Life under the Lembeh Strait

Back in Indonesia, we headed straight for a busy shipping channel off the northern coast of Sulawesi, between the mainland and Lembeh island. Despite this channel being next to a rather ordinary Indonesian port city, Bitung, with plastic rubbish (and even a dead animal) littering the water's surface (and the sea floor), it's one of the world's top dive destinations.

Whenever you read of the “best” dive location, there's usually a fair bit of debate – for example, some divers prefer reefs with small fish, while others prefer big fish, big current, wrecks, or underwater caves. Even in these categories, there's probably quite polarised opinions on, say, the best wreck. But when it comes to “muck diving” – which is diving on a sandy/muddy bottom looking for small creatures in the muck – Lembeh is an undisputed king. Perhaps that may be because enthusiasm for muck diving is new – diving in Lembeh was not even mentioned in a 2000 edition of Lonely Planet Indonesia. But the place we stayed at (Two Fish Divers) was full of people who were coming back. One Dutchman was making his fifth trip!

After four days of putting our faces in the Lembeh muck, I mostly agree with the clichés that promise lots of weird marine life. Again, this may be because one doesn't normally dive in a sandy shipping channel; most of the fish books we reviewed post-dive for identification mentioned that most of what we had seen was “common in Indo-Pacific waters from S Japan to N Australia”. But what I really enjoyed about Lembeh, and perhaps muck-diving in general, was the ability to observe marine life for much longer than reef fish, which tend to dart away. This was because the critters in Lembeh typically relied on camoflauge to find food, so most of them were not very mobile. On each dive (which wasn't very deep, so it was possible to stay down for 90 minutes or so), we just hovered right above the sand, waiting until something caught our eye.

The ease at which it was possible to approach marine life made it quite easy to get pictures of the highlights:

The Flamboyant Cuttlefish pulses white, yellow & purple colours as you get near, then blends into the sand as you retreat.

The Hairy Frogfish looks just like a volcanic rock with algae all over it.

Small, very colourful, frogfish also lurk amongst the algae – some of the most enjoyable moments in Lembeh are just watching these little fish waddle in the sand to find the best hiding spot in the algae.

Nudibranchs are quite common in Lembeh – some of them, like this ceratosoma species, disguise themselves like a frogfish.

A school of banded pipefish, swimming alongside some Lembeh litter, which often acts like an artifical reef. Indeed, the most common homes for reef octopi were old bottles (below).

Orang Hutans et al. vs. Elaeis guineensis

Part 2 of the visa run was up into the northern tip of Borneo – the Malaysian state of Sabah. One experience that constantly makes lists of “endangered tourism” is the chance to see orangutans (orang hutan is “forest person” in both Indonesian and Malay) in the wild. Of course, the wealth that enables Sabah to have such developed tourist infrastructure for visiting the jungle is, ironically, likely to be a product of the driving force sending the orangutans to the brink of extinction in the wild.

The “enemy” is a palm tree imported from Africa that is used to produce palm oil. On landing in Sandakan, in the far northeast corner of Borneo, it is not hard to be amazed at the scale of the monoculture that Elaeis guineensis palm oil plantations have produced in this part of the world. From Sandakan, we took a 2 and a half hour drive to the southwest and only spotted three types of land use: (a) urban areas, (b) palm oil plantations, and, only in the last 50 metres, (3) regrowing rainforest. Palm oil plantations easily accounted for 99% of that drive, and trucks hauling palm oil or palm kernel dictate the speed of travel on Sabah's highways. In other regions with severe monocultures, say the example of the midwest US and corn, there are at least occasional fields of livestock and other crops. But in Sabah, there is only palm oil trees (or clearcut forests awaiting palm oil tree seedlings).

