The Lost Forest

by John Francis Kinsella

  Chapter 20

  PONTIANAK TO PUTISSIBAU

  They left Pontianak in the morning haze, the sun hung suspended like a white disc in the sky as they took the road northwards towards Mempawah, before turning east after forty kilometres in the direction of Sanggau that lay a further two hundred kilometres to the east. The road to Sanggau, the first large town in the interior, was good and they arrived in the early afternoon stopping to eat a quick lunch.

  The object of their trip was to find the most practical access routes to Lanjak, a small town that lay near the border with Sarawak where Ennis had discovered the skull. They had planned to investigate the three different possibilities; each depended on the season and weather conditions. First was the overland route that they were taking, the second alternative was to fly from Pontianak to Putissibau and then reach Lanjak by road, this looked like the best solution but it depended on the condition of the road. The third possibility was by road to Sintang and then upriver by boat to the Denau Swampland and across its lakes to Lanjak, twenty or thirty kilometres further north.

  They had little doubt that their final decision would be a combination of the different routes depending on the size of the expedition and the equipment that had to be transported to the site and logistics base.

  After nearly four hundred kilometres they arrived in Sintang, a town of twenty thousand at the junction of the Kapuas and Melawi rivers, the gateway to the interior and the last big town, overshadowed by a gigantic stone outcropping, Mount Kelam, which loomed out of the forest over the surrounding countryside standing nine hundred meters high.

  Up to that point the road had been fairly good presenting no particular difficulties, but the next morning the topography changed, the road undulated as they approached the foothills of the Schwaner Range with the 1,758m Mt Saran, and the Muller Range with the 1,556m Mt Beturan lying ahead flanked by towering rainforests.

  The road got progressively worse becoming ragged at the edges and their driver worked hard as he expertly avoided the potholes and the oncoming traffic that included overloaded buses and overtaking trucks laden with their loads of yellow gas bottles and cans of palm oil, lurching along the road, swaying menacingly as they rumbled on their way as fast as their motors let them.

  It was another one hundred and thirty kilometres to Semitau over a poor road, the driver explaining to Aris that it was often submerged by flood water during the rainy season from September to January, that varied considerably from one year to the next. In contrast many of the rivers were too low for navigation in places during the dry season from July and August

  There were a couple of daily flights into Putissibau on small local airlines with Dirgantara Air Services or Deraya, that flew a mixed bag of small aircraft, Cessnas and Shorts. That seemed to be fine for the expedition staff but less practical for hauling the archaeological expedition’s bulk material up to the logistics base and camp site.

  They arrived in Putussibau as the sunset; it was a busy and rapidly growing town of twenty thousand souls, built on stilts above the marshlands of the Kapuas River. The town lay in a natural cul-de-sac surrounded on three sides by jungle covered mountains that drained into the dark waters of the Denau Sentarum swampland system that lay behind them. It was the last town before the vast empty mountain ranges of central Borneo covered with almost impenetrable rainforest.

  As they stretched their legs outside of the small hotel the air around them was filled with noise and the odours of durian and other over-ripe fruit, dried fish and mud. Ennis had felt a strange sensation when he realised that beyond Putissibau there was absolutely nothing, he was at the one of the last frontiers of what he considered as civilization, beyond was the kingdom of the rainforest.

  The locals were from another world; they were the tribal people from the interior who had travelled from their villages and longhouses to trade the products of the forest for kerosene and other needs, such as sugar, tea, and batteries. Many of them Aris explained were Ibans, who could be identified by their intricate soot black tattoos and their elongated earlobes, which in certain cases hung down to their shoulders.

  They were more than six hundred kilometres from Pontianak, in the backwaters of the huge Kapuas River. The road to the town was in an appalling condition constantly pounded by trucks and buses, full of holes and ruts. The tiny airport had slowly started to open the region to outsiders as Putussibau became the starting point for trans-Kalimantan trekkers. However, the political and economic crisis had discouraged all but the hardiest adventurers.

