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On the road to Sukamade…..
The finish is not the target as such, it is the trip to get there..
Rented a very old bemo with chauffeur Made
and Ratmaya as assistant guide.
Departed early in the morning, Dolf, Carin, Leo, Martha, Pieter
and Marja on their way to Pemuteran, in the North West of Bali
with as goal, the most beautiful underwater paradise of Bali
Menjangan Island .
Ubud-Tabanan-Pupuan, coffee on the most beautiful plateau in the world,
unforgettable rice terraces ….. |
after eleven years living here
I still cannot believe my eyes, it looks unreal !
Lively, constantly changing pieces of art created by simple farmers,
weathering nature and wind.
Along the ridges of the volcano Batukao,
where according to Ratmaya, who was born there,
an old tiger is still living there
and priests are bringing him food,
as the only ones who are able to see him…
Slowly descending towards the North Coast of Bali..
It is green everywhere, because we are still in the rainy season. |
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We stopped for lunch in a small old harbour
where the Pinisis from Kalimantan brought in wood,
stolen or not.
It is still the period of Idel Fitri , so it was very quiet.
In the pouring rain, we ate nassi goring with chicken,
clean and neat, many guestrooms, all empty…
Everything recently built with a minimum of privacy
even during their vacation trips,
Indonesian people are getting close together…
CNN showed us the riots in Lombok, unpleasant feeling,
luckily still far away..
We had rented a sixteen person bus,
so we had space enough for the eight of us.
The side door was always open for air to come in, delightful.
Stopped in Gondol, a bay with a reef,
where Han was painting alone during thirty years,
the last couple of years two weeks on the job, two weeks off,
until three months before his death..
The calm bay, the small boats and the sea, his home
and everything was lying around,
abandoned with his boat still in front of the door,
the sails against the wall,
the barbecue on which we grilled in the evening the fish we had caught,
was rusting away slowly and with it the history of Han.
His fisherman still recognized us and gave us some nice shells
while we left some money for his children.
Hours looking for shells, Carin and Marja
made their way along the waterline,
through the waves and checking out the whole beach…
if those two see a beach, they go crazy
and there is only one passion get those shells… |
Later in the afternoon,
we got closer to the small village Pemuteran
and were welcomed by many monkeys
who are “guarding” there a temple in the jungle
in exchange for bananas.
Smart animals. Han told once
that he saw them sitting in the sea in the morning,
after which they dried themselves in the sun,
so that they could pick up the salt crystals from their hairy fur. We
counted four hotels along the road, choose one
and checked it out, beautiful and with access to the beach,
saw four guests, price twenty five Euros per room
and no chance to negotiate,
so we walked over the beach to another one.
Same price, but twice as beautiful,
real small villas on the beach with airconditioning.
Carin booked the rooms with her Orient Travel service
Belgium business card and we got a small palace…
C&M were already gone, looking for more shells
and brought so many back that I discovered a new hobby:
to determine what the names where… it kept me busy for hours and when I
came home I found
more than three thousand web pages on shells,
so I’m not the only one interested…
Leo and myself drinking beer and Pieter dealing with Bali belly.
A quiet dinner in the evening with candle light on the beach
and enjoying an excellent menu.
At five in the morning, still dark,
C&M were already searching for shells,
afraid that somebody would be ahead of them..
Everybody had a lazy day,
Leo and myself checked out the nearby land
looking for some jungle adventure. |
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The reason that Ratmaya joined us is that I would like to
help him
with setting up new and more adventurous trips.
He worked for me during seven years
and wants to start now on his own as guide and driver for tourists.
Not easy in a time of crisis with Timor, Ambon, Lombok, etc.
The next day direction the island, half an hour through the jungle
to a small harbour, where more than hundred people waited for us,
the tourists…pure poverty..
We got ourselves onto a glass-bottom boat,
very comfortable and started the rough half hour ride over the deep sea.
