One More Day Everywhere

by Heggstad, Glen

  Looping Borneo

  August 4, 2005

  Tawau, East Malaysia

  An endangered species, orangutans that have managed to elude poachers in the wild are difficult to find. The Sipilok Rehabilitation Center on the far eastern tip of Borneo is the largest of four sanctuaries in the world where orangutan orphans are cared for and taught to survive on their own. Just outside the busy seaport of Sandakan, a small, dedicated staff of mostly volunteers studies and rehabilitates former captive adults and babies missed by hunters. Monkeys are common everywhere in Asia, but the human-like features of orangutans puts them in a class of their own, and they are among the most impressive animals in east Malaysia.

  Once past the visitor center, a quarter-kilometer wooden catwalk elevated above the rain forest floor guides adventurers on travel packages to a double-tiered platform for the silent morning show. Here, vacationers perspiring in spiffy new safari clothes can wait for feeding time and distant glimpses of orangutans in training. In thick, humid air, almost to the designated minute, a fat nylon cable stretching a thousand yards back into the jungle begins to jump and sway. One by one, rusty-haired young and old orangutans reach hand over hand, gripping their way forward in a coordinated rhythm to receive morning treats of bananas and sugarcane. Fascinating but touristy, this is still the only way to see orangutans in their natural environment.

  Later that night, smiling to sleep in a polished hardwood lodge, visions of exploring the upcoming wilderness haunt my dreams. Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of Borneo, is reported to be similar to the interior of Sabah yet lacks a consistent coastal route. There are no paved roads to link remote towns and villages, only sloppy tracks and watery paths of shallow jungle rivers. Just exiting East Malaysia requires island-hopping by ferryboat to reach the shores of Kalimantan. That’s been the task here at the last stop in Tawau, locating a sea-going captain willing to haul me to Nunukan Island, where I might find another to take me to Tarakan Island. Because information about the landscape from there is scarce, the path becomes uncertain unless the government has something to offer.

  Officials in the Indonesian consulate are cooperative but skeptical, as not even the government liaison officer understands my mission. Explaining my desire to traverse Kalimantan to end up back at my initial starting point in Kuching, he politely advises that it was more practical to ride the asphalt road back from where I just came. Circling the island by land made no sense to him, especially alone. Upon further consideration, he added that he was uncertain if Indonesian customs in Nunukan had ever processed a motor vehicle. Anyway, the only means he was sure of to reach there was by passenger ferries that had no accommodations for motorcycles.

  In the past, when I needed the approval of government officials, I always found it helped to first shake a man’s hand and look him in the eye — that made it harder to turn me down, and today was no different. By the end of my two-hour plea, a hesitant Mr. Ali was finally convinced to help, offering encouragement by scribbling a note of introduction on the back of his business card. This might come in handy if I got far enough to use it with reluctant customs officials in Kalimantan. And there were still peculiar hurdles lurking ahead.

  It’s wise to be careful where you camp, and not just because of poisonous snakes or wild animals. Even though Borneo is a giant rain forest, it’s nearing the driest time of year, and scientists warn of a danger greater than disease or snake bites: deadfall. Thousands of decaying hardwood tree branches, waterlogged and weighted down by moisture from squalls, silently plummeting to the earth are the most common killers in the jungle. But unless I’m completely stuck, I have no plans to drift from the trail.

  With loggers busy stripping the forest, there should be dirt roads leading to asphalt and cities. There was no established primary route or maps showing the individual connections, but truckers must move pillaged timber somehow. To alleviate self-doubt I mumble, “There is always a first time for everything.” An Internet search yielded only rumors that two bikers had looped the island years ago, but they’d started halfway into Kalimantan — not from the actual border. Regardless, my journey proceeds one step at a time, beginning at the wharf, finding a sympathetic ferryboat captain. Evaluating the tides indicates that at 12:30 p.m. the ship’s main deck will be at dock level for easier cargo transfer.