  The road from Putissibau to Lanjak had many steep uphill stretches, where its slopes were covered with the loose laterite gravel washed down from the hillsides by the heavy rains. The rickety wooden bridges were bordered with deep potholes, and crossing them a tricky job, manoeuvring the Toyotas between the missing planks. Fortunately there was little traffic as the road twisted and turned through the menacing dark green forest.

  Their goal was to check the town as a possible supply base for their camp and explore the unsurfaced road up to the Lanjak border area and any possible river connections.

  Traffic on the road from Putussibau to Lanjak was scarce, the deep ruts were nothing less than mud pools and some had been filled with branches for better traction and the rickety bridges that crossed the numerous streams were most likely impracticable after heavy rains when the waters rose in torrents. Aris had known what he was doing when he refused making the journey in a single vehicle.

  The surrounding forest was scattered with blackened areas where tree stumps pointed to the sky, seemingly in a cry of despair, signs shifting cultivation, or covered with bright green patches of grass and vegetation that had sprung up after they had been abandoned by the local people after one or two crops of mountain rice.

  When they reached Lanjak after two hours jolting over the treacherous mud covered trail, Aris instructed the driver to report directly to office of the local authorities where they were greeted by officials from governor’s office who inspected their papers. They were the first foreigner to visit Lanjak in almost six months.

  Aris confirmed to the district head that the object of their small expedition was to locate a campsite that would be suitable for their research programme the main object of which was forest biology with geological exploration and a mapping survey of the border region, they omitted talking about the effects of logging as many of the local officials were involved in the traffic of illegal logging in the surrounding border area between Kalimantan and Sarawak.

  They were put up at a small losman over a general store and as they unloaded their baggage from the Toyotas an old and wizened Iban covered with tattoos silently observed them from a corner in the store where he sat crouched down amongst a pile of rice sacks. Aris explained that the tattoos on the front of his throat showed that he was a warrior. Under the weak yellow glow of a single light bulb the old man hugging his ankles watched like a statue carved in wood as the belandas struggled with their heavy bags, his chin on his knees, and his long earlobes dangled down to his dark bony shoulders.

  Over a diner of chicken and rice they studied their maps, they knew that there was a road leading to the Sarawak border from the town of Badau, about fifty kilometres to the west over another dirt road, they had been told that there was very little traffic to and from Badau, except for the movement of trucks carrying their loads of poached timber from Indonesia across the border into Malaysia.

  The next day they continued upriver by perau accompanied by a wrinkled local guide, Bak Enjau, who spoke the local dialects and had been recommended by the officials in Lanjak. Aris after a long discussion with the Bak Enjau pointed at the satellite map on which the ‘discovery area’ had been indicated by his mapping specialists. The map indicated several longhouses upriver on the Sungai Lalang, however, the old man not understanding their objective seemed to be trying to direct them to a longhouse far from the their ultimate goal. Finally and after long and confused exchange he agre
ed to a longhouse that he assured them was situated on the Kalimantan side of the border. From the map it appeared to be near to the cave but the only way to be absolutely certain was to push ahead with the aid of the GPS.

  After an hour on the river the waters had became shallow and fast flowing and after negotiating a series of heart stopping rapids they finally approached the GPS reference point. Bak Enjau shouting over the noise of the outboard pointed to a longhouse just visible through the trees on the next bend ahead of them. They beached their boats and on the river bank and Aris took a GPS reading, which indicated they were a little less than two kilometres as the crow flies from the reference point.

  They were at the separation of the watershed, one side draining down to the Batang Lupar River system to the north and the other to the Kapuas system on the south. The Sungai Lalang was one of the branches of the Batang Lupar that had its source in the nearby hills.

  It seemed to be a good location for the base camp if the Iban Tuay agreed, though two kilometres uphill to the cave and then back everyday would be too extenuating in the humid forest for all but the very fittest.

