Erstellt am: 25. 7. 2011 - 15:42 Uhr
Johnny Planet: Rückblick 2011/1
It's also on the air tonight! "Johnny's Journeys", 7-10pm
I've read somewhere that the most memorable photographs (meaning, literally, photos that we can remember) are photographs of other humans - and no matter how amazing your double rainbow photograph may have been, it will never stand up to the test of time like a person photo does.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
I would like to add to that, however, my own personal amendment: instead of humans, let's say humanoids. But no, that's not even accurate - for example a macaque monkey may look somehow similar to us, but if you stare one in the eyes, you will find a simple animal staring back at you.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
(1) Without getting to know said cat, that is.
I think I have to be even more specific: humans, orangutans and probably several other great apes as well are creatures that will look you in the eye as an equal, as another sentient being, not so unlike the ones we've known all of our lives. Or, to put it another way: if you can see a creature and find yourself stifling the urge to nod your head and say "Servus!", then chances are good that you will also remember their faces and distinct personalities for a lot longer than you would, for example, a cat (1), and they will withstand the test of time in all of your most memorable photo albums.
(2) Which, by the way, is the third-largest island in the entire world, unless you count Australia, in which case it's the fourth-largest island, after neighbouring Papua and Greenland.
In the middle of February, I unwittingly tested this theory, travelling with a good friend from here (Roman) and his mother, into the thick of the jungle on the southwestern Indonesian coast of the island of Borneo (2). We started, however, in the middle of the night, in the south-eastern seaside city of Banjarmasin.
By the time I'd received my luggage and gone through the lax (you could almost say: non-existent) airport security gates, Roman had already made friends with a local woman who spoke very good English and agreed to share a taxi with us into town, so as to spare us getting "tourist" prices and paying out an additional Euro each or whatever it would have translated to. (3)
(3) That happens after a while. You start thinking in the local currency and begin haggling over 50 Euro Cents as if it was actually any money at all.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
This was somehow very good though, because as we discovered all too quickly, nearly all of the hotel rooms in the entire city were taken. This left two hotels that we could find - the "expensive" (not really) western one with air conditioning and TVs, and the three-Euro-option, offering absolutely nothing except bare mattresses and lots of mosquitoes.
Of course this begs the question: Who the hell is taking all of these hotel rooms? Banjarmasin in rainy season is not exactly Paris, is it? We don't sit around on our terraces back in Austria and say: "Oh man, I wanna go to Banjarmasin in February!" ... it just doesn't exist on our personal radar screens.
The answer, according to our new friend in the cab, is that local youth, who almost all live with their extended families in very small houses, rent out these hotel rooms over the weekends when they want to go out and party without mom and dad (and all the sisters and brothers) around.
Perfectly understandable, but this left us tourists on our first night - which just so happened to be Friday - sleeping in rooms so poor even the locals didn't want them.
We were all tired, however, and didn't complain, simply lugged our baggage into the rooms, turned off the lights and hid sweating in our sleeping bags as mosquitoes searched around us for a way into our veins. I thought to myself: "Oh Lawd, what have I got myself into?", as I drifted off to sleep.
Thankfully, from that point onward, Borneo was awesome.
Day One: Banjarmasin
(4) For the record, I don't mind roughing it. On the other hand, would prefer not to get sick with bugs and tropical illness.
After some pretty delicious banana bread for breakfast, we went straight for the ultra-touristy western hotel that had toilets, air-con, and mattresses that did not look like someone had been murdered in them. (4)
By now, the word was out on the street that there were some new foreigners in town. One after the other, we got approached by self-styled tour guides, some of whom were recommended by Lonely Planet, others who lacked any credibility at all, and seemed only to be after our money.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
After conversations with two of the more credible-seeming tour guides, a rather bizarre concept began to form in our minds: other than (supposedly) one Russian girl and one American man, we might be literally the only white foreigners in the entire city of over 600,000 people.
Or maybe that was just the story they were selling us to make their situation as tour guides seem more desperate. We didn't see anybody else, at least not at this stage, so we will probably never know.
Our flight to the village at Port Kumai was booked - through a local travel agent - for early the next morning, which gave us time to kill. We wandered around town a bit, kept nibbling on delicious local food, went to an amazing internet cafe (see below), and bought me some cheap new shoes that would fall apart three days later. It was quite hot outside, and we were very lethargic, and we became increasingly annoyed at a particular tour guide who hounded us, and insisted that when we arrived at Kumai we should do business with his tour operator friend with a boat.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
We went to a small but charming "western" restaurant for dinner, and retired to bed early. I posed with the restaurant's mascot chicken man.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Day Two: Port Kumai
I remember very little of the trip to the airport.
Mornings: not my thing. All I remember from the airport is that the security guy who scanned over our baggage had a big smile, and a name tag that read Sooperman. I am still kicking myself today for not taking a picture.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
We landed at Port Kumai without incident. Our friendly guide's boat operator friend, however, had been alerted of our approach, and was at the airport to meet us. He was so enthusiastic, he even brought his own taxi to drive us directly to his home.
Unfortunately, I don't remember his name but he was given positive mention in Lonely Planet, so we thought we would listen to his offer.
(5) - for house boat, permit, guide, cook and driver.
To make a long story short: Everything looked fine, except that the prices he quoted us (5) upon our arrival at his place were close to three times the prices we found in our guidebooks. Our new friend explained that this was because of rising petrol prices, but we opted to go into the village and see what else we could find.
Surprise, surprise! The first company we approached that offered tour boat trips through the jungle and waterways of Tanjung Puting National Park, offered more services for less money. The boat looked almost exactly the same as the first one, but maybe even nicer. Sold!