  When slinging 600 pounds of awkward motorcycle over the raised transoms of passenger ferries, weight is a significant factor. But because of critical gas shortages throughout Indonesia, it’s necessary to fill my 10-gallon tank before loading. There are likely additional obstacles no one has imagined. After studying maps showing dozens of small rivers interrupting established mud roads, I’m certain more boating is ahead. If the jungle does prove to be impassable, failure means a thousand-mile retreat back to Malaysia. Once I start, there’ll be no turning back.

  Nunukan Island

  August 4, 2005

  Kalimantan, Indonesia

  As my Russian experience began aboard a ferry in Japan, so did my journey into Indonesia from Malaysia. Packed nearly on top of each other in the sticky heat of an overcrowded ship’s hold, curious crewmen and inquisitive passengers edged closer to share handfuls of dried squid and initiate a sign-language conversation. No one spoke English, yet after drawing a map, they understood where I was headed, though they remained unsure why.

  Loading the motorcycle onto the rusted decks of the passenger ferry had been an over-the-plank roll-on under power, yet, in shaking their heads and repeating “Nunukan,” dubious shipmen hinted that off-loading would be another matter. It was, but nothing a dozen anxious helpers couldn’t handle with a cooperative captain running the hundred-foot-long ship bow first directly against the wharf for a team-effort manhandle onto solid ground.

  Once on the island, a stop to investigate a roadside gathering of costumed natives results in a joyous invitation to join an Islamic wedding procession. Muslims can be as liberal as they please in Indonesia — women wear garments from white-laced headscarves to see-through blouses with black brassieres. It’s far too crowded for up-close photos of the ceremony, but tittering bridesmaids and decked-out relatives are anxious to pose for the foreigner while eating and drinking. Although there was little to offer, the men insisted I sample a small table buffet of smoking hot chili dishes — as always, it’s those with the least who share the most.

  Last week, when I traveled further east through Sabah, the economic situation had deteriorated as evenly as the infrastructure, until it became a pitiful crumple in Kalimantan. But Indonesians shouting greetings today seem content and friendly enough, and it took an hour threading my way through throngs of beckoning islanders to reach the town’s lone hotel. Two bucks buys a tidy cubicle with a drooping mattress and a coldwater-bucket bathroom. But the manager lets me use his office’s electrical outlet to charge my laptop, and the café next door sells bargain seafood dinners.

  Although their answers varied, when I asked locals in East Malaysia, they were confident a bigger boat sailed from Nunukan to Tarakan Island. From there, it would be land-based travel until completing the loop back to Kuching. That is, except for passing over a variety of unfamiliar rivers and swamps.

  It turns out there were only two small passenger ferries, both lacking deck space for motorcycles. Anxious to help a wandering foreigner, my new-found friend, Abdul Kahar, explains that there is a 10-foot wooden fishing boat sailing at dawn to arrive west on the mainland — even better for setting my record because it’s right on the border instead of further away, where the previous team began.

  To my dismay, local Kalimantan maps still don’t show roads connecting villages in remote Dayak tribal regions. Although I still believe it’s possible to complete my loop around Borneo, on further examination, the estimated distance has stretched to a zigzagging 3,000 miles from here. Barring typhoons and other mishaps, I could reach the other border of East Malaysia in three weeks.

  Loggers


  August 6, 2005

  Simanggaris, Kalimantan, Borneo

  Staring down onto the deck of a freshly painted open-deck fishing boat, I was beginning to believe what people had been repeating the last week. Riding a motorcycle around the island of Borneo was impossible. From the edge of the splintered plank pier, 10 sturdy young wharf workers proposed lowering a 500-pound motorcycle five feet down by hand onto the bow of an awkward, rocking 25-foot water vessel.

  But since every other ship’s captain had refused the job, this was the last chance to escape Nunukan Island and reach the mainland. After setting up my camera and taking 10 deep breaths, within a few nervous moments, a shiny Blue Beast sat resting on its kickstand while it was securely roped-down for a morning sail across the channel. The upriver logging outpost at Simanggaris is known only to boatmen and can’t be identified on a local map. I was almost out of the frying pan.