Perhaps because of this big reliance on a monoculture, Malaysia's economy may be more at risk than the orangutans. Palm oil is useful as both a vegetable oil (as such, it's impossible to avoid in Asia) and the key ingredient for inexpensive biofuels. The world can only use so much vegetable oil, so it may have been EU biofuel mandates that led to widespread clearcutting for timber and palm oil (now spreading into the Indonesian half of Borneo). Most environmental advocates are now turning against palm oil – Cadbury in NZ made a disastrous decision to use palm oil in their chocolate, a decision that affected their image and sales so much that they switched back three months later. Hence, the boom days of Malaysia's love of palm oil may come to an abrupt end, which would be devastating to their economy.

It's not hard to be both amazed and distressed at spotting an orangutan in the wild. Basically, the plots of forest that remain are those that are unsuitable for the palm oil trees – low-lying floodplains and other swampy areas. This makes it somewhat easy to spot the wild orangutans, since they're pretty much forced to the river's edge; hence, wildlife tourism companies commonly offer you the chance to cruise up the river and “see orangutans from the comfort of a boat”. Some bits of re-growing forest here and there have yet to be felled (a second time) for palm oil, but these “native lands” are not covenanted as conservation areas, hence it is not uncommon to see an orangutan with the faint soundtrack of chainsaws in the background. It's not all doom and gloom – big NGOs are spending a lot to preserve what little natural forest remains in some of the heavily agricultural basins like the Kinabatangan River, which we visited.

At the same time, other conservation-minded charities are on the ground helping orangutans (and the other loveable macro-animal of Sabah, the probiscus monkey). These are “sanctuaries” whereby workers assist injured or orphaned animals, so you're pretty much guarenteed to see an animal at one of the feeding tmes. The sanctuary near Sandakan is the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre. While it was great to see someone taking care of the injured and orphaned animals, I did feel a bit awkward – the problem with orangutan populations is habitat destruction (not survival), thus Sepilok and other rehabilitation centres seem to be treating the symptoms of the problem as opposed to the hard (and expensive) question of preserving habitat.

Some of the propaganda for the charities points out that they are typically founded by benevolant plantation owners, who valiantly step in to stop their workers shooting a few monkeys. On reflection, it doesn't take too much speculation to spot convoluted economic logic of Bornean land use trends: (1) fell the forest for timber sales, (2) plant palm oil as a cash crop, and then, once macrofauna have become endangered, (3) set aside some poor land as a reserve for fare-paying conservationists. As more and more magazines write of the gradual extinction of wild orangutans, the price for visiting is skyrocketing – the annual rate of inflation at Uncle Tan's Wildlife Adventures (where we went) seems to be around 50%.

Needless to write, as one of those fare-paying conservationists, it was very enjoyable to see the wide variety of animals that we could spot from the boat on the Kinabatangan River. Five orangutans, lots of probiscious monkeys, hundreds of macaques, silver-leaf monkeys, Bornean gibbons, colourful birds that could be closely approached at night, owls, snakes, bright red frogs, and big monitor lizards all lazed around the riverbanks, particularly in the early morning (before the real heavy rain set in, as it was the wet season).

Photos (from top):
1 - Typical section of riverbank along the Kinabatangan River - a thin edge of secondary jungle, with clear-cut terraces ready for palm oil plantations.
2 - Orangutan at Sepilok sanctuary
3 - Macaque
4 - Harlequin tree frog
5 - Hooded pitta (easily approached to within metres at night!)
6 (below) - At lunch one day, just before playing a bit of soccer, a poisonous spitting cobra darted out onto the soccer pitch and devoured a small lizard. Despite all the guides poking around in the bush where it came out (with long sitcks, of course), the snake wasn't seen again, and the soccer continued.

A Singapore Sling

Our first experience of Singapore had been Changi airport, en route to Bali last month. It's essentially a giant shopping mall with an airport conveniently attached.

This time, we stayed for a day and would probably make Changi a finalist for any award given to an airport that most appropriately reflects the culture of its location. On a 24-hour whizz through only a fraction of Singapore, we experienced shopping mall after shopping mall – and we didn't even visit Orchard Road, the shopping epicentre. We even managed to accidentally come across the registration desk for the APEC leaders meeting that was going on at the same time, and it, too, was in a shopping centre!

