My trip to Indonesia almost didn't happen due to the riots and demonstrations
that were taking place in major cities in many of Indonesia's islands. However,
just as I was about to change my plans, the Canadian embassy said that things
were returning to normal and that it was okay to enter, albeit with caution.
Relieved, I bought myself a return ticket to Ujung Pandang, Sulawesi, and booked
a flight on to Jayapura, Irian Jaya. Getting to Ujung Pandang was easy, but the
7 hour layover in Ujung Pandang and the 7 hour night flight to Jayapura left me
completely exhausted.
My main reason for going to Irian Jaya was to visit the Baliem Valley in the
remote interior of the island, and soon found myself on a small plane flying
over tall mountains carpeted with lush green forests and with frequent muddy
brown rivers snaking between them.
The political instability of Indonesia meant that there were few tourists, so on
arrival in the Baliem Valley, the touts were especially hungry. I shrugged off
the obnoxious ones, but soon found myself walking and chatting with a friendly
fellow that spoke good english and was offering his guiding services for a trek
around the valley. I let him give me his spiel, and after many rounds of
negotiations I booked a six day trek that would start the following day.
In the meantime, I had the rest of the day to walk around the village of Wamena.
In many ways, it seemed like just any small rural town. Suburban houses with
picket fences, dogs and children playing on the green lawns, a bustling market
in the center of town, and businessmen walking down the street in their slacks
and dress shirts. Just as I was getting used to what a "normal town"
Wamena is, my head did a quick snap back as I caught a glimpse of an almost
completely naked man walking down the street wearing only a head-dress of
chicken feathers and a long horim or "penis gourd" tied around the
waist and pointing up towards his chin.
Traditional Dani dress doesn't really include clothes. The men wear their penis
gourds and various types of jewelry, while women wear grass skirts and nothing
else. The Dani jewelry includes large earrings and huge nose-rings made out of
shells or pig tusks. As they generally only wear the nose rings during
ceremonies, in the interim side profiles revealed a hole in their nose large
enough that you could actually look through it. While many of the Dani people in
Wamena have switched over to western clothing, those from the surrounding
villages that have not converted to Christianity are still largely untouched by
their contact with the modern world, clinging to their almost "stone
age" ways.
At 7am the next day, I was picked up by my guide, two porters, and one
cook/porter. I felt a little strange having a crew of 4 while I was solo, but
the devalued Indonesian Rupiah meant that it was all very affordable. We took a
jeep as far as it would go, and then started up the first of many mountains that
we would be hiking over.
My original romantic thoughts for the trek were that it would be somewhat like
the Mongolia experience where I would be eating and sleeping with the local
people.
However, the porters were carrying all the food we would be needing over the six
days, which seemed a little silly to me at first. Why couldn't we just buy food
from the locals and eat what they ate. I soon realized the answer to this when I
discovered that the Dani diet consists almost exclusively of sweet potatoes.
Throw a sweet potato into the fire and munch on one for breakfast/lunch, and
have a second one for dinner. This vitamin and protein poor diet explained the
poor health of many of the Dani people with their skinny legs, pot-bellies, and
various ailments.
The adult men seem the healthiest, and I discovered that this was at least
partly due to the fact that whenever there was anything exotic like pig meat
available for food, the men would eat their fill, leaving the women and children
to the leftover scraps.
At one point, I made the mistake of helping dress the wounds one of the porters
had in his foot while in front of some of the villagers. Word immediately spread
that there was a doctor in the village, and people began lining up outside my
room acting out the various ailments that they were suffering from while
expecting that I would have some magical cure.
If I wasn't going to get to eat Dani food with the Dani people, I thought that
at least I was going to be able to sleep in their traditional huts. Again, I was
initially disappointed when I was shown into a private visitors room, but
discovered that this was for good reason. Dani men sleep in thatched huts on top
of a wooden floor raised about a meter above the ground. As they have no clothes
or blankets to keep them warm during the very cold evenings, the naked men all
huddle together in one tent while lighting a fire underneath the wooden platform
filling the windowless hut with thick smoke. This was a little more native than
I was willing to go. Even my accommodation was not the most comfortable as what
I slept on was often nothing more than some plywood boards, and I would wake
each morning with more bites from whatever was living in the bedding. My advice
to anyone else heading to Baliem Valley is to bring a sleeping pad and sleeping
bag!
Relating to the people was also difficult as they seemed to have little interest
in me after they were finished with their long staring session. They weren't
even curious where I was from, but I guess they already knew I was from outside
their village which was all that was relevant to them anyways. The one thing I
was happy about was that unlike the Mongolians, the Dani people showed no
interest in dressing me up in local attire.
This lack of interaction meant that I learned everything about the Dani people
from my Dani guide and porters. I found out that the Dani villages used to be
constantly at war with each other, leaving the villagers with a life so isolated
that they would never leave their own village.