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Days Three to Six: Tanjung Puting National Park
Early the next morning, we left on our brand new boat, complete with skilled cook, driver, friendly (but not over-friendly) guide and very nice weather. The water was initially quite clean and blue, and the view of Kumai as we set off was just fab.
A bit of a shock awaited us about an hour into our trip. At some point, suddenly, there was this invisible line where suddenly the water stopped being clear and blue; became instead the colour of coffee with cream. We asked our guide about why this is, and he said something about an industrial accident ... a spill in the water ... pollution. To date, it is still a mystery to me. Someday I would like to find out why.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
This wouldn't be the last massive change in the colour of the water. First the lake narrowed into a river, surrounded on either side by thick potty green undergrowth, making our way a bit of a straight road. After going past the ranger station, and showing them our newly-purchased permit, we got to a curve in the river where suddenly the water turned black. This, apparently, was a good thing.
"Now you can take a shower again if you like," our guide (Joe) told us. Because the shower tap took the water directly from the river, apparently the coffee cream would be very very bad, but the black is natural and safe.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
I can only imagine what it must be like for all the fish, monkeys, and crocodiles who do not understand the meaning of an "industrial accident" but who nevertheless have to live every day in such an environment.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
We started catching glimpses of mammals jumping from tree to tree. At one point there was finally an orangutan in a particularly high tree above us. Although it was very distant, my camera has a good zoom, and I managed to capture a better view of it than I could actually see.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Stunning multi-coloured birds began to appear with ever-greater frequency, flying by as we sat on deck and watched in speechless awe.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Eventually, we arrived at Camp Leakey, which was established in 1971 by a Canadian (!) named Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas. I'm not going to ape her biography (no pun intended) off of the orangutan.org website, only say that if my uneducated musings inspire in you any sort of desire to find out more, the website is very informative.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Our guide, meanwhile, had promised us a hike through the jungle.
There are so many things you see there that, as a layman, you simply do not understand. This makes it frustrating to write a web story.
At some point on our hike, Joe gave us some long, thin, pencil-like sticks with a hole drilled into one end (see above), and told us to drink. The liquid we found inside - which tasted a lot like water - is known to be a rainforest medicine, for use against an upset stomach.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
On the downside, at some point Roman and his mother discovered leeches had attached themselves to their ankles and legs. For some reason, probably because I was walking behind the rest of the group, I'd been spared the personal acquaintance of any leech.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
A strange thing about the jungle: it's very much like any forest, anywhere, in a way. There were long stretches of the hike where I could almost believe I was in the Wienerwald, except for the heat and some of the strange noises. But then you would turn a corner, and see some strange tree with its roots hanging in the air, or a giant butterfly would whizz by you, and it was like: Damn! The Wienerwald got high.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Now we're getting to the point where I really can't put it off any longer.
It's time for some apes.
Our first proper sighting of an orangutan - I mean close-up - was right near the entrance of the Camp Leakey. We'd been disinterestedly watching some wild boars, when suddenly this reddish-hued being gracefully danced down the trees to nearly ground-level, and pilfered some bananas from the back of a truck. He looked back at us with a wry look, and then carried on.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
After that, it was like they'd always been around us. Everywhere you looked, they were there, hanging out on some branches with their children or communing with the rangers who gave them food, or even just seeming to have intense quiet conversations with one another, conducted entirely with their eyes and body language.
What is so special about watching the orangutans? It's very easy to anthropomorphize them because to see their every movement is like watching the most graceful ballet dancer on the planet, at least in the trees. On the ground their mystical powers would leave them, and they'd suddenly seemed nearly as clumsy as we are.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Sometimes a few of them would watch us like we were zoo animals. By and large, it must be said, they kept their distance. But even that is an over-generalization. Each orangutan had its own attitude and approach and philosophy toward humans. Our guide attempted to introduce us to Princess (I think that was her name), who could operate machinery and communicate with sign language, but she wasn't interested.
One early disappointment was that the King orangutan, Tom, was nowhere to be seen. But we had time. It had been a long day.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
The nights in the jungle are very special. The jungle music of all the insects singing mating songs is everything I ever thought it would be: loud and composed of many different voices, but in fact not so loud.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
We would sit out on the deck and wax philosophical underneath the moon, with our only other light coming either from candles or fireflies. The moon, however, was very bright at the time.
Second or third night, I had a waking dream where I was dead certain that a macaque monkey (one of the nasty small ones) had gotten on-deck and was hissing and leaping at me. I woke up with a shout, and so doing awoke the entire boat by accident.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
We also saw a couple other kinds of ape. The weirdest by far were the proboscis monkeys, who looked like they belonged to a different planet, or a Dr. Seuss book perhaps. Whenever I saw them, they were just sitting on their haunches in a tree somewhere, staring out into the darkness. They were by far the most stationary and anti-social of the apes, and also therefore the most mysterious.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
On our final full day in the jungle, we received an unexpected and strange visit, from the King. Tom. He arrived suddenly and with several of his subjects, went right up to the dock, right up to our boat.
Joe told us that we should feel very lucky, Tom doesn't usually do that.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
About Tom: I'm very sorry to say it, but my first thought was King Kong! He's absolutely that massive, and had the demeanor of a king- eventually quite annoyed by all of us snapping pictures at him. Eventually he'd had enough and retreated out-of-sight below the dock.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
One of Tom's girlfriends, however, was very curious about all of us, and a french tourist we'd met earlier that afternoon got a little bit more than he bargained for when he came in close for a shot.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
So homegirl posed with us and goofed around with Joe and seemed totally relaxed, amused even. I thought I could see a twinkle in her eye. Again, I had the feeling I was not hanging out with some wild unpredictable animal; I felt we were all much more similar than that. Perhaps I'm just naive.
As we left, I could not suppress the urge to wave goodbye.
Johnny Bliss, 2011