  The people of the longhouse hid their surprise at the arrival of three perau bearing the foreigners; most had never seen a European. Bak Enjau, after exchanging greeting with the Tuay in their dialect, was invited in the Iban tradition of hospitality with his fellow travellers to eat. A meal was prepared consisting of rice, bananas, river fish, and greens from the vegetable gardens that the women of the longhouse cultivated on nearby the river banks. They ate seated on the floor of the ruai as Bak Enjau engaged what seemed to be a long and intense conversation with the Tuay, finally, turning to Aris he informed him that the Tuay invited them to stay overnight. He would also provide them all the help they needed to climb the hill up to the limestone outcroppings that lay behind the longhouse once they had eaten and rested. The Tuay’s dead pan face did not betray his thoughts, he had met few Belanders, but it was well known that they were a little strange.

  They were deep into the interior, far away from the towns and villages, and as they made their way through the dense vegetation there was little noise apart from the occasional whoops of birds and the clicking and whirring of insects. They saw little visible signs of animals and few birds.

  The path that led part of the way up the hill was barely visible with the Ibans forcing their way through the vegetation with swiping blows of their pahangs. It took them more than an hour to reach the limestone outcroppings and another hour to locate the southern entrance of the cave situated on a narrow limestone plateau.

  Their goal had been reached, after an overland journey from Pontianak that had taken them four days.

  That evening after drinking a considerable quantity of tuak Aris negotiated the installation of the expedition’s camp a short distance from the longhouse against the promise of payment and goods. The agreement was sealed by offering gifts to the Tuay and an Iban ceremony that consisted of offering food to the spirits of their ancestors and the sacrifice of a chicken and a small pig. The pig was given rice and tuak then killed with a swift stab into its jugular vein. It was gutted and its liver was examined by the elders who declared that the spirits were happy and the auspices were good for the cooperation with the Belandas.

  On their return to Lanjak, Aris suggested that for the last leg of their reconnaissance trip they explore the river route back to Semitau. It would avoid the back breaking two hundred kilometres of bad roads to Putissibau and from there to Semitau. There was a regular riverbus service between Lanjak and Semitau that took nine to ten hours. He proposed hiring a fast outboard that would be more reliable and direct as the riverboats rarely respected their timetables.

  When they arrived at the Lanjak boat dock, they saw a river bus moored by the warped boards of the slim covered docks. They quickly rented a speedboat that they were told would take three to four hours navigation, down river to the lakes and then taking another river before reaching the Kapuas. It was ten when they left. They soon discovered another face of Borneo, its rivers and swamp forests, the strange dwarf swamp forests, stunted swamp forests, tall swamp forests, and riparian forests. The constant metallic noise of the motor was mind numbing, reverberating across the water waking birds, from the trees of every shade of green imaginable. A pair of hornbills rose and glided across the water before them. Now and then they saw a troop of monkey stopping to observe the intruders from their branches.

  They reached the lakes an hour later, leaving the river and heading out into the broad expanse of Denau Luar in the Badau District. Clusters of trees and bushes grew out of the water forming strange islands of thick vegetation. The weather was clear and to the north-west rose the pale blue form of the mountains they had left behind them with the peaks of Gunung Betung and Bukit Lanjak on the horizon.

  From time to time they passed small Melayu or Iban fishing villages, some of which were on stilts whilst others were composed of a few floating houseboats and fish traps lashed together far from the banks of the lake.

  The water was as smooth as glass, not even a ripple; it was dark with tannin, seemingly fathomless and menacing. There were few animals or birds. The boat was not the most comfortable form of transport but the ride was smoother than on the river, where they had to constantly zigzag to avoid sunken logs and branches, some of which seemed to lurk just below the surface, threatening to flip the boat over in the blink of an eye. They left one lake following a river then another lake and then another river before leaving the swamplands on the River Tawang and finally arriving in Semitau, where they were met by the Toyotas that had taken the overland route.

  Back in Pontianak they concluded that it would take a month to establish the camp at the Discovery Site and to get the team operational, the best period for the excavation was July and August during the dry season, which meant that the team should start to arrive from the beginning of June onwards. That left them two and a half months to complete the preparations.