  Because yesterday only the immigration office was open and not customs, when arriving, I just offered my passport for stamping without discussing the bike. Indonesian customs officials did not hear about a motorcycle until this morning, as we were preparing to sail. Since no one was sure how to proceed, friendly-but-firm uniformed men with carbine rifles refused to allow us to proceed. But after several calls to superiors in Jakarta and six cups of tea, they determined all we needed was to stamp my carnet de passage and I could be on my way.

  Soon, cool ocean breezes countered a slow-chugging diesel engine pushing us forward among hundreds of tiny islands covered with wild banana trees and thick, tangled undergrowth. Wild boar snorted on empty beaches as huge flapping birds with purple beaks crooned and cackled in the shallows. Eventually, the bay began to channel backwards into a narrow brown river restricted by tides.

  At the Simanggaris mud landing a lone, nonuniformed cop was waiting with radio in hand and permit forms to fill out. Since there was no wharf, we waited for the sundown high tide to roll the bike directly onto the steep, slippery bank. After explaining my mission by drawing a map, the police captain invites me to sleep at his outpost and offers to sketch a route over hundreds of unmarked trails. “You are sure to get lost — there are many turns without signs.” But intersections without markings were still better than no roads at all.

  But the reason for roads is troubling. Except for the remote, untamed interior of Borneo, logging roads have been cut to facilitate what’s recently been outlawed — pillaging of the jungle’s valuable timber and replacing the giant hardwood trees with palm groves. After the destruction of the rain forest, a better cash crop for multinational corporations are palm tree seedlings from which they can harvest cooking oil. Not a bad idea if you leave out the fact that the process is destroying one of the most spectacular rain forests on earth.

  Riding over the first rise from the river, I see a view of the appalling devastation. The forest has been leveled in all directions to the horizon, leaving a barren landscape devoid of life. With nothing there to hold the topsoil in storms, what remains are thousands of rounded red clay knolls littered with tree stumps — tombstones marking the end of life in the forest. This is how I’d imagine the earth would look after nuclear war — an ecological disaster of unfathomable magnitude.

  As a result of pressure from ecologists, logging in the rain forest is now restricted. The four policemen offering me shelter had been appointed by the Indonesian government to monitor the logging. They are also sons of the corporate manager who owns the palm groves, and, as they revealed with their comments about earning big money, they cooperate with the logging companies.

  Simanggaris is a conglomeration of 50 logging camps connected by a maze of mangled dirt roads. Scattered rows of barrack-style shacks are home to a thousand workers laboring 10 hours a day in the harsh tropical heat. Through the course of the night, half the population passed through the police compound to verify the rumors of a blue-eyed foreigner on two wheels. The boss was the only one who spoke English. From the cool air-conditioned cab of his company pickup, the Malaysian project manager explained his program.

  “First we cut down those useless old trees and then replace them with palm groves. In 13 months we begin taking the oil.”

  “But what about the rain forest?”

  Pointing to the policemen lounging on the station veranda, he laughs “Oh we don’t worry, no one cares about that.”

  “What about your workers? How much do you pay them?”

  “Our employees are very fortunate and their future depends on them. If they work hard, they can earn 30 to 40 dollars per month.”

  When traveling, it’s often difficult to resist the urge to criticize. It can be a mistake to judge those living in less fortunate circumstances. How Indonesia balances its economic growth by exploiting its natural resources should be its own business, but the world science community universally believes the destruction of the rain forest is a crime-for-profit against the planet we all expect to sustain us.

  My stomach was already turning. As the evening progressed with flitting bugs bouncing off humming tubular fluorescent lights, the stench of these men’s complicity overtook the smell of their cheap whiskey and stale cigarettes. The bed they had laid out for me under the office fan would surely have been more comfortable than the smothering humidity outside, but I found a cleansing relief in declining the hospitality and pitching my tent in the sand.