Their marital customs are interesting as wives are bought from their parents
with pigs (between 5 and 15 per wife), and men can buy as many wives as they can
afford. The women don't seem to have a say in the matter, although their parents
do try to ensure their husband is wealthy and a hard worker. When a women gives
birth to a child, she is not allowed to sleep with her husband for 5 years,
apparently to prevent further pregnancies and to give the young child exclusive
access to the mother.
The setting of the Dani villages is quite stunning amongst the tall and sharp
mountains in the interior of Irian Jaya. Not too far away from Baliem Valley,
there is even a 5000m peak complete with glaciers. Unfortunately, the Dani trail
builders didn't seem to understand the notion of switchbacks, and the trails
would lead straight up or straight down, and I was often unable to find traction
on the muddy clay surface. Sometimes I was even unsure I was going to be able to
make it, despite the fact I was only carrying a small daypack. I felt a little
feeble as one of the barefoot porters would lend a hand to help me up the trail
while balancing 20kg of food on his head and carrying another 10kg in his other
hand.
My guide and porters treated me like a king, to the point where I began to feel
quite guilty. When we stopped for lunch, they would build me a shelter to shade
me from the sun. I was not permitted to do any work myself, and when feeding me,
I would always eat first, with the porters dining on any food that was leftover.
The six day trek came to a premature end when we discovered that there was a 12
person tour group at the village I was to be spending my last night. Rather than
stay at a village overrun with other tourists and sleeping who knows where, we
instead chose to make the long trek to the road and head back to Wamena.
Back in Wamena, I organized a couple of day trips including one to see a 300
year old mummy, and one to a village where they put on a festival for me and a
fellow Canadian I met. The ceremony was an interesting opportunity to see the
people in their full ceremonial dress, although I felt a little bad when they
killed a baby pig on our behalf by shooting it with a bow and arrow and then
letting it bleed.
After paying for the ceremony, my cash reserves were running quite low, and I
really didn't want to change any money in Wamena. Despite the fact that the
official exchange rate was 15,000 rupiah to the dollar, banks in Wamena only
offered between 4,000 and 6,500.
The only way currently to get into or out of the Baliem Valley is by plane, and
I headed to the Merapati office which is the sole airline offering passenger
flights. I was a little shocked that cash strapped Merapati told me that flights
were not being offered for an indeterminate period of time.
Not wanting to wait around, my guide helped me get a seat on a cargo plane, and
I caught an early flight back to the Irian capital of Jayapura on Friday
morning. It was cutting it a little close, but I hoping to have enough time to
change some money and buy a plane ticket back to Ujung Pandang for the following
day.
The first complication arose when the plane was over two hours late in arriving.
I didn't receive much comfort when the locals explained to me how much better
the cargo airline was as they never cancelled flights and would fly no matter
what the weather was like or other problems that would arise. However, the plane
eventually made it, and by noon, I found myself back in the airport town of
Sentani 40km from Jayapura.
I first tried to change money at the banks in Sentani, but their exchange rates
weren't much better than those in Wamena. When I enquired about heading to
Jayapura, the locals advised against it as there was a big student demonstration
going on and apparently there was some violence as well (I later learned out
there were even three deaths). To complicate things even further, I discovered
that Monday was a holiday, and if I didn't find a way to change money within the
next two hours, I would be stuck cashless in Sentani for three days.
I found a local who said he could get me to a Jayapura bank while avoiding the
problems, and we soon found ourselves in a bemo (Indonesian mini-bus) heading
towards Jayapura. The biggest banks were all located in problem areas, and the
banks my guide was able to take me to still did not offer the greatest exchange
rate. However, as I was desperate and banks were closing, I changed enough US
cash at a rate of 10,000 per dollar to buy my plane ticket.
Indonesian people are some of the friendliest that I have ever met, and the
teller at the bank was no exception. I was greeted with a warm friendly smile,
and we exchanged some fun small talk. However, I learned that this friendly
exterior does not imply trustworthiness as I recounted the cash that the teller
had already counted out in front of me. There was 100,000 rupiah that had
somehow made it out of my stack of cash and into the teller's pocket.
All the perseverance paid off, and first thing Saturday morning I was on a
flight and heading back to the island of Sulawesi where I would be spending the
next two weeks in the mountainous interior region of Toraja. Toraja is famous
for its unique culture and July was the beginning of their funeral season when
they would be holding elaborate funeral ceremonies to send off their deceased
relatives.
On arrival in Ujung Pandang, I headed straight to the bus terminal to see when I
was going to be able to catch a bus. I found out that the Christian Torajan bus
drivers refused to drive on Sundays, leaving me with the option of waiting til
Monday, or hopping on a night bus. Despite my exhaustion, I was anxious to get
to Toraja and opted for the night bus.