The majestic volcanos of Java in the West and those from Bali behind us,
with many boats following us, full of offerings, priests,
a whole orchestra and beautiful dressed people going to a ceremony
on the island of the Menjangan deer.
The sea was rough until we came closer to the island
and then we couldn’t believe our eyes;
There was nothing else to see in the water than this unexploited depth
until four to five meters off the beach.
Then a wall of corals rose up and we saw a wonderful world
with the most amazing fish in all kind of colours, unbelievable,
everyone was pointing out the most exciting pieces of underwater nature.
C&M discovered even swimming shells during our four hours trip
along the coral reef, what an experience ! |
We docked on a small beach where they had two
garbage cans,
one for organic waste and the other for anorganic garbage.
Both were empty and all the waste
was dumped on this beach with pure white sand.
Many rare shells, C&M were even digging them out
and I figured out later that one of them could be fatal
within five minutes,
but the girls were determined to get those shells.
Leo and myself had warned the group
that we had to bring food and beer
because there was nothing out there,
but they didn’t believe us and we made it back to the mainland, starving
and thirsty like hell.
What a delight to have then Indonesian food again….
The next day our expedition to Java started.
We splitted up with Made and the bemo and the bus
made its way home full of shells and dirty laundry.
On the dirty ferry, with television,
the young boys diving for money
and the sellers of wireless lighters….
In first instance we cruised somewhat uncertain
because of the strong current,
but Leo made it quickly upstairs next to the guy
behind the steering wheel
and piloted us safely to the other side: Banyuwangi. |
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We decided to go with the kereta api to
Kalibaru (Euro 1.20 per person) and used the two hours we had left to
lunch in a local restaurant,
delicious with a lot of beer for Euro 1.50 per person.
Java is so cheap in comparison with Bali…
The train left in time, because the starting point is there.
Ratmaya had arranged seats with the chef of the station
and we appreciated that later very much
when we saw how crowded the train became.
What are Dutch trains in comparison empty
and not as cosy as in Indonesia !
No shortage of food: Nassi, fruits, katjang, tahu and garterbelt,
drinks and cigarettes.
The sellers were passing by more than hundred times
and offered us every time the same things,
Pieter bought chocolate for all the kids in the wagon
and there were more than hundred of them.
They were enjoying it, threw all the wrappers on the floor,
my God it was so much fun.
Marja got a beautiful baby placed in her lap,
Leo offered his seat to an old lady,
but a young girl took his spot,
because the older one was her cleaning lady.
Everybody sat on somebody’s else lap, sharing every space
and it was so hot, hot with the train slowly moving,
from small station, in and out to the next one….
slowly ascending to 450 meter, to Kalibaru,
in almost three hours…
Pleasant reception as the only guests
in our beautiful small hotel in the old plantation.
Mr. Moestajab, the owner, almost 80, was very ill
and had just received chemotherapy,
so he looked almost transparent. |
This nice man, who had built this all during
his lifetime
and had managed it,
didn’t understand why the Dutch people didn’t come anymore. Luckily
enough, he could still everybody pay
from his plantation with nutmeg, foelie and coffee Arabica.
His forty cows were milked at 10pm,
the milk sealed in plastic bags of 250ml
and transported by night train to Banyuwangi
where it was sold immediately for ten cents
to mothers with small kids.
The thin cows were producing not a lot of milk.
Ratmaya tasted it for the first time in his life,
not knowing that you could drink it.
Next morning, visited the house of Mister and Madam,
so gracious and sweet, those old people in their life museum
of Tempo Doeloe, emotional touching…
thousands of flowers in pots around the house….
Marja didn’t know what she saw,
all those beautiful birds with hornbills,
parakeets, parrots, kakatuas and a very vocal Myna.
In the meantime, Paul, our guide, had arrived,
he spoke Dutch as if it was normal
for somebody who had never been there before
and we discussed our next expedition.
