Indonesia
July 22 2005, our penultimate day in Australia, anchored in Fannie Bay Darwin, ready for the start of the Darwin-Kupang Rally next day. Sniff, sniff! Tears on leaving Australia? No! Australia had one last test for us, courtesy of the Customs Service armed with sniffer dog "Venom".
Dressed in little bootees, so as not to scratch our paintwork or varnish, Venom tried his hardest for half an hour to find noxious illegal substances - but without success. I took a photo (above) of this amiable golden labrador with his four accompanying servants of the great Australian bureaucracy.A search of a visiting yacht just leaving the country? Does this make any sense we asked ourselves? Only in Australia! And so on July 23 we left towards Kupang, West Timor, in company with nearly 70 other Rally boats.
Having voyaged pretty well alone for most of our 4 years sailing we had decided for the first time to join a rally. During our 21 months in Australia we had lost touch with most of the yachts we knew during our time in the Pacific - some had gone ahead, some turned back and some stayed in Australia. There were reports of piracy in Indonesia, visas and cruising permit (CAIT) to organise, so the idea of company and easier bureaucracy seemed appealing. Now, 2 months later, we are berthed in Nongsa Point Marina on Batam Island (with a view across the Singapore Strait to the city). Here we will stay for our last few days before checking out of Indonesia - so its a good time to reflect on the rally experience: we have no regrets about the cost, it was good value for money, we have made many new yachtie contacts, the events organised were most enjoyable and the welcome and generosity of the local people involved was almost overwhelming at times.
Indonesia is a vast country, it's islands stretching for nearly 5000km: it goes without saying that in just over 2 months we have visited a tiny fraction of these islands. Our first stay was in Kupang, capital of East Nusa Tengara Province where we were officially welcomed by local officials, presented with gifts, dined and entertained with traditional dances. From here many yachts went on to the next rally destination on the island of Alor, whilst we chose to head direct for Flores as son Barnaby was due to meet us there in Riung. We decided to sail to the west of Solor and continued up the east end of Flores through the Larantuka Narrows, our first (and only) mistake with the fierce tidal currents in these waters. We should have guessed when we saw the fishing fleet coming towards us down the channel, we kept on past them and in the end were fighting 6.5knots of current: we made it but the delay caused us to continue on sailing through the night. So when we reached the anchorage near Maumere we were happy to rest for a few days, take a tour to the volcanic lakes at Mt Kelimutu, go swimming and enjoy the evening buffet at a resort.
Further along the north coast of Flores we rejoined the rally at Riung where we were welcomed with flowers, dancing and speeches. Walking round the small village we were greeted constantly with smiles, waves "hello mister, hello missus" - is this how royalty feels? The next day was the welcome dinner, a bonfire lit, more speeches, more dancing with us involved on this occasion (some yachties' style caused much amusement to the locals!).
This is great! The excursion to Labuan Klambu and Marutauk the next day was even more amazing. Our bus was preceded by a police car and a security truck, the former with siren going as we travelled, the latter with flashing lights and behind us an ambulance! Supposedly all for our safety, we decided it was a good excuse for the locals to have a day out! We were told that the village of Marutauk had not had foreign visitors before, and they certainly went all out to impress. All the villagers, in traditional dress processed down the road towards us, singing, waving swords and dancing; they guided us back to the village where we were offered betel nut as the traditonal gesture of welcome. The 3 parts that make up the mix to chew together have symbolic meaning: the green stalk of the sirih represents the male, the hard nut or pinang the female ovaries and the lime is symbolic of sperm. Jim overdid the lime and burnt his mouth but got a good flow of saliva going so his spitting was a vivid blood-red, just like an old-timer. In contrast I spat mine out rather sooner but reckoned I could have had dental surgery with no problems due to the numbness felt in my mouth! Following that interesting taste, we were greeted by village elders: at one point a chicken was brought forth and had words spoken over it - I feared that it was going to get the chop in front of us, but no,it was carried round for all to stroke! We were given lunch - a simple but delicious meal of grilled fish accompanied by rice cooked in coconut milk wrapped in banana leaves rolled to fit inside bamboo cane and cooked in a fire. Entertainment followed - demonstrations of weaving , caci (war dancing) where contestants wore headdresses like horses, one having a shield of buffalo skin, the other a whip; then group dancing - we were exhausted by the end of the day. Next day was an organised trip to Rutong, one of the Seventeen Islands Marine Park where we enjoyed both snorkelling on the coral reef and the barbecue lunch provided after. In the evening we were joined by yachties from 9 other boats who helped me celebrate my 62nd Birthday at one of the local restaurants. We had brought some bottles of sparkling wine: the young man serving at table was fascinated to see how to open one, then he had a go and was delighted as the cork shot away. Cheers all round!
