The End of Summer Vacation

It has been several months since I last posted to this blogspot and since then many things have happened.  Miles finished year 5 at ACG (the equivalent of 4th grade in the States).  His best friend Russell, and Russell's older brother Kees, came to visit for three weeks.  We all went to the Island of Kalimantan (aka Borneo) for a short boat trip up the river to see the Orangutan and Probicus Monkeys (a well as crocodiles, King Fishers, and many other things).  We spent a couple of days at the beach in Sambolo and a couple of days in the Mountains at Punchuk.  Miles has been playing the trumpet a lot with When The Saints Go Marching In still being his favorite song, but Blue Monk coming in as a close second.  The summer went very fast this year.  And you may note that I refer to it in the past tense because Miles started school again almost two weeks ago on the first Monday of August.  So his summer (as though the seasons make any difference here in Indonesia) has ended.

Below are some quick snapshots and highlights of our Summer.  Note, For those unfamiliar with the mechanics of this blog, you should be able to double click on any picture to enlarge it to full screen, and then back track to the blog from there.  

 Here is a split view of the boat we took up the river in Borneo.  It is typical of most of these river boats:  made of thick mahogany planks with a diesel engine.  On the back (the blue box) is a toilet and shower.  The toilet is a seat opening directly into the river and the shower is a large bucket with river water which you ladel over yourself.  We ate, sat, slept and did everything else on the upper deck.  The upper deck has a roof to protect you from the sun plus a more open area in the bow of the boat.  We travelled with a crew of three:  the captain, a tour guide, and a cook.  They slept below, we slept atop under mosquito netting.

Of course, when we are dealing with two boys, who are on the cusp of entering their pre-teen years, they must still sleep the morning away (rather than get up at 4:30 am like the old man)- even when they are on river boat trip in the middle of Borneo.  Yes, I know that may sound incredible- after all who would want to miss out on a trip of a lifetime.  But I will not even mention how late Kees (Russell's older brother- almost 18 years old at the time) slept.  You would not believe it and I do want to maintain some credibility with this blog, so I will not even go there.

Here is a shot of the morning sun reflected off the still waters of the river.  At this point in the river, the waters were almost black and they served as a perfect mirror reflecting the shore.  Occasionally in this area of the river we could see some crocodiles, but they were all too fast to take pictures of.  However, our guide was careful enough to advise us to be particularly careful if we wanted to swim in these waters- which he advised against doing.  A couple of years ago a German tourist was swimming in these waters when he got eaten by a crocodile (or so the story is told).  Later in our journey Kees did buy a small crocodile carved by our guide from sandalwood.

 So, our little boat made its way up the river into the jungle while we all took a front row seat.  On the look out for birds and animals (and possibly left over body parts).

 

During some of the slow points in our journey, Miles taught the other boys how to play poker and black jack.

 But since we had neglected to bring any poker chips, they just played for fingers.

 Along the way, we did see this Orangutan taking care of his morning ablutions.  I should look so good in the morning.    Since I have already posted a number of photographs of Orangutans from our trip through Sumatra, I will not inundate you with the hundreds of other shots we took in Borneo (Kalimantan).  Instead, here are some more shots of animals we saw on this trip.   Of course this is not a complete catalogue of all the wildlife we saw, just the ones we had the wherewithal to photograph.  Note, that Miles alone was the only one quick enough to get off a shot of the King Fisher.

1) a small multi colored tree squirrel 

2.  Probiscus Monkey high atop the trees.

3.  The rather magnificent King Fisher

4.  And the rather less magnificent, but ever more populous blood sucking leech

  and just in case you have reason to doubt their blood sucking abilities, here is a shot of Miles' foot to establish the little critters' creds. 

  Both Miles and I came out fairly bloody from a little walk through the jungle, Miles much more so than I, but Irene, Russell and Kees were all untouched.  As I explained to Miles, that, of course, is simply because we are much sweeter and nicer than those others.  I am not sure Miles was particularly convinced of my rationalization.  Nevertheless, one thing I was fairly certain of was that the leeches produce some sort of anti-coagulant because the two of us continued to bleed for several hours after we were bitten. 

During our trip up the River, we stopped one night at a small village which was the home of our tour guide.  Unfortunately the memory card I was using in my camera must have been flawed because I do not have too many shots of the village, and a good many of my other shots of the River, the port city, and the wildlife were not saved or could not be retrieved from the memory card; as a result, I do not have adequate pictures to document this part of the story.  But the village sits near the river's edge in a fairly cleared section of the jungle.  A brick path/road runs through the village along a small stream and the houses flank the stream.   The stream flows down from a distant mountain/hill where there is a gold mine, which provides work for many of the men in the village.  Which is a good thing and a bad thing.  Good because it is some work and provides some income, bad because it is miserable work which provides lousy wages, but also because it has thoroughly poluted the stream running through the village with heavy metals such as mercury as well as arsenic, etc.  Nevertheless, this stream is the primary source of water for the village:  People divert it into small fish farms, where they can eat mercury laden fish; they bath in it; they use it to water their plants; they wash their clothes in it, etc.  The village has no electricity except for what little they can derive from small individual solar panels (usually enough to light one or two bulbs for a few hours at night). At one time they had built a water mill to generate electricity, but the stream no longer runs swiftly enough to turn the wheel and generate power.  There are quite a few motorbikes in the village and small canoe like motorboats for fishing.  But no cell phone coverage.  Because of the eco tourism the people are not completely isolated.  But it is nevertheless a very insular and isolated life style.  One thing that struck me in particular is the fact that once a person reaches their physical maturity they probably never again get completely naked.  Most people bath in the river, and when they do so the women will wear a sarong and the men will wear shorts.  Their homes are usually no more than one or two rooms for a multiple generation family, and these people have a very high degree of modesty.  Therefore they would rarely completely disrobe.  It is difficult to imagine living your entire life in this small a world.

 The entrance to the village and single sign post.  The main thoroughfare.

 The watermill and women bathing in the stream.   The homes vary in repair and style, but are not too varied.

Everyone has chickens or ducks and a small garden plot or fish farm.  The village does have a fairly new school house- but no electricity to the school.   While walking through the village and thinking about the poluted stream, I was cursing out Aburizal Bakrie, who is a very powerful titan of business and politics whose family controls much of the mining, oil and telecom business in Indonesia (as well as the Golkar political party and will in all likelihood run for President next year).   I was also cursing out the Australians, who have a good bit of mining interests in Kalimantan.  But then later I was informed by a friend that my cursing may have been for naught because she thought this particular gold mine was owned by an American company.  So that's just great.  Now I have another thing to rail and curse against other than simply Michelle Bachmann, Congress, our State Department and Military commanders, pop music, kids' television, adults' television . . .

Well, I've spent too much time on this blog for one day.  I had thought I would simply give you a quick wrap up of our summer, but it takes quite a bit of time to download these photos, which is why I so much prefer simply to rant, which again brings to mind the article I read about Michelle Bachmann today and her perceptions of American History, which also brings to mind the sorry state of American Education . . .  Alright, enough.  Knowing everyone loves a good photograph (and good photographer), I will break my promise earlier and leave you with these parting shots. . .