It is then I see them—three dead bodies piled on the ground. Three militants—two of them barely out of their teens and a third, perhaps in his forties—had been gunned down by the army, but more are holed up in the deserted house on the road through which Aziz has just taken me. Aziz knew they were there and had deliberately chosen this road just for the thrill. We stand beside the dead bodies and take our pictures. My encounter with terrorists—to be preserved for posterity.
At the airport, I meet Major C again, and I am eager to share my experience of the morning with him, but he seems impatient to get away from me. I ask him his surname, but he pretends not to hear and moves away. We both are on the same flight, but he avoids me studiously and dissolves into the crowd when we reach Delhi airport. I am disappointed, but over time, life takes over. Major C recedes into the recesses of my memory.
Now I ask him why, long years ago, in the Kashmir Valley, he took a ride with a civilian at night when he had the army vehicle at his disposal. ‘Sudha, how do you think I survived in the Valley for seven years through the thick of militancy? I never travelled in army vehicles, never disclosed my Kashmiri surname to anyone, and kept a low profile.’
Toasting in Toledo
In 2007, it was still early days. There was no Trivago or TripAdvisor back then. Having blundered through several destinations as a backpacker, I was confident I could enlist the Internet to manage all bookings for our month-long trip through Spain, Portugal and Morocco. R, my friend and travel companion on this trip, bowed to my perceived superior wisdom and let me handle the entire itinerary. It was thus we found ourselves at the Plaza de Zocodover, Toledo’s splendid city square, on the hottest day of the year. The plaza itself was impressive, and the fortress perched on the hilltop magnificently sepia-tinted and venerable. The town was somewhere in-between.
Craning our necks to locate our destination for the day, we braced ourselves for the climb up very narrow, very winding and very cobbled streets, crowded with camera-toting tourists and annoyed resident cyclists. Not only did we have to heave ourselves up, but also lug our suitcases stuffed with clothes to last us a month and weighing a ton. After a few minutes of tugging away like a mischievous dog on a leash, the wheels of my suitcase turned recalcitrant; after all, they were designed for the polished floors of airports, not medieval cobbles. Promptly, one broke loose and committed suicide, hurling itself over the cliff. Even as I manoeuvred the disabled luggage with some unsightly acrobatics up the steep hill, the handle pulled ominously to one side, threatening to come off. This was going to take time.
‘Eureka!’ shouted R, pointing to a signboard which said Santo Tomé—that indeed was the name of our hotel. We huffed and puffed some more and dragged ourselves along, secure in the knowledge that we were almost there. When we finally got up there, the board seemed to be that of a patisserie. We plodded on. The next Santo Tomé was a churreria selling churros, a sort of tasteless Spanish pretzel. The third Santo Tomé was a souvenir shop selling picture postcards and keychains to suckers like us, and the fourth a street cafe. And the next one, to be sure, was the church itself, which must have bewitched or browbeaten every business establishment in its extended vicinity, including our budget hotel, to adopt its name.
Cursing the Toledanos for their lack of imagination, I stopped to fish out the map from the cavernous depths of my handbag where I had shoved it. It was only when I opened it that I realized I had picked up the Spanish version. And to add to my agony, the print was so tiny that I had to grope for my spectacles as well. Clutching the map in one hand and dragging the mangled suitcase with the other, I plodded on some more, ignoring several other Santo Tomés until we finally chanced upon the real one, our budget pad for the next two nights.
It was a family-run place in an old Spanish mansion, with a shop on the ground floor and the reception on the first. I told R to wait on the ground floor and skipped up the carpeted staircase unencumbered by luggage. The receptionist cheerfully informed me our room was on the fourth floor. As I was about to object, she assured me, with a syrupy smile, that it had great views of all of Toledo and was indeed the most sought-after room in the hotel. Or at least that’s what I understood, from my limited acquaintance with Spanish-accented English.
Too exhausted to argue, I snatched the keys and ran down the stairs. We somehow managed to hoist both our suitcases up to the elevator opposite the reception. It was only then we realized that this elevator began on the first floor and ended on the third, whereas our room was on the fourth! Before I could turn to ask the receptionist, she had vanished without a trace.