The arrival of son Barney the following day was a long-awaited pleasure. He had intended to fly from Denpasar in Bali to Ende, south Flores. However there were no flights available so he flew to Labuanbajo, took a bus from there along the mountain plateau to Ruteng; another bus next day to Bajawa, and an exciting journey over the rough mountain roads down to Riung on the back of an ojek (motorbike). We stayed in Riung a few days more for Barnaby to acclimatise, then we were on our way west again, anchoring overnight at several places -Teluk Linggeh, Bari, Waicicu and thence to Lehok Buaja on Rinca. Along the way we saw a great pod (about 20) of what we identified as melon-headed whales which appeared just once, and another day about 8 pan-tropical spotted dolphins who played in our bow wave for a while before shooting off.
Anchored at Lehok Buaja, on 21 August, we celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary. The day started with a trek when we saw many huge Komodo dragons, wild water buffalo and monkeys. Another treat ensued when we were waved over to "Suleika" and plied with champagne, accompanied by pancakes with butter, maple syrup and cream. Yummy! Kathryn endeared herself further by producing bacon sarnies for lunch, and we were hard pressed to drag ourselves back to "Avalon" in time to entertain guests from the other 6 rally boats in the anchorage. What a good day!
With brief stops along the way at Banta Island, and NE Lombok we anchored at Telok Kombal on NW Lombok for several days. At that point Barney took off for young backpacker fun in Gili Trawangan (designated 'party island' by the Lonely Planet Guide) whilst we oldies took a tour with Sarah and GB of "Djarrka" and Pat and Olivia of "Aldebaran". We visited weaving and pottery places, (making a few purchases along the way), toured the King's Summer Palace at Narmada, and after lunch went to Pura Suranadi where the guide summoned the giant holy eel and fed it with the hardboiled eggs. Quite amazing! Another day I spent some time haggling over the price of necklaces made of locally grown pearls: whilst of curious shapes, the colours of the pearls range from green to attractive shades of irridescent grey, so I'm not sure whether I can bear to give them away as Christmas presents after all! And so, the tide with us, we whizzed down the Lombok Strait, carefully threading our way amongst the fishing fleet, to Bali, through the reef to the anchorage at Serangan: a pretty place with a friendly village nearby to help in supplying diesel, water, laundry services and taxi rides. However, for security reasons we decided to move to Bali Marina to leave the boat there whilst we travelled to Java. Although the marina had seen better days, it did have showers, restaurant and internet access - all of which we found most useful.
Our 4-day trip to Java was action-packed: we flew (with Sarah and GB of "Djarrka") from Denpasar to Yogyakarta (Yogya) where we stayed in a modest hotel on the main street with ready access to a plethora of shops, restaurants and adjacent shopping mall. Our guide, Ignatius (one of the minority Christians in a mainly muslim country) was excellent, a fund of information on the places we visited and answering, in perfect English, our assortment of questions on Indonesian politics, lifestyle, where to eat etc. The planes of our airline bore the slogan "Fly is cheap" so when we arrived in Java at 0600 after an hour's flight with only a glass of water provided our first stop was at a food stall at Borobodur. There Jim and I shared a vegetable omelette, Barnaby had a soup; next banana and papaya pancakes, accompanied by strong Javanese coffee - all delicious.
Thus fortified we started the ascent of Borobodur Temple, impressively rising from a flat landscape with distant jagged volcanic mountains. Built during the height of the Sailendra dynasty, about AD 750-850, it is a massive 9-tiered mountain of around 1500 carved stone relief panels , 432 buddhas in the open and 72 buddhas hidden in lattice-work stupas (following local custom, we stretched through the lattice-work of one to touch the fingers of a buddha 'for luck'). Our route back to Yogya took us to the much smaller buddhist temples, Candi Pawon and Mendut Temple. After the early start from Bali and the exertions of climbing all the temple steps in the heat of the day, we were glad to recover in our comfortable hotel room before heading our for a meal in the evening.
