sole item of attire is a penis gourd, and clutching bow and arrows, they gaze up at our plane as if challenging it to land! As a ear-piercing siren warns them away to avoid a slice and dice by the plane’s propellers, thoughts of ‘what the Hell have we got ourselves into’ begin to colonize our minds.
Exiting the plane we’re pointed to a thatched hut and told to write down our names and nationality in a school notebook. Christine taps me on the shoulder and points towards the huts open windows. Peering in are members of the primitive Dani Tribe with broad flat noses, faces glistening with lard and soot, and the curly black hair of a French poodle. Their wild-eyed retinas are glued to us as if we’re extraterrestrial objects and the realization of just how far off-grid we actually are begins to sink in!
The tribesmen flaunt their maleness with only a hollowed gourd called a ‘koteca’ over their penis, and feeling slightly overdressed I ask Christine if she thinks I should try and acquire one. With a tilted grin invading her face, my ‘ninth wonder’ turns to me with her calm unruffled demeanor and asks ‘but where would you put your passport?’ Touché my dear; Touché.
Other adornments of the tribesmen include feathered head-dresses, fur armbands, shell necklaces, and wild boar tusks stuck through their nose septum! For any that happen to be tusk-less there remains a nose hole just slightly smaller than Madagascar, through which we can gaze at the scenery beyond!
The Dani share a complex relationship with pigs, as in addition to a being major food source they are also considered members of the family. Social status is measured by the number of pigs they own, and a man can have as many wives as he wants providing the brides can be paid for in pigs; usually 4 – 5 per wife.
Faces of the bare-breasted Dani women are often encrusted in mud and their wardrobe is simply a short skirt made of orchid fibers and straw, worn almost below their butt. Their only other indispensable is a bag called a ‘noken’ that’s woven from bark fiber and supported by a strap over a woman’s forehead. It is used to carry stone axes, vegetables, babies, and even baby pigs. In the cool of the evenings an empty bag is also often worn over the shoulders and back to provide extra warmth.
Only recently emerged from the Stone Age, the Dani are notorious for pagan rituals which to us are more of a mystery than the Loch Ness Monster. For example, upon the death of a man’s parent the man pulls a ‘Vince’ and lops off the top of an ear. In a practice called ‘Ikipalin’, when a family member dies the females voluntarily amputate a finger segment with a stone axe, with the severed section either burned to ashes or worn around the neck to satisfy ancestral ghosts.
One woman holds her hands up to us as if at gunpoint, proudly showing off mutilated hands with six of her ten digits reduced to bulbous nubs. Now I’m not a bookmaker, but I reckon this freakish village has a Popsicle’s chance in hell of ever becoming a spawning ground for sensational female pianists! To us the Dani’s abhorrent ritual of appendage chopping, and other acts of ‘what-the-fuckery’, make about as much sense as a submarine with screen doors, but we are simply visitors to this incredible land of intrigue!
Exploring a forgotten corner of the map we trek through Baliem Valley to Kurulu; a village about as remote as world peace. The huts are enclosed by a corral of sharpened tree branches, but with fear and fascination holding hands we warily step inside. Spooky, near-naked bodies approach through a smoky haze emanating from a massive fire pit in the ground, and with unfriendly faces dressed in scowls, are likely suspicious of what new tribe has just intruded.
The men look menacing with wild unkempt hair and coal black eyes staring out from soot-blackened faces. The women’s bodies and faces are smeared in a mustard colored mud. This jolt of adrenaline is the kind of exhilarating encounter that leaves you speechless, and then turns you into a storyteller!
While we’re trying to determine who’s who in the zoo a brain-bending event occurs. Suddenly, Christine and I make the acquaintance of a blackened human mummy dragged out from one of the tribe’s mud huts! We’re unsure of an appropriate reaction towards the crispy carbonized corpse, as the macabre encounter is both creepy and exhilarating in just the right proportions!
The Dani were engaged in headhunting and cannibalism as recently as 1968, when they chopped up and ate two missionaries from Australia and America. Fortunately however, they have not eaten anyone in the last 23 years and appear to view us as simply an exotic rarity rather than lunch! In a child-like manner the tribe inquisitively wants to touch our cadaver-colored skin, and it feels as if we’ve reached the end of the earth.
Looking for a bamboo bridge one day while tramping along the river we spot one of the Dani tribesmen, and I point across the river, hoping he might show us the direction of the bridge. However, in a lovely gesture the fellow quickly begins stacking rocks in the river for us to use as stepping stones so we can cross while staying dry! During our wanders throughout the remote valley we’ve developed a fondness for these former fearsome cannibals who now show only kindness, and find it disheartening they are a vanishing breed.
Trying to ensure plane and treacherous Baliem Valley terrain do not meet, pilots make no attempt to fly in or out of the valley unless weather conditions are perfect. So in order to leave we are required to write our names down at the tiny dirt airfield in another school notebook. This serves as a rudimentary waiting list to fly out whenever the notoriously unreliable weather decides to cooperate.
Knowing we’re never going to experience anything like New Guinea’s astonishing Baliem Valley ever again, we feel incredibly privileged for all our National Geographic-like ‘remember when’ moments. This has truly been the adventure of a lifetime in these strange and exotic lands known as ‘The Last Frontier’.
Mark H. Colegrave 1991