  The Reality of Borneo

  August 9, 2005

  Kalimantan

  The warnings I’d had about the dozens of unmarked junctions were justified. A flip-of-the-coin choice ended at a murky brown river too deep to ride, prompting a frustrating 40-mile backtrack and half a day lost.

  Logging company workers fiddling with the bike last night had broken one of the metal contact prongs supplying power to the GPS. A scrap piece of folded tinfoil from a chewing gum wrapper is almost a substitute until engine vibration causes an intermittent connection failure, so those vital Breadcrumbs tracks frequently disappear. If I can save the sporadically displayed lines and dots on the screen, data stored on my flash disk would be the first satellite record of this area. Even the two logging company engineers I met, working with modern laser survey equipment, lacked enough information to create a map. Their laptop computer stored details of the immediate region but showed only towns of 10,000 people or more — and there are few of those in Kalimantan. While we swapped notes over lukewarm soft drinks and stale potato chips, they assured me that by tomorrow night, I would reach an aggregate road southwest to coastal Samarinda.

  Aware indigenous people in Indonesian Borneo are less tame than their tourist-tainted counterparts in Malaysia, I ask the engineers, “What about the Dayak tribes? Can I stop to visit?”

  “You’d better find a soldier to go with you. Those people are uncivilized and resent foreigners. You can tell by their tattoos that they are primitive and should not be approached without invitation.”

  As the rutted track finally turned to graded gravel, I realized that those warnings of an “impossible” ride would have been correct had it rained. After moderate storms, yesterday’s steep, eroded gullies of slick clay would have been impassible, with four-wheel drive. This is now the second day without rain that, even in this dry season, should fall nightly. If the weather returned to normal, this could become rough country to be stranded in.

  Unless you’re in constant forward motion on a motorcycle, the heat and humidity here can be unbearable. Soaked in sweat at midnight, when sleep finally comes, it lasts only a few hours. Two restless nights in a tent and one in a bare-bones logger’s camp without electricity has drained my mental energy. Lurking mosquitoes don’t bother me anymore; ultimately they’ll drink their fill. But the lack of sleep causes errors in judgment, and while navigating without reference, the forest begins to look the same. Villages appear more often now, but just getting the names right from the natives to record in the GPS is difficult as their accents vary greatl
y every 20 miles.

  My spiced tapioca rice bars kept fresh in damp banana leaves ran out yesterday, but a brown-shelled honey-tasting fruit curbs my hunger enough to keep riding. Already too heavy for the unstable riding conditions, my water-hauling capacity has been limited to four two-liter plastic bottles. But with all this sweating, even after consuming two a day, I produce almost no urine.

  This afternoon, like a promised reward, a regional map tacked on the wall of a military outpost shows a thousand-mile stretch of paved road with a city large enough for an airport just 200 miles ahead — Samarinda. That means air-conditioned hotels and Internet terminals with nearby seafood restaurants are only two days away. Considering the potential for mishaps, though, I realize anything can happen along the way — with so many variables to plan for, my dreams of returning to Kuching are more remote than ever.

  Grappling and the Art of Motorcycle Travel

  August 10, 2005

  Tengan Selor, Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo

  Black belt competition judo matches last for an unbelievably exhausting, seemingly endless five minutes. During that time, combatants try to position themselves under or around their opponent in order to gain sufficient leverage to slam each other onto their backs, force an elbow joint backwards or strangle the weaker man into unconsciousness by restricting blood flow to the brain. The loser can stop the fight at any time to prevent permanent injury by slapping the mat — submission. The same applies for jujitsu, but because most of the battle is waged on the ground, rounds extend to 10 minutes. Western wrestling is a series of fast-paced, incredibly intense two-minute rounds where contestants seek to pin another highly trained fighter’s shoulders to the mat. Because of the simultaneous use of hands, arms and legs, grappling is the most demanding and requires the most refined technique of all the contact fighting arts.