Jungle Survival

Shortly after arriving in Long Pujungan it was decided we would hike the 2-3 hours to the nearby village of Ketaman. Ketaman would only be a pit stop where we would change guides for the 1.5 day journey to Long Jelet - home of the WWF's major ecotourism efforts in the area. We could have cut the travel time to Long Jelet considerably (down to mere hours) but it also would have cost double the price. Besides, we had already seen the forest from the river and we were ready to dive in for a closer look.

We arrived in Ketaman on a Saturday and paid $5/person/night to be fed and sleep on the living room floor of a nice but shy family. We left with our 2 guides (you need 2 for the hike because it's "very difficult" or as we think, Indonesians don't like to be left for long periods of time alone with tourists) on Monday. They are all devoutly Protestant in these parts, thanks to friendly missionaries from the US and Oz and they wouldn't work on God's Day, so we too rested.

As usual, the leading guide plunged far ahead while we struggled to keep up. It was kind of nice that one guide always trailed behind. That way we didn't get too lost when the lead guided got too far ahead. The first few hours of the hike took us through ladang or un-irrigated agricultural ands which is often the product of slash and burn farming. We found this oddly comical: travel for days to the deep, dark depths of Borneo to stroll through rice fields. Soon enough we were surrounded by secondary forests, that is by old ladang sites which have been seized back by the forest. At least we were out of the weeds and surrounded by the trees.

Day one, though uneventful, was a pleasant walk in the woods. Or so we thought as we crossed what we assumed was the last river of the day. But we were very mistaken. During the afternoon we huffed and puffed our way up a large mountain. The forest up high improved and we saw more signs of wildlife such as wild pig baths and civet claw markings. We also heard barking deer and some monkeys as they ran away.

As we began our descent the lead guide rushed even further ahead than usual. Occasionally we would hear him blowing on two blades of grass (remember doing that when you were young?) He was on the hunt for barking deer for dinner. As we approached him we heard the loud bang of his homemade shotgun and then the crying barks of a deer. We rushed to take a look and discovered that he had shot a female deer in the eye. It took her a while to die and only after he banged her on her head, slit her throat and strangled her with rattan rope (they don't have PETA in the heart of darkness). Then we dragged her down the mountain.

At the base of the mountain, on the banks of a river is a permanent campsite. It's a nice set up with a raised sleeping platform and cooking area. Our guides had packed with them 3 tarps, rice sacks and a hammer. They tied the tarps over the platform and the kitchen to keep out the rain. Then two rice sacks were stretched around to sturdy pieces of wood. The wood was then nailed to the frame of the platform to create makeshift hammocks for sleeping. Then two more rice sacks which were sewn together were used as a sleeping bag to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Not a bad set up. Much more comfortable than our 1 person tent which we laid on top of logs of various sizes on the platform.

Once this was done, they set about preparing dinner. They cooked rice and boiled water in metal pots they had packed. I found it hilarious that they packed about 1/2 kilo of sugar for their one night of coffee drinking. They also filled a plastic bag with cartons of cigarettes for the trip - these things I would have thought extraneous but to them it's just the essentials!

At the river they gutted the carcass. The stomach, liver and thigh were cut into chunks and all thrown into a single pot with river water, salt and MSG and set over the wood stove to boil. When cooked the whole pot smelled gamy but the meat was delicious, even if the stomach was not. This was also our breakfast and lunch the following day. We assumed that the guides would take some of the meat with them but this proved impractical since hunting is easy to do around the villages. So we left most of the deer for the birds.

The next day we had another mountain to climb. By this time our feet were blistered and sore from our new rain boots and we were itching from the bug bites. Struggling we made it up the steep slope of the mountain. As in the Philippines, the ideas of back switches is lost here where people prefer to find the most slippery incline straight up the mountain and a no less slippery steep decline to its base. In between the sharp slopes, we had to carefully traverse on a equally slippery and narrow path that cut across the length of the mountain. The descent was more harrowing than the tiring climb and took more time as we tried not to slide on our bums the entire way down the mountain.

We reached our destination tired and barely able to walk. We were welcomed warmly by the village as many people approached us to shake our hands and welcome us to Long Jelet. Our host family was gracious and offered hot, very sweet tea straight away. It was the exact opposite greeting we received in Long Pujungan where we thought perhaps people upriver didn't in fact want ecotourists. The greetings were wonderful and made us feel much more at home in this far away village.