As they have for well over a century, cargo boats form a link between mainstream Indonesia and the isolated settlements of Borneo’s interior. Mark Eveleigh hitches a ride for a potentially hazardous journey along the Kapuas River
‘Kopi! Kopi panas! ’ The welcoming invitation to hot coffee brings an end to what has been a fitful night’s sleep. I gratefully roll out of my hammock and stagger into the wheelhouse where Akim, the skipper, greets me with only the most fleeting glance away from the shadowy threats of the river.
I wrap my hands around an enamel mug of coffee – sweetened with great quantities of condensed milk – and duck out onto the dew-dampened bow. The jungle-clad riverbanks swirl here and there with heavy mist and the equatorial sun is just bleaching the sky dead-ahead. During the night we have zigzagged once again back into the southern hemisphere, but the sun is rising on a landscape that seems identical in every way to the one upon which it had set precisely 12 hours earlier. For three days and nights the old cargo boat has been puttering steadily into the heart of Borneo.
In the scale of Indonesia’s longest river, three days’ travel is not a great deal and we are still only halfway through our voyage. It seems that the giant trees have crept almost imperceptibly closer during the night and, if anything, the current is running slightly faster. Akim is guiding the spotlight in its last sweeping search of the swirling current now, straining his eyes for the telltale swirls of current around half-hidden logs. A lantern, glowing faintly on a floating platform, shows the position of a jungle village.
In an hour or so the first of the villagers will come down to the river to wash. But for now there is just the yap of some village mongrel and the muffled splash of a dugout being pushed away from its moorings, bound no doubt for a quick dawn patrol around the fish-traps.
It was a scene that can have changed little since Joseph Conrad cruised the inland waterways of Borneo. The old timber cargo boat herself is part of a tradition that goes back even before that time. Bandung trading boats – very much like the 28-metre Jongkung Utama – have been moored on the mighty Kapuas for hundreds of years. There was a time, not so very long ago, when they were the preferred form of business establishment here; Malay traders and shrewd Chinese entrepreneurs alike appreciated the advantage of being able to cut loose from the bank in the event of a surprise attack from an Iban headhunting party.
Fanico Lorensius, the boat’s owner, comes out of the wheelhouse, scratching a chubby paunch under his vest. The Jongkong Utama has been plying these waters for over 30 years, but Lorensius bought her seven years ago and he and his crew of eight have spent the majority of those years living onboard as they trade goods between the coast and the farthest navigable reaches of the interior. These days, the upriver trade is often in plastic and electronic goods but, on the return journey, the hold is filled with raw rubber. Even today, the cargo boat skippers will often return from the interior with the bird’s nests and camphor and extravagant medicinal cure-alls – ranging from bear bile to monkey’s gallstones to deer foetuses – that continue to fetch a high price from Chinese traders
Today there are almost 300 large trading boats constantly making the 1,000km, six-day voyage between the coastal port of Pontianak and the jungle frontier-town of Putussibau. Thousands of people spend almost their entire lives travelling endlessly from one end of the river to the other.
Twenty-three year old Ida works as a cook onboard the cargo boats. Three times a day she prepares rice and fish – occasionally with a fried egg, or some fiery chillies by way of variety. At the last port, rather than wait while fresh cargo is loaded, Ida jumps ship and finds a new berth for the return trip. There are, of course, riverside bawdyhouses and working girls strategically located along the river, but this is not Ida’s scene and she makes most of her living wage by selling imported baby clothes to upriver communities.
The arrival of Ida and the crew is an important event in the life of riverside communities and they are welcomed at every stop as long-lost friends. They pass on news and gossip of happenings on other stretches of the river and the villagers regale them with tales of momentous events since the boat last docked here.
A junior crewman on one of these boats might make $100 per trip to send to his family. The boatmen’s pleasures are simple. In the Muslim town of Sintang there are often other boats moored and a chance for some innocent socialising. In Jongkong the rules are slightly more lax and there is often an illegal gambling session in a kolok-kolok dice-den followed by a bottle or two of fiery arak on the wharf. You are a long way from refrigerators here and the local Anker beer is invariably served warm; ask for cold beer and you get it with a glass of ice.