Next day, after making a modest selection from the vast array of breakfast foods for all palates, we were off to Solo. We were glad that it was the driver who had to cope with the 65km of busy road from Yogya, whilst we were able to watch the groups of immaculately uniformed children on their way to school - their numbers reflecting the population of Java (120 million in an area half the size of Great Britain). Solo was once the seat of the great Mataram Empire: at the Mangkunegaran Palace and Radya Pustaka Museum we saw gamelan instruments, wayang puppets, as well as many other items from the royal household. After a brief visit to the local flea market we were on our way to Prambanan to the complex of Hindu temples, built during the 8th and 10th centuries AD. By contrast, Saturday's sightseeing commenced at the Bird Market in Yogya, a crowded mass of stalls selling all manner of birds, snakes, geckos together with their food - live crickets, grubs, mice and so on. From there we walked to Taman Sari, better known as the water castle: built for the sultan in the 18th century, only some of its glory remains - the bathing pools and an underground mosque have been restored and were a cool retreat from the hot and dusty streets. After watching a wayang kulit (leather shadow puppets) performance with a gamelan orchestra accompaniment at the Kraton (sultan's palace) we were ready for our lunch of typical Javanese food - soup, followed by a selection of dishes - gado gado, barbecued fish, chicken, spicy beef, rice, crispy soya bean curd, then fresh fruit and coffee. We also had interesting visits to batik and silverwork factories where we were able to see the handicrafts being made, and of course had the opportunity to buy the products!
Sunday was a 'free' day so we chose to return to the Kraton (this time in a horse-drawn carriage) for a dance performance which was excellent, the intricacies of the steps fascinating, and the accuracy of the dancers as they flashed kris daggers in mock battle amazing. The rest of the day was spent variously - shopping, revisiting the Bird Market, drinking the excellent local coffee. And so, we reluctantly bade Java farewell, as ever too short a time spent there, and only a fraction of this lovely country seen. The people were very helpful, ready to chat and offer directions, the food and handicrafts inexpensive; our only complaint was that the temperamental Gunung Merapi/Fire Mountain refused to show its face, remaining shrouded in cloud throughout our stay.
Bali has a very special atmosphere: with over 90% of Balinese Hindu descent, the island's religion has developed its own peculiarities with animism incorporated. Many rituals are practised to appease the good and bad spirits, and offerings to them are made at various times through the day. One day, I watched as a young woman came from a restaurant with a small tower of baskets (containing some food, flowers, holy water and smouldering incense sticks): one basket was placed on the ground outside the entrance, another on the small shrine associated with the restaurant, and the rest on various altars at the nearby village temple: at each place a simple ceremony was performed with prayers said and sprinkling the holy water. You need to watch where you walk so as not to step on these offerings, and take care not to knock them off shelves in shops, where they are precariously balanced!
Apart from a couple of girlie shopping trips into Denpasar and Sanur (where a number of craft items and dresses were bought at low cost after much haggling) we hired a car with driver on a couple of days. Six of us travelled to Tampaksiring to see Gunung Kawi, one of Bali's largest ancient monuments. By virtue of an early start we were there before even the hawkers stalls were in operation: it was very peaceful and beautiful as we climbed down many steps into the valley to see the huge figures carved out of the rock face. We wandered the shrines, the only tourists amongst local workers preparing for a festival later in the month. Refreshed by a cup of the local coffee after the steep climb back, our journey continued, over the mountains (much terraced for rice paddies), through villages with shops piled high with intricate woodcarvings, to Ubud.
We split up here, according to interest, to the Monkey Forest (with macabre high temple of the dead, as well as greedy monkeys), to the local art shops, Neka (art) Museum, art market, the King's palace - there's something there for everyone. On the way back to the marina we stopped at Bhatubalan for a dance performance, mainly Kecak, then a short example of Legong, then a brief fire dance. The Kecak does not have music but is accompanied by a male chorus (more than 30 strong) who chatter continuously like monkies, the story being taken from the Ramayana. Whilst we didnt quite understand all the details of the story, it was an impressive performance. On another day Barnaby went off to the Waterbom Park near Kuta for some fun, whilst Jim and I went on the trail for oil filters, fan belts, engine oil and other exciting boat necessities, followed by supermarket shopping. Having collected Barnaby we visited the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park, an enormous unfinished project set in a stone quarry, en route to watch the sun set over the temple to the spirits of the sea at Ulu Watu, perched on high cliffs in the south of the island.