I arrived in Toraja to total darkness at 5am, completely exhausted from a
restless night on the 10 hour bus ride combined with early morning wake-ups for
my flights on the previous two days. All I could think about was finding a hotel
room as soon as they opened, and then crashing for the rest of the morning.
As I staggered around the town looking for an open coffee shop to wait for
daylight, I was greeted by a local who had also just arrived from Ujung Pandang
that morning. I was immediately on the alert for scams, although saw no harm in
following him to the lone open coffee shop. As we began to talk, he seemed
genuine enough, and soon invited me to his grandmother's funeral that he would
be heading to as soon as the bemos began to run.
My first thought was that I was way too exhausted, and I knew that I would get
no sleep if I followed him. However, the highlight of a trip to Toraja is
supposed to be seeing one of the funeral ceremonies, and seeing it with a family
member seemed like a much better way than through the usual way of hiring an
impersonal guide. So, I decided that there's no rest for the wicked, and agreed
to his offer.
As it got light, I bought some candies and a carton of cigarettes to give out as
gifts, and we got into a cycle cab (becak) that took us to the foot of the
mountain that his grandmother's home was located on.
From there, we had to walk as the becak was unable to make it up the steep
inclines. I will never forget that early morning walk that seemed almost surreal
with my mind numbed by the lack of sleep. The cloud shrouded and forested
mountain we would be walking up was reflected almost perfectly into the still
waters of the rice paddies. Water buffalo wallowed in nearby streams, while the
early rising farmers were tending to their crops. The complete silence was only
broken occasionally by the chirping of birds, or the chainsaw like hum of the
cicadas.
Scattered around the mountains, you could see the strange bow shaped houses that
Torajans build with huge exaggerated rooftops. There are various legends
explaining the significance of the rooftops, one of which says that the side
profile of the roof resembles the horns of the water buffalo so highly prized by
the Torajans. The other explanation is that the house is built to resemble the
boats that brought the Torajans to Sulawesi many centuries ago.
As we made our way up the mountain, we walked between banana trees, cocoa trees
with large fruit pods growing from their trunks, and heavily laden coffee
bushes.
After a long climb, we finally made it to the house which was already abuzz with
activity as everyone was getting ready for the first day of the funeral festival
that would be taking place over the next three days.
There was still work being performed on the temporary lodging that would house
the 800 or so guests that would eventually be turning up, as well as on the
large tower that would be housing grandma's remains until the completion of the
funeral.
Despite the fact that everyone was so busy, I was given an extremely warm
welcome, and some of the women dropped what they were doing to prepare breakfast
for me which consisted of rice, curried meat, and the coffee that Torajan's are
so proud of. It is made sweet and strong and like Turkish coffee has fine
grounds stirred in forming a thick sediment at the bottom of the glass.
Grandma lived to a ripe old age of 101, and died three years before the
ceremony. There had been a short funeral for her right after her death, and then
her body was put into a temporary resting place while the family tried to save
up enough money for the tremendously expensive ceremony.
Grhedy, who brought me to the funeral, spoke a little English, while very few
others spoke even a word or two. This gave me an incentive to learn Indonesian
and quickly, and the people at the funeral were very willing and usually patient
teachers. Unfortunately, as the funeral progressed and my Indonesian improved,
people were no longer satisfied with me just speaking Indonesian. They wanted me
to speak Torajan, and would "correct" my Indonesian with the
appropriate Torajan translation. The one benefit of this added confusion was
that while speaking Indonesian would bring a smile, speaking a bit of Torajan
would cause laughter and big grins, and would win me an instant friend.
The first day of the funeral was pretty quiet as only family members were there
and the majority of the guests had not shown up yet. To prepare for the many
guests that would be arriving, the first highly prized buffalo was slaughtered.
It was tied to a stake in the ground, and a quick machette chop to the neck
severed its jugular vein. Confused, it would stagger around for a few minutes
before finally collapsing in a pool of blood. The butchers then made quick work
of the body as the skin was removed to sell in the market, and the meat and
organs were carved up into little pieces on the banana leaf ground covering.
A few pigs were also brought in for slaughter, and it was interesting to see how
they were transported. A long bamboo pole was tied to their back and legs,
leaving them completely immobile, and with a convenient pole that a couple of
men could carry them with. The pig meat was carved up into small cubes which
were then stuffed into bamboo tubes along with some spices to make a local dish
called pa' piong. The bamboo tubes are thrown directly into the fire for about
half an hour, after which the cooked pork is eaten with rice.
After lunch, there was the only real formal part of the funeral for the day when
grandma was placed in a little Torajan house shaped litter, and was paraded
around the village. It was a surprisingly light and casual affair as the people
were hooting and hollering, and racing grandma around to the point where she was
almost dropped a couple of times.