He looked worried and we were not optimistic,
because we had to cross four rivers and with all the recent rain, the
water changed continuously its path down the land
and the thirty year old Landrover
could handle half a meter water,
but the strong current was a problem…
He would contact us with his short band phone and let us know… |
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Kalibaru is a small city which has changed only a little
bit
during the last half century.
What was there then, is still there to a certain extent and that is it…
a traders village for the region existing out of “enterprises”,
old Dutch plantations, nationalized at the time
and maintained in a decent to bad manner…...
not my opinion, but Paul’s and he is able to know it,
because he is a retired administrator (manager) of several plantations,
is very knowledgable and taught us a lot.
I have to stop writing for a minute, because Bokok, our main gardener,
calls me and shows me a plastic rice bag with a python of three meters.
“Is he sleeping ?” is my slightly nervous question, when he opened the
bag….. “Yes” is the answer….and I know how that goes,
they found him on the garbage belt and one person grabs his neck
just behind his head and the other grabs the tail of the snake,
which tries to get away.
Then they pull as hard as they can, one, two three…to dislocate his spine
until he gets groggy after which they carry him to the studio
where all the girls work, to scare them.
They put him in a bag, worth Euro 1.50 per meter, kill him, eat him,
make small bags from eleven square meter snake skin,
the meat is very strong and gives sexual power….
bye, bye python… |
While waiting for a message from the jungle,
we make a trip with horse carriages through the ricefields. Private cars
are rare in the country side,
you see only once in a while a bemo with many, many passengers. We need
three “dokars” with our body weight
and we make our way for hours through the quietness
of the long villages, absorbing the peaceful and simple life…
Most people are small entrepreneurs, very small
and quite independent… it means that you are on your own, completely
alone.
You can dig clay out of your garden
and make bricks and stones with your garden getting
lower and lower….
or you become smith to place horseshoes….
or you work at a rice plantation.
It was the only place where Leo dared to have his weight taken, the scale
went to 200 kilo while with me it came to 120…..
Later we figured out that Pieter had been pushing down
the scale behind my back…..
oh, we are such a crazy group and have so much fun …
Couples of water buffalos were ploughing through the “sawahs”, near a
school where the kids were just released,
hundreds of cute “hello mister” surrounded us
and of course pictures were taken and we moved on,
tired, hungry, but especially thirsty
before we returned to our small hotel on the plantation. |
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The ladies went in the afternoon shopping,
buying unnecessary things,
when the good news came that we could go.
One truck had just managed to cross the waterways in the mountains
and we decided to leave early the next morning.
Paul was fixing up the car for the trip
and we had dinner and made it early to bed.
That dinner changed my life.
We got ayam (chicken), semor (stew), so nice !
Rabbit in the pot “a la hoens”.
I almost don’t eat anything else these days…
Everybody including the Myna bird wished us a good trip
and we left full of good spirits and we would certainly need them.
We just fitted in the Landrover
and there the happy group left for a trip to unknown places,
80km in approximately seven hours,
the last part 10km in three hours… |
We drove through endless plantations,
1000 to 2000 hectares in size,
over roads with left over patches of asphalt,
greeted on our way by the inhabitants of the villages
in the “gardens”, like they call that here….
These people live there their whole life,
with free lodging, with light from 5 until 10,
washing, drinking and shitting in the “kali”
and collecting wood for free.
A salary of Euro 0.5-1.5 per day,
depending on their job capabilities
with a pension of 70% of their last salary when they are 55, taken care
off until death,
because the cemetery is also on the property of the company… |
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Rubbertrees, seven years they are allowed to
grow.
When they are then 130cm in height and 45cm around,
they will be cut every day with an incision of 1mm
with a down angle of 130 degrees until half of the tree.
After seven years they use the other side,
and then another seven years later,
the recovered side is used again and so on
until the tree is used as firewood after 28 years.