All too soon it was time to leave Bali. The current which was so helpful to us on our way south had to be avoided on our way north: so it was on 17 September that we kept as close to the reef as possible to get the benefit of the counter-current: due to Jim's careful tidal calculations all went well, so that late afternoon we had rounded the corner of the island and were able to anchor near Ambat with a dramatic view of Gunung Agung, Bali's highest mountain (3142m).
6 days and about 500nm later we were anchored in the river opposite the town of Kumai in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). The passage had not been without event: the chart may have looked empty of obstacles but we found many fishing platforms, oil rigs, vessels under way (notably tugs with huge long towed coal barges moving very slowly), small fishing vessels and large container vessels anchored miles away from land, local boats with unorthodox lights.
Barnaby's highlight was the sudden arrival, during an extreme roll of the boat, of a wolf herring on deck - he was disappointed next day, especially seeing its large size, to find that it was too bony to make good eating! We were saddened to hear of more bombings in Bali just a couple of days after we had left. Our main reason for travelling up the river to Kumai was to visit Tanjung Puting National Park, which we did using the Prince of Kumai Yacht Service. Along with Neville from "Quo Vadis" we went on a 2-day trip by klotok: with Danny as guide and crew of cook and driver, we travelled along a tributary of the Kumai River, with meals on board, stopping at various sites in the park to see wildlife, principally the orang-utans.
Camp Leakey was established in 1971 and there are now several other stations, some of which we visited. Although we had previously seen orang-utans in Northern (Malaysian) Borneo we had not seen adult males, nor the interactions between a large group. Most of the animals in Tanjung Puting are living in the wild, though they may appear when 'called' at feeding times and it is fascinating to see them at such close quarters. The adult males weigh about 120Kg and look quite fierce. Twice we had to retreat in order to make way for one coming down a jungle path towards us! During the 2 days we also saw many proboscis monkeys, macaques,a long-eared owl, a large snake swimming close by the boat, a small long-snouted crocodile, hornbills, pitcher plants and so on. The food was very good, and it was lovely to be miles away from habitation and to fall asleep on deck under our mosquito net to the sounds of the forest. When we got up at dawn the proboscis monkeys, whom we had seen in their tree roost overhanging the river the night before, were still asleep. As we waited for our breakfast to be prepared (omelette, banana pancakes, pineapple and local coffee) we watched as they gradually came to life and moved off to find their breakfast!
It was a very relaxing and enjoyable start to Jim's birthday which was celebrated later when we had returned to "Avalon". We were joined by Kathryn, Martin and Will of "Suleika", Janet and Jo "Tegan", Mark and Neville "Quo Vadis" for drinks and snacks: we feasted on fresh prawns brought by Kathryn from the local market and cooked in garlic butter by Barnaby -yum yum!
With over 600 nm to get to Singapore and a date to meet friends there drawing close, we made our way as quickly as possible to Batam Island to check out of Indonesia. The current was with us as we headed down the Kumai River, and the wind favourable to start, but the engine was soon on as we made our way north-west. We had a pleasant 36 hour stop at Serutu Island in spite of swarming termites in the evening - they found their way into the boat even though we had mosquito nets over all hatches: the deck was littered with their bodies next morning. Our passage was enlivened by passengers along the way: we had a few terns who overnighted, but the main interest came from a couple of swallows. The first was exhausted and disappeared below to perch on the net holding onions. Next day another swallow arrived, and immediately started gobbling up the termites on deck. Inspired by this, Jim carried the first swallow on deck (he had managed to give it water using a dropper during the night) where Barnaby fed it with termites by hand using forceps. In due course our passengers, refreshed, flew on. Our menu was supplemented by Jim's catch of a small big-eye tuna, but the biggest fish we have ever had on the line - a black marlin, got away. We estimated that it was over 1.5m long, and we have a photo to prove it!
The main event, of course, was crossing the equator: as it was Barnaby's first sailing across the line Neptune was duly toasted (appropriately we thought with "Southern Comfort") and given a libation, and Barnaby was given the water treatment. Back in the Northern hemisphere after 3 years in southern waters. We anchored overnight at the north side of Rempang Island so as to travel up the Riau Strait in daylight (there had been reports of pirate attacks in the past) and had a pleasant trip up there to Nongsa Point Marina on Batam Island. And so, after a few very pleasant and relaxing days in the marina its time to say "Selamat tinggal" and "Terima kasih" to Indonesia. We enjoyed it very much, just wish we could have stayed longer.
