Leaving Bali for Kalimantan (Indonesia, 1998)

I went to Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, in August, during the primary cremation season in Bali. I wanted to visit my friend Made in Bali after the multiple cremation of the remains of 22 people was over in his village, so we could travel around Indonesia together. (See my previous posting, "Ghosts".) It is common in Bali for the dead to be buried and cremated later, even years later, to share the cost of expensive ceremonies among several families. I knew Made would be too busy in the months preceding the cremation to spend much time with me. But as usual in Bali, everything shifted, and it was impossible for him to nail down the date. Despite all my planning, I arrived in Bali when his village was still deep in the midst of intensive cremation preparations.


Made's village was tucked away in the hills northeast of Ubud. Though not that far from Ubud, it is a village you would not have heard of, for it is never found by tourists. (Heck, even Balinese born and raised in Ubud haven't heard of it!) At first I hung out in the village and helped make offerings, my clumsy efforts vastly amusing the old ladies. "How can a woman reach her age without learning to do the most basic tasks?" they laughed and asked each other. (For some things you don't need an interpreter.) My ineptness at constructing little straw offerings and properly shaping pastry dough was clearly incomprehensible to them. Made and all the other village men were busy building the huge, brightly colored, wooden bulls and lions in which the dead would be cremated. He rarely had a spare minute,and we didn't have a lot of time together.

It became apparent if I was going to do any traveling around Indonesia, it would be alone. Made's savvy half-brother, the village priest, warned me that the political climate in Sumatra would be a bit dangerous for me at that time, so I decided on Kalimantan. I tried for weeks to get a ticket to Kalimantan, but all the travel agents kept telling me my return fight could not be confirmed. I asked if we should perhaps just call the airline office in Kalimantan and was told “No.” In desperation I tracked down an old acquaintance, Mahfoud, who, before he opened a shop, had worked as a travel agent. Of course, Mahfoud said we should call Kalimantan, as I had suggested all along. He made the call and the arrangements as a favor, and within a day after contacting Mahfoud, I had a ticket in my hand.

I landed at the airport in Pangkalan Bun and caught a ride with a guy on a motorbike to the Blue Kecubung (blue gemstone) Hotel. My friend Sara had stayed there once, and it seemed a place where I could probably find out how to make arrangments to go upriver to visit the orangutan sanctuaries established 30 years before by Birute Galdikas, one of Louis Leakey’s so-called three “angels” (Goodall, Fosse and Galdikas). I felt the difference from Bali in the same way it hit me when I first went to Java - the large scarves covering the hair of many of the little school girls. Of course, women wore these too, but I thought how restrictive they must feel to these little girls as they ran and played.

The Blue Kecubung turned out to be a hotel used primarily by Indonesian business people, and though it was not what I would call fancy, it was a luxury to me to stay for a night in a place with air-conditioning, particularly after weeks of staying in the family compound in Bali. Before I even registered, I had hired my guide, Said, who was standing at the front desk talking to the clerk when I arrived. He took my passport and went off to book the boat and get the necessary police permits to visit Tanjung Puting, the large section of park land that contained the orangutan sanctuaries. We would go the next day; it was almost evening and too late to head upriver into the jungle.

PHOTOS
1. Fanciful animals the men built to house remains for the big send-off
2. Made and some of the guys taking a break from cremation preparations
3. Me, amusing the women of the village with my incompetence at making offerings

To be cont...