The most heavily anticipated event of the day came next when they took advantage
of the many buffalo gathered for the event and staged a buffalo fight in some
nearby rice paddies. The buffalo were poked and kicked getting them a little
agitated, and then were placed face to face with each other where the angry
buffaloes would lock horns. The fights reminded me somewhat of a sumo wrestling
match as the buffaloes would strain against each other until one started to
slip, at which point it would turn and run, often right through the scattering
spectators.
As the fights wore on and the people began to get a feel for the strengths and
weaknesses of the contestants, people started gathering bets on the fights which
finally ended with one of the buffaloes being declared champion.
The strenuous afternoon of cheering and running away from charging buffaloes
helped work up an appetite, and we all returned to the house for a feast of pork
pa' piong. This time, the meal was washed down with a delicious substance known
as tuak. It is a low alcohol (5-7%) and very sweet wine made from palm fruit. I
developed a strong appreciation for it, and my hosts made sure my glass was
never empty.
I was then taught some new card games which I played until I couldn't keep my
eyes open anymore, after which it was back to sleeping on boards as I was shown
to my section of floor. At least this time there were no biting critters, and my
exhaustion meant that I had a good deep sleep.
However, sleeping in was not an option as my bed was in the middle of the floor
in a busy room. I awoke when everyone else did just before sunrise at about
5:30am. As in Irian Jaya, I was not permitted to help out in any way, and
instead just sat there and drank coffee and ate the food that was laid out in
front of me. It was definitely not a place to diet as no one would ever believe
me that I as full, and they would not be satisfied unless I ate twice as much as
everyone else would eat.
The second day was the most formal of the entire funeral as it was the one where
guests from the village and neighbouring villages would show up and be received
by the family. Two more buffalo were slaughtered to provide meat to give to the
visitors, and there was a little bit of excitement when one of the buffalo got
loose after having its neck slashed. It began to charge whoever was nearest, all
while blood was being blown out onto the spectators by the severed windpipe.
After everything calmed down, those that would be doing the receiving dressed in
their traditional attire. For the men, this meant wearing decorated orange
shirts and shorts, bandana, and an antique krys knife strapped to their waist.
The women wore brightly coloured blue, orange, and pink dresses, put on lots of
make-up, tied their hair up tightly, and also adorned an ancient krys knife that
had been in the family for generations.
Guests began to arrive around 9:30, and they were divided into groups. They
would enter single file into the main courtyard with their gift pigs squeeling
loudly in protest. The exact exchanges that then took place were a bit of a
mystery to me, but at the end of it all, the guests were served food and coffee
in the main partitioned area just off the courtyard. It was a surprisingly light
and cheery affair, and the family kept careful notes of all the gifts to ensure
that they could reciprocate at some future date. While the guests were being
received, a circle of men performed "ma' badong" which is a sort of
wailing singing done by men since they are not allowed to cry.
A couple of the more well-off guests even brought a buffalo to the funeral which
represent close to a year's salary for an average Indonesian. It was interesting
to see how the buffalo were priced amongst the Torajans as their value was
largely determined by their appearance. There were special names for dark black
buffalo (as opposed to the normal greyish black), buffalo with white heads and
blue eyes, buffalo with horns that point down, buffalo with extra wide horns,
and buffalo that are all white with black splotches. The all white buffaloes
were most highly prized and could fetch a price up to ten times that of a normal
buffalo.
The Torajans would jokingly refer to those with dark skin as a pudu (dark black
buffalo), and took great amusement when I started calling myself bonga (buffalo
with a white head and blue eyes).
For different ceremonies, it is auspicious to have at least one of the different
types of buffalo, although skyrocketing prices and the always talked about
"krisis ekonomi" meant that some were out of the family's price range.
There was, however, one pudu and one bonga buffalo.
The night was a particularily busy one and by my rough guess, there were at
least 800 peole present for dinner. Lots of palm wine (tuak) was being passed
around, and the festive Torajans sang and partied late into the night.
With the soccer World Cup on everyone's minds, the Torajans decided that my long
blond hair made me look like the Argentinian soccer player Batistuta. As the
tuak was making them feel especially cheeky this evening, they would start
singing the world cup theme song whenever I would walk by.
The third day of the funeral started with late arriving guests bringing more
gift pigs. The afternoon was supposed to be the slaughter of the buffalo, but
was cancelled at the last minute when the family couldn't decide how many to
kill. While wanting to be generous, the Indonesian economic crisis also made
them feel that they should be a little cautious.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the forest and amongst the
many buildings, and realized how hard it was to find privacy when I wanted to
brush my teeth. I was unable to find anywhere where my toothbrushing didn't
attract an audience, and finally had to live with being watched.
The fourth day of the funeral started with the slaughter of the buffalo. Sixteen
buffalo were led into the courtyard, and one by one their throats were