If you think this was sheer bad luck, wait until you see the elevator, which, like Toledo, was a heritage contraption. It had collapsible iron gates, but that was not the problem. It was so tiny that it could ferry either one human or two suitcases at a time. This is what you should expect when a family home metamorphoses into a hotel and even has the temerity to present itself on the World Wide Web as a luxurious hotel at budget prices. I reminded myself of that childhood fable—how an ingenious boatman ferries a tiger, a goat and a bundle of grass intact across the river—for inspiration. After several permutations and combinations and a lot more cursing, we managed to reach our room with our luggage!
Zocodover was like any other European plaza—a cobbled square abutted by cafes and teeming with tourists. It’s not hard to imagine that this used to be an Arab souk dealing in livestock trade. The name Zocodover is a corruption of Souq-al-dawab, or livestock market. It had seen worse than tourists and livestock though—burnings at the stake, for instance, during the Inquisition, and bullfights too. We wandered around aimlessly and ate marzipan, the typical almond pastry that is a specialty of the town.
Having forgotten the trauma of lugging our suitcase uphill, we jauntily walked around the plaza and spotted a huge queue in front of counter. We joined the line of tourists and bought ourselves tickets to the toy train that would give us a city tour. Blithely we had assumed it would be an air-conditioned coach, which would enthral us with rectangular frames of Toledo from the cool comfort of our seats. But instead, when the Zocotren did arrive, it was a string of open tin boxes—very decorative, no doubt—that had already reached melting point, thanks to its many peregrinations through the streets of Toledo that day. Even as our backsides were toasted by the unpadded tin seats, hot winds blowing from the valley attended to the torso and face. At the end of the journey, we resembled broiled chicken and were none the wiser about the orientation of the city.
The next morning, we stumbled towards that beacon, the Alcázar (al-qasr in Arab, meaning the castle), which dominates the Toledo skyline with its four majestic turrets. It has gone through a confusing array of conversions—first built by a Moorish monarch, then repurposed by the Christians as a palace, to be further repurposed into a military garrison and finally left alone to mellow into a gloriously sepia-tinted ruin which can be ticketed to tourists. Unlike the window of our fourth floor room in the hotel, the ramparts of the old Arab city wall give you great view of the pink rooftops of Toledo.
Toledo is an El Greco city. But Toledanos remember their other illustrious compatriot better. Castille La Mancha and Don Quixotes of all sizes stare at you from virtually every shop window. Indeed, you have to be a bit quixotic to include Toledo in your itinerary—something we learnt the hard way on this trip.
Borneo: Raw, Rough and Ravishing
If you believe the rainforest is a tranquil sanctuary to escape to from the tiresome chaos of cities, it’s time to question your beliefs! It is a sanctuary, no doubt, just not for you—but for the living, throbbing natural life that tests your survival skills. If the swampy ground doesn’t swallow you whole, the venomous insects swarming underfoot will get you, the incessant rain their ready accomplice.
Blissfully unaware of all this, we, a motley group of five Indians, land up in western Borneo, better known as Kalimantan Barat, the ultimate rainforest and the last frontier in biodiversity on planet Earth. We picked
Indonesian Borneo over Malaysian Sarawak since it is raw wilderness, not the tourist trap that Sarawak is. We choose Gunung Palung National Park in west Kalimantan to spend a week. Lubuk Baji was to be our pit stop from where we had to explore the jungle. Sure enough, it was not on anyone’s map and most certainly not on GPS. You have to be both crazy and hardy to venture into this dreaded outpost.
All of us are crazy enough, but two of us on the verge of senior citizenship discover to our dismay that we are no longer hardy enough. It took us three full days to reach the pit stop. Glenn, our Australian guide, who is more local than the native Dayaks, assures us that more people have attempted scaling Mount Everest than venturing into this part of Borneo.