But we also dipped out of these nice shopping centres to experience a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel. It's certainly the most expensive cocktail I've ever drank, and quite possibly my first venture into cocktail tourism – one bartender was in charge of the Slings and he was making something like 150 to 200 of these an hour (they could sell them that fast). At $26 per drink, that's about $4,000 an hour! It was, at least, the best Singapore Sling I've ever had, much frutier and smoother than the one that was served on Singapore Airlines. And the contrast in atmosphere at the Long Bar is perfect – upper-class colonial décor littered with obligatory peanut shells from the free bar nuts.

We'll be back again just before Christmas - luckily, there may not be a better place in the world for last-minute shopping. Of course, in mid-November, the streets of Singapore are already wishing us a "Glitzy Christmas" - possibly beating the US as the earliest to whip out the decorations!

Photos:
Top - With the APEC leaders in town, this US-themed restaurant was hoping the President would stop on by for a burger and fries.
Bottom - The Sling bartender making 16 Singapore Slings at once!

Next update - December 7th

We're going to the remotest part of our trip this morning - to the Raja Empat islands off West Papua - so will certainly not have an internet connection until we return on December 7th.

So next week, expect a flurry of updates on Singapore, Sabah, and the weird creatures of the Lembeh Strait (and other weird things about Northern Sulawesi).

Sampai Nanti!
Jeremy

The Heart of Java – Land of coffee tea

In America, Java is synonomous with a cup of coffee. To historians and most non-Javanese Indonesians, it's synonomous as the location of Indonesia's historical treasure at Borobudur - the world's largest Buddhist monument. After spending five days in Yogyakarta ("Jogja"), the cultural capital of Java, I now find these associations a bit odd for a tea-growing island whose 130 million residents are over 90% Muslim.

But Indonesia has the habit of contradicting conventional wisdom, such as we experienced in Flores, where animist beliefs and catholicism do not contraindicate of each other. Borobudur, which is near Jogja, was built in the 9th century, when Indonesia was still predominantly Buddhist (Hinduism would arrive soon thereafter, followed by Islam about 500 years later). It was likely a pilgramige site for Buddhists, with its stone reliefs and structure representing the path to enlightenment. 1200 years later, it's still serving this same purpose, though for a slightly different kind of pilgramige than its designer(s) planned - tourism.

Not only is it Indonesia's only appearance in books like "1001 things to see before you die", but Borobudur also holds a special place in most Indonesian families. One thing a visitor to and Indonesian house will observe is that any Indonesian family who has been to Borobudur will have a photo displayed of them posing alongside one of the stupas atop Borobudur - sometimes wearing their traditional Muslim clothing. And like kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland, most domestic tourists to Borobudur will reach into the stupas and try to touch the Buddha statue inside - supposedly this brings good luck if trying to find a husband/wife.

It's hard not to be impressed by Borobudur. It's remarkably well preserved; 1200 years later most of the stone carvings are still clear and easy to decipher once you know the story being told. Although restorations in the 1970s added a bit of mortar to some stones in an effort to keep them in place (perhaps also securing them against theft, which is the cause of many headless buddhas), many of the walkways are still the mortarless construction that was used. And unlike the restored Thai temples around Sukothai that we visited in 2008, nothing about Borobudur was re-carved – buddha statues have been left headless, and missing stones replaced by rectangular blocks. It's a nice line between the extremes of re-creation and preservation.

Our other journey into Indonesia's distant past was a visit to two mountain temples, Candi Ceto and Candi Sukuh, built by the Hindus in the late 15^th century as Islam swept through the plains and those who stuck with Hinduism were pushed further and further up into the hills. Neither temple is well understood by archaeologists, as traditional Hindu forms and stories exist alongside odd carvings that look more like 15^th century porn than religious teachings or representations. I think the most accepted explanation is currently that they were a shrine for a fertility cult. Like Borobudur, these two temples are remarkably well preserved, but unlike Borobudur, we were the only visitors.