A man can handle 200 trees a day.
The latex is transported every day to the plant of the company,
dumped in large rust free steel containers,
mixed with a little bit of “mierenzuur” to harden it to spongy sheets
of rubber before rolling it to a thickness of three mm.
Then they get to the smokery for four days and the job is done.
Cacao: Not a lot of work, easy, the ripe fruits are getting collected,
separated from their “vruchtvlees” and brought as dirty pulp to the plant,
where the pits end up in large containers.
Here, they ferment at 50 degrees in five days
under the heat which is generated by the yeasting itself.
Afterwards drying in the sun and before you know it to Leonidas.
The locals themselves have never seen or tasted chocolate.
Coffee, was not ripe, so who cares…
Palmsugar yes, up into the palmtree, cutting the fruit.
Honey juice sips sadly from the palm tree into a yerrycan, collecting,
cooking in a large iron wok
on burning coconut shells for four hours. |
Then pouring it in small “malls???” of 250 gram, cooling
down
and the candy is ready for consumption.
Slowly, we reached the end of the world
and stopped at the seaside of the large South Sea,
looking in awe at the roaring waves
which here crash straight from the South Pole
on this lonely beach.
C&M didn’t find any shells here….
“It is better not to swim here”, said Paul.
I would not recommend it, cannot forbid it,
but last year, a German guest was swept away by the current
and we found him 3 hours later on the beach.
He didn’t want to listen,
jah, we had to rent a truck to transport the body to Banyuwangi, soesah
jah,
lots of soesah, adoeh….
We were standing at the beginning of the jungle
and the road was gone, the path was getting worse and worse.
Paul stopped to change spark plugs,
black macaque monkeys were jumping up and down
between the trees around us, higher we were going,
ever higher on this narrow path with a view way down,
so deep with mud and stones.
Sometimes, we were sliding backwards,
but our old very strong Landrover inched higher and higher, unrelentless
with a roaring noise and amazing power
driven in low gearing by our first class and determined driver. |
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During a quick stop to have an unforgettable
view over a purple bay,
we heard from far away the noise
of illegal cutting of trees in this nature reserve.
The jungle is slowly getting destroyed.
When you stand on a mountain and you see those endless high
and thick trees of 80 meters or higher and 50 meters thick
and you imagine them crashing down
on top of hundreds of other trees and bushes below
where the black monkeys live high up in the canopy
and the brown ones below… an orgy of destruction,
the roof of the world and all life is destroyed….
for another century or maybe for ever….
We walked down the mountain just as slow as the car
and enjoyed our powerful quiet surroundings, the noise of birds,
the sound of little creeks and arrived at the useless barriers of
Sukamade. A valley of fifteen hundred hectares in the middle of nowhere,
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surrounded by rough mountains,
developed by a Dutch person in 1907,
now merely accessible…..
then reachable by horses and ox carriages,
by foot, sweating and suffering…. Still five kilometers and four rivers to
go…
Ratmaya was drinking from a waterfall
and we were dying for some drinks.
We got again in the car and continued at the same slow pace.
We were pulled from one side to the other side of the car, shaking our
sweaty bodies against each other,
who cares, almost there, but not really….
We saw the first river and followed its stream to find a crossing, monkeys
laughed at us, we passed a couple of huts, s
ome kids and elderly people sitting in their doorway.
The others were around on the hot land, we drove through holes, big as
lakes, from stones to bolsters between coffee and cacao. |
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The first river, here was it wide and the
current slower.
We moved in and the Rover made its way to the other side
with the engine making noise through water and mud.
Relieved we reached the other bank and Carin started to talk again.
Then river number two and three and at last the forth river…
We got out of the car and looked at Paul.
He was thinking and his eyes were checking the river
and when he saw a man on the other side, he screamed at him.
The man walked over to a spot and indicated that there was a crossing. C&M
would try to cross the river by foot
and we looked at them in admiration
while they followed the instructions of the man on the other side,
hand in hand they made it across, pale but proud.