Unknown to the world, we may have been setting a record of being the first Indians to set foot on this virgin jungle. I had identified this spot after quite a bit of research and had carried on a protracted correspondence with a Dutch adventure enthusiast on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum to identify places where we had a chance of seeing orangutans in the wild. They are shy creatures and difficult to spot. Of course, there are many conservation centres where you can even cuddle one, but we were after the real thing, the wild old man of the forest. West Kalimantan is one of the last refuges of this shy primate. Further surfing helped me locate Glen, an Australian living in Kuching, whom I hired as our guide for this adventure. Arranging stuff through the Internet may appear easy, but throws up unexpected—and perilous—surprises. Glen’s hearing was severely impaired, something we discovered only on meeting him face-to-face in Kalimantan. Not much of a help when tramping through a noisy jungle, as we were to find out.
As our travel plans begin to take shape, we realize how remote this place is. It calls for five modes of transport—plane, ferry, SUV, canoe and trek on foot—to reach the jungle. We flew from Delhi to Jakarta and boarded the Air Batavia flight to Pontianak, a town located on the equator in Kalimantan island, also known as Borneo. As the plane crossed the South China Sea and floated over the island, all you could see for almost half an hour was just an endless stretch of oil palm plantations. Stretches of jungles that still remained belched out smoke every few miles. The locals were burning down more forests to grow more oil palms.
Where is the jungle we are headed to? I wonder. Our steward, a young Javanese lad, cannot fathom why this odd bunch would go to Pontianak of all places when there are gorgeous temples in Borobudur and exquisite beaches in Bali. No, he has not heard of Lubuk Baji or Ketapang.
No prizes for guessing what sustains the economy of Pontianak. It is an out-and-out oil town—palm oil, not petroleum. Millions of barrels of this viscous fat are loaded daily on to ships and sent to all parts of the world in the service of cholesterol with a little help from multinationals who boil it in gargantuan vats to process everything from cookies to cakes, pastries, chocolates, frozen desserts, chips, fries and all that junk food we so relish.
Pontianak is also a timber town where zillions of logs clog up the estuaries. We can’t resist the temptation to visit the equator monument and take our regulation photographs straddling the two hemispheres across a faint metallic line at its base before we return to our hotel, a seedy rundown establishment that reminds me of Russian hotels in Soviet times. A raucous wedding celebration is under way in the hotel, and we, the only foreigners around, are heartily invited. We take our pictures with the bride and the groom and the rest of the guests, gorge on the hearty feast and return to our gloomy rooms.
The next day we head to the ferry terminal to catch the speedboat to Ketapang, a biggish village, seven sailing hours away. The scene that stares at us at the Pontianak ferry terminal makes us want to rush back to the hotel, which now seems like a pleasure palace compared to this chaos. The terminal is overflowing with humanity, sacks, bags, suitcases and cartons bursting with merchandise; a parade of two-wheelers has already been loaded on the deck with another line waiting to be loaded. Women, kids, families, traders with packages, all are scrambling over each other to claim their six inches of space on the boat. There is only a weekly service to Ketapang.
Glen eyes us warily, wondering if we are up to the task of clambering over luggage and limbs into this overcrowded ferry. Poor Glen, he has never dealt with Indians before and does not know their capacity to plough through any crowds. Adroitly we march towards the jetty, hang on to the railing, trip over luggage, knock kids off balance, upset baskets of poultry and manage to access the gangplank. There are two decks—both hermetically sealed on all sides and packed with rows of seats covered in outrageously stuffy and smelly upholstery.
Mercifully, every seat is already taken. Every inch of free space on the aisle and corners is also taken up with plastic stools, all occupied. A TV belts out pop music in Bahasa. As we gape in dismay, an usher sheepishly herds us to the farthest corner and offers us plastic stools too. The boat must have at least twice the number of passengers it is allowed to carry.
Soon, the engine lets out a shattering hoot and we are on our way. The passengers have begun unwrapping their breakfast bought at the boat terminal from itinerant vendors, mostly liquids in polythene bags with stuff floating in them. And thus begins the olfactory assault, an unfamiliar aroma so overpowering that I choke even today when I remember it. The floor is turning slippery with liquids dripping from the polythene carry bags. Soon, hundreds of roaches crawl out of the upholstery, eager to get their share.