‘What’d you expect?’ says Akim with a grin, ‘this is Jongkong, not Hong Kong.’ n Pontianak and Putussibau, between voyages, there might be the chance for some more boisterous partying. I have already seen the effect that a few bottles of arak and a guitar can have on a gathering of wharfies and crew during a long and rowdy night at Pontianak dock. The ubiquitous concession to onboard entertainment is the powerful hi-fi karaoke system that seems designed specifically to facilitate the exportation of bleating Javanese pop to the unsuspecting upriver population. Most of the boats have these systems and the crews and captains are inordinately proud of them. Just as they display the power of their engines with good-hearted racing upriver, so two static cargo-boats, moored in an otherwise peaceful riverside hamlet, will frequently embark on a mind-reeling duel to see who can boast the baddest base.
Fanico, as befits the owner, has his own cabin – furnished with a mattress, a heap of comics and an old TV – and the crew sleep on rattan mats in a small room just behind the wheelhouse. Virtually all the remaining areas of the boat are reserved for the cargo of furniture, stacks of eggs, sacks of sugar, electronics and mountains of plastic buckets. There are also the satellite dishes that are steadily blossoming like huge flowers in every riverside village and barrels of gasoline and tyres for the logging vehicles that are intent on working the headwaters even of many of Borneo’s remotest rivers.
I had strung my hammock in the lower hold, among sacks of Javanese rice (apparently considered superior to locally
grown jungle-rice). On stormy days when the shutters are swung down the hold is stuffy and smells thickly of rubber and rice dust. But it is comfortable enough and the hammock neutralised much of the shuddering of the boat’s engine.
The stilted town of Selimbau must be one of the most beautiful kampongs in all Borneo. We arrive in early morning when the delicate pastel paintwork of the houses and mosques are reflected in the gently rippling surface of the inlet upon which the town is built. There are many kilometres of stilted walkways here and different quarters are linked with quaint humpback bridges. The waterfront is bedecked with floating pontoons upon which women in coolie hats beat their washing and naked children splash and play.
‘The water from here onwards is perfectly clean,’ Fanico says as we putter back into the main stream. ‘There’s an old lady called Nenek Moyang who has drunk it all her life. She’s over 100 years old.’
As Akim threads the Jongkong Utama between the curves and currents he has to hug the bank to avoid what must be one of the strangest river vehicles in the world. Hundreds of logs have been lashed together with rattan cord and the resulting island (about 500 square metres in size) is being shunted all the way downriver to Pontianak by five small trading boats. What is most incredible – and appallingly dangerous it seems – is that several plastic-sheet tents had been erected on the logs. In these tents live the men whose job it is to inspect the rattan ties. They seem to stroll confidently over the floating platform, but it is easy to imagine that, should the huge floating logs buckle unexpectedly, a crushed ankle would feel like a lucky escape. The men would live like that for the entire weeklong voyage. e arrive at Semitau late that afternoon and prepare for a night moored to the riverbank. The clouds of flying ants that have plagued us from dusk eventually convince most of the crew to abandon attempts at sleep in favour of an impromptu karaoke session in the moonlight. At 3am I realise the folly of trying to get any worthwhile rest and decide to join them.
For some reason there are always flying ants in Semitau but the boats dare not sail onwards at night because this is the most treacherous stretch on the Kapuas. The river switches and swerves continuously and at every turn there are vicious sideswiping currents that, if approached wrongly, can spin a cargo boat in mid-current.
Akim, like the best of the riverboat captains, knows that disaster can come in a heartbeat. So do I. This is actually the second time that I have made this trip. My first, ill-fated, voyage remains a part of Kapuas river-lore to this day; at dawn on the second day out of Pontianak the Sinar Bulan hit a submerged log, and within less than 10 minutes had cracked in half and sunk. Luckily the accident happened within sight of a small village and the crew and 40 passengers were rescued by canoes. We were shipwrecked in the village for two days.
The last resting place of the Sinar Bulan still serves as a warning to skippers, but I was relieved that a reputation as a Jonah had not preceded me among the frequently superstitious Kapuas sailors.
Just as Western seafarers did in earlier ages, the rivermen of the Kapuas still make offerings and prayers before a voyage. The crews represent the broad spectrum of religious and ethnic diversity of the island and the wheelhouses might be decorated with verses from the Koran, a Christian crucifix, a statue of the Lord Buddha and the occasional animist amulet of a Dayak religion.
Even the most daredevil of Borneo’s river-boat captains is aware that you can never be too careful on Indonesia’s longest river.
HOW TO GET THERE
Flights to Jakarta are available from airports worldwide, although all Indonesian airlines are currently barred from flying to the EU.
On the ground
There are no passenger boats into the interior, but the Kalimantan-based organisation Kompakh can arrange flight connections to Pontianak (about $160 return) and help with plans for onward travel in West Kalimantan. www.kompakh.org