The two temples are 7km apart, so led by our guide, we walked through the farms and national forest that lie in between. The Javanese highlands are the vegetable and tea basket of the island. Rice is grown down on the plains. Farmers up here were planting carrots, corn, chilli, cloves, and potatoes, and in the middle was a giant tea plantation. Java now grows a big chunk of Indonesia's tea (though much is still imported from India/Sri Lanka) – coffee appears to be typically grown in Sumatra, Bali, and Sulawesi. The national forest was also interesting; apparently the government came to own some of the land that was unsuitable for farming and wanted to make it a green space quickly. Japan donated a bunch of fast-growing pine trees in the mid-1970s, so now the area is covered in pine forest with the jungle slowly beginning to regrow in the understory.

Central Java is not just about historical cultures – it's also the arts centre of modern Indonesia. Traditional dance, music, puppetry, batik, silver jewellery and many other crafts are all alive and well here in Jogja. The gamelan orchestra features in most of the live entertainment (music, dance and puppetry), with its very distinctive – some may say dischordant – sound eminating from the brass xylophone and drum-type instruments. The main type of puppetry in Jogja is “wayang kulit”, which features very intricate characters carved from rigid leather that have moving arms and legs. It's common to watch these puppets from behind a screen (as a shadow puppet). Some of the sampler shows put on for tourists are perhaps a bit too authentic (a traditional wayang kulit performance begins at 9:30pm and ends around 5 am) – with two hours of shadow puppets talking to each other in Javanese. However, the skill of the puppeteer was impressive – besides controlling a puppet, he's also chanting, speaking, and making the special effect noises.

So ends the first phase of our trip – Indonesia only grants 30-day non-extendable entry visas on arrival, so we have to make a “visa run” by leaving for Singapore and Malaysia. We'll be back five days later in Northern Sulawesi.

Photos (from top)

1 – The postcard view of Borobudur's stupas
2 – The east side of Borobudur
3 – A 1200 year old carving at Borobudur, showing the soon-to-be-Buddha cutting off his hair as he leaves behind his life as a prince in order to find enlightenment
4 – Indonesian families trying to touch the buddha statue inside Borobudur's stupas
5 – Candi Sukuh
6 – The traditional way of making batik: hot wax applied to the fabric by hand before the dye
7 – Gamelan orchestra
8 – Making the puppets for a wayang kulit performance

Out with a Kupang

The “backdoor” exit from Flores by air is Kupang, the largest city in the province of East Nusa Tenggara, on the island of Timor. This island is typically in the news for all the wrong reasons, and is partly responsible for Indonesia's poor image overseas. So it's best to begin with the express version of 20^th century Indonesian history.

Indonesia is, of course, the famed spice islands that motivated Columbus and other European explorers to find the most efficient trading route between Eurpoe and Indonesia. The Dutch East Indies company is credited with stiching together such a diverse group of islands into one country, but the Portugese and British also set up colonial posts. It wasn't until the Japanese invaded during WWII that these colonial powers began to head for the exits; in 1948 the Dutch left and the Republic of Indonesia was born (the date later amended to August 17, 1945 by the Dutch upon the 50^th anniversary). Portugal gave control over most of its territories to the new country, but held on to the Portuguese speaking Kabupaten (counties) on the eastern side of Timor.

In 1975, Portugal decided that it didn't want to keep supporting the colony of East Timor, and offered the people the chance to either join Indonesia or become its own country. Popular support was evenly split, and Suharto, the president of Indonesia, decided that he'd speed things along and annex the territory as part of Indonesia. To quell any dissent, he sent the army in. Suddenly, there was a full-scale guerilla war, won by the Indonesians, and East Timor became an Indonesian province (A recent Australian film, “Balibo”, depicts these events).