As the roaches start tickling our toes and the stench becomes unbearable, I wiggle my way through the crowds to push open a door and barge into the captain’s cabin. My team follows suit. Being the only foreigners on the boat, we’re not shooed off. We flash our most ingratiating smiles and pick our way through the six men lounging around in their sarongs or jeans—no smart white sailors’ uniforms here; it’s Kalimantan, after all—and plonk ourselves on packages and cartons strewn all over the tiny cabin. It is thick with cigarette smoke. Oh no, we’re not complaining about tobacco smell; we are truly grateful that this tobacco smell has effectively masked the smell of food wafting in from the passenger decks. We lean across the window and let the breeze resuscitate our tortured olfactory nerves. A dream landscape with lush mangroves on either bank unfolds. All travails are soon forgotten.
When we reach Ketapang after seven hours, we are greeted by a torrential downpour. Off-loading all the passengers and identifying their assorted luggage takes hours. Glenn has managed an SUV in this outpost and a local Bahasa-speaking guide to boot! Off we go teetering on traces of roads towards the village of Sukadana on the edge of the forest, three hours’ drive away.
Sukadana is a neat little village with a high street consisting mostly of eateries with live specimens waiting to be chosen for lunch or dinner. And also a fashion store that has more mannequins than dresses to sell, so much so, some of them are left stark naked. In the produce market, durians announce their presence, miles away. We stay in the only hotel in town, a lovely traditional building with Dayak thatch and a surrounding moat on the edge of the bay. A low tide in the morning reveals a mesmerizing courtship dance of mudskippers of which there are hundreds trapped in the moat, not to mention a couple of water snakes.
Glenn procures our forest permits at Sukadana and we set off the next day into the jungles with Dar, our guide, and Ali, our porter-cum-cook. First we drive for an hour and park our vehicle at the edge of the rainforest. Armed with cameras, tripods, clothes, rainwear, medicines and balms, spare shoes, mosquito netting, bed sheets, etc., each of us is backpacking at least 10 kg. Ali carries the groceries and veggies we purchased from Sukadana. We even have some aromatic Indonesian dark coffee.
We hop on to a small boat which glides gracefully through the Kapuas River and deposits us on the banks near one of the many creeks that radiate from the river. Here, we board two canoes rowed by local boys.
Two young Bornean lads steering our canoe through a dense chlorophyll canopy
We glide through the reddish waters barely visible for the low-hanging canopy. We s
py a couple of snakes dangling from the branches and the boat boys deftly manoeuvre the canoe to avoid them. Proboscis monkeys perch on the higher branches. A bird suddenly takes off with a raucous cry as the canoe approaches. We meander through the creek for an hour before we are dropped off on a marshy patch to begin our trek.
This trek is perhaps the most difficult I have undertaken in all my travels. The terrain is a soggy swamp of sodden leaves, at least a metre high. Your foot sinks up to your ankles as you step on the ground. The jungle begins on a steep slope strewn with moss-covered boulders that dodge the crampons in your trekking boots to dislodge you. Felled tree trunks sprouting fluorescent toadstools advertise poison as they block your path challenging you to an obstacle race. Torrential rains have churned the mud into a slushy trap, underneath which lurk creatures unseen. What we do see is enough to give us the creeps—6-inch-long, finger-thick centipedes and glowing red millipedes crawl everywhere, giant leeches, fat snails, and armies of other insects whose names I don’t know swarm underfoot. I have a stick to help me gauge the terrain, but very often, I have to cling to the vines and trunks to keep myself from tripping or slipping and when I do that, bright red killer ants crawl up my limbs and under my clothes. In many places, Glenn throws us a rope secured to a tree trunk to which we cling to be hoisted up inch by painful inch. The rainforest trek is particularly challenging for the bespectacled. You’re forever wiping the water off your glasses, and even when the rain stops, it is so steamy that you can hardly see where you’re going anyway.
The Travel Gods Must Be Crazy Page 9