We did it by car, the amazing machine didn’t stop,
quiet a car and that already for 30 years!
We thanked our courageous driver,
had a rough ride into the small village and stopped in front of our lodge.
We were welcomed, spontaneously with large bottles of warm beer,
very large and very warm….they had many of them,
but we didn’t have many, because that night, we had to go,
we had not reached our goal yet…
We decided that we would rest a little bit,
got large empty rooms with a real “mandi” with water
and washed the mud and sweat off our dirty bodies.
When the villagers, who live here, have to make this journey,
it goes by truck, standing for hours…
At six o’clock it became dark and we sat at the table
with a pan of hot nasi, enjoying it as never before,
mixing it with warm beer.
At 8 o’clock we got back on our path, well path….
only a few plants grew on the track through the jungle,
shaken and bumped,
we came to a standstill at the house of the ranger.
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We pulled each other out of the car
and were standing in the middle of a tropical night,
smelling the sea and the kretek,
which came out of a barely lighted house.
In the flickering of the candlelight,
we saw many women and men smoking and chatting.
Completely lost at the end of the world, they,
the guards of this universe,
were waiting there for rare idiots like us,
who came to see the laying of a turtle egg…
We had to wait another half hour until it was almost high tide,
so that the sea turtles didn’t have to crawl too far,
was my simple thought.
Ten years ago, this construction was placed there
by the World Wildlife Fund,
but the money was spent and the nice small guest houses
were not functional anymore
and nobody was inclined to stay there any longer,
according to Paul.
We were not allowed to smoke or talk on the beach,
so we used our time to wait for the tide to chat
and smoke and before we knew it, it was high tide…
We made our way with four guards and three flashlights,
pitch dark through the tropical night,
over the slippery dark forest path towards the ocean.
Wet branches with thorns were scratching our faces,
but we didn’t care, we were almost there….
Arrived on a lonesome beach in the middle of the night…
brrr, good that we were with a whole group….
not able to smoke or talk…..
a roaring sea and screaming gusty wind and no shells for C&M. The guards
were splitting up in the dark
and disappeared from our view,
one couple to the east, the other to the west… |
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they would signal with their flashlight if
they would see something.
We huddled together, waiting in suspense… A flash !!! and we headed there,
tripping over branches in the dark, getting stuck in the sand, not caring,
because our lifetime moment was there…
And then it started to rain, raining cats and dogs,
pouring so hard that we were getting so wet, awfully wet, all through.
But there it was !!!
A gigantic mother sea turtle in labor, very brave, digging in the rough
sand
to make a hole for her offshoot, maybe more than hundred….
She was more than one and a half meter, green black with blue eyes,
which looked at us in wonder. She had already buried her eggs, hidden more
than a meter deep….
We were completely off balance and surprised, just like her.
She took off, leaving behind a kind of caterpillar track with her weight
of over thousand kilos,
leaving us dizzy, waiting for the waves to take her back in her world with
Leo almost joining her…
Paul told us while we were waiting for her sister,
that last month around the same time, a group of approximately forty men
with knives and klewangs was storming in to scare them away…..
they were looking for eggs.. Luckily enough, we didn’t see anybody,
with the exception of her sister who was even bigger and older.
According to Paul, more than 150 year, that’s when they are good in laying
eggs, around hundred and fifty …
Leo looked at me in a special way, when he heard that she became only
sexually mature at around 50
and that she only mated twice a year…
We walked back, the suspense was over, smoking, talking and making our way
close to each other over the narrow path.
The climax had been reached, we had seen it,
the wonder experienced, we were ready
and headed back, the road was long, we were tired and fell asleep in our
beds and very satisfied …..
in that lonesome plantation of Sukamade on the 15th of January of the year
2000…
Thanks to Pieter Hoets for the translation ! |
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