The strong top-down control that Suharto exerted over Indonesia until 1997 quelled any dissent, and East Timor remained “peaceful” under the eye of the Indonesian army. Oddly enough, it was a run on the Thai currency that triggered Act II. The Asian financial crisis that resulted from the run hammered Jakarta and Suharto's core support (upper/middle class) urged him to head for the exit. With the loss of top-down control (and the granting of more freedom to speak against the government), grievances that had been bottled up began to simmer. East Timor decided to have a democratic vote on whether to remain as part of Indonesia or to go it alone. The vote in 1999 was something like 80% in favour of going it alone, and almost immediately the streets of East Timor were full of private militias running amok – torching villages, pillaging and bringing the world's attention to this desert island once again. Act II was much worse since the internet and live news channels made it more accessible to the world.

Eventually, it surfaced that the Indonesian army was supporting these militias – perhaps they didn't want to see the blood spent 25 years before to have been a waste. More importantly, however, was the need to send a strong message to two other areas of Indonesia where secessionary violence was brewing post-Suharto – Irian Jaya (renamed Papua) in the far east and Aceh in the far west. Timor holds little of economic value to the country, but it was setting a dangerous precedent for the other two, which are resource-rich (Aceh has oil and Papua has gold and other natural resources). The UN (mainly Australian troops) came in to clean up the mess and allow the country of East Timor (officially Timor Leste) to be born.

Some West Timorese Indonesians resented the UN involvement and killed three troops based in West Timor in 1999. Our guidebooks told us to expect some resentment from the locals and a city that had seen better days (Kupang used to be the first stop for Aussies travelling to surf in Indonesia).

To our pleasurable surprise, Kupang was exactly the opposite – a reasonably clean city with extraordinarily friendly people. Great beaches are nearby and easy to get to by bemo (public transport is alive and well here). Rather than hawking goods or directing us to high-priced tourist shops, everyone smiled at us saying “hello mister!” and wanted to help us (one even got off a bemo to help us find the one headed in our direction). We couldn't even walk the 1km between the airport bemo stop and the airport – everyone would stop and block traffic to offer us a free ride to the terminal.

Foreign tourists are an extreme rarity here – we only met two French travellers during our entire 2-day stay. As a result, the night market on Jalan Garuda felt a bit more authentic and around 7pm was buzzing with smiling locals eating some of the best food we've had in Indonesia. In addition, the inflation that has hammered the tourist haunts of Java, Bali, and Lombok hasn't found its way to Kupang – making it so extraordinarily cheap that we didn't even bother to bargain. The lack of travellers also meant that all eyes were on us, especially local school children who wanted to take their picture with us and practice their English.

West Timor is definitely on our list of places to revisit – 2 half-days just wasn't enough. For the time being, the Indonesians are managing their separatist issues by extending greater autonomy to the provinces. They've learned their lesson from the 1999 disaster so all is peaceful in West Timor – the tourists will be back soon.

Pictures:

Top – A food stall on Jalan Garuda, Kupang, cooking up a healthy portion of nasi goreng (fried rice).

Bottom – Friendly English language students at the Jalan Garuda night market, Kupang.

Colourful Cultures and Colourful Lakes – Flores Part 2

It took less than an hour before the first sound of vomit. The winding road had captured its one and only victim, the Dutch girl travelling with us, early. The road surface here in Flores is very good, better than a lot of roads you'll find in NZ or the US, but it's constantly switchbacking up and down hills or contouring around the deep valleys cut into the hillsides. Indonesian drivers tend to drive to the condition of the road – if it's potholed, the car creeps along, gently dipping up and down, but if it's nicely sealed, the driver must find it especially important to reach the next corner as fast as possible. Hence the reputation of the “Trans-Flores highway” as a testing ground for those with motion sickness.

The attraction of inland Flores is the traditional culture that still thrives,despite the island having been been overrun with religious missionaries. Islam, Christianity (mainly catholicism), and traditional animist beliefs intertwine here rather peacefully – it's not uncommon to see the town masjid (mosque) a few doors down from the katedral, or a church with a sacrifical stone for killing animals during ceremonies outside. On the outskirts of Bajawa, 8 hours (but only 250km) from Labuan Bajo, we had the fortune of meeting Silvester, a very knowledgeable guide who spoke decent English and took us on the back of his motorbike to visit a few of the nearby villages.

Bajawa is the traditional heartland of the Ngada people, whse cultural practices remain despite the encroachment of Europeans, religion, and tourism. The most traditional villages – we visited Langa and Luas (not totally sure about the name of the latter) – feature grass and timber huts around a central courtyard. The courtyard contains ceremonial entities that represent the ancestors of each family in the village – one umbrella-like structure (Ngadhu) that represents the male ancestor is paired with a minature house-like structure (Bhaga) that represents the female ancestor. Erecting one of these is quite a task; although the materials are cheap, they must come from certain areas, in certain forms (e.g. the tree for the Ngadhu pole must be “cut down” by removing all the roots), and have many rituals performed for them. Pigs and buffaloes must be slaughtered, the meat providing a feast for the whole village and the skulls hung up for all to see.

Despite these beliefs, all of these villagers are also devoutely catholic, with the church occupying part of the space around the courtyard. While we were visiting Langa, a dance party was in full swing as part of a First Communion celebration.

Although these super-traditional villages are not very common, most villages around Bajawa were built of more modern materials (concrete, mudbrick and steel), but they still had Ngadhus and Bhagas made of the traditional materials. Another custom that remains in modern Ngada peoples is the provision of different houses for males and females (identified by a figure on the top of the house – a minature bhaga for women and a scarecrow-type person for the men). Silvester also mentioned that women hold the “power” in regards to family connectons to the village clan families; if an outsider married a village girl, then he would come to live in the village. But if his wife died, he would be swiftly booted out. The reverse holds true if an outsider marries a man from the village – he must leave and live with the woman in her town.

Although there are other things to do in central Flores, such as heading north from Bajawa to reach the tujuhbelas (17) islands (there are actually 24 islands, but Indonesia's independence day is on the 17^th of August, so 7 islands don't count) for some beach time, we headed east to the village of Moni. This “village” is more like a collection of restaurants and hotels on the main highway. It's the base for visitors wishing to see Flores' three coloured volcanic lakes on Kelimutu.

Near the summit of Kelimutu (Mt. Mutu in the local language) are three deep crater lakes. They're famous because they change colour every now and then as the acidic waters (pH varies from 0.5 to 3.0) eat away new minerals in the crater. Most guidebooks will tell you that the lakes are three different colours: turquoise, red and black, however, recently the red lake has turned to an an identical turquoise as the turquoise lake. Since these two lakes are only seperated by a small ridge, it was a bit disappointing not to have them be different colours (and living in NZ, we're spoiled by turquoise-coloured lakes; these were similar to Pukaki and Tekapo). The black lake was quite interesting, as we had never seen a lake so black (it almost looked like someone had dumped ink into it) and all the other tourists on the summit with us were fascinated by a turquoise-coloured lake that we had the black one (which sits away from the other two) to ourselves.

But the way that most tourists visit Kelimutu makes the colours only half of the excitement. Since Indonesia is so near the equator, the sun drives predictable weather patterns in the mountains. At night, the mountains are usually clear with no cloud, but once the sun comes up and begins to heat up the land and create convective air movement, mist begins to form and the afternoon usually brings violent rain squalls. So to get any sort of a view, one has to be on the summit at sunrise. For most mountains here, that means a climb beginning somewhere between midnight and 2 in the morning. But Kelimutu has a paved road most of the way to the top, so at 4am, we awoke to the knock of our motorcycle drivers, and 30 minutes of windy roads in the dark on the back of the motorcycle, we began the short 20 minute walk up to the summit for sunrise.

That's about all that Moni has to offer – most people walk all the way down from Kelimutu, via traditional villages (not as interesting as the ones in Bajawa, though the people are very friendly) and the local waterfall (though we missed a turn somewhere and saw more villages than we had planned). Next up is Kupang, West Timor, a brief stop on the way back to Bali.

Pictures (from top)

1 – Water Buffalo in the mud, inland Flores

2 – Bajawa

3 – Luas village, Gunung Iniere volcano in the background

4 – Sunrise over the turquoise lakes, Kelimutu

5 – Moonset over the black lake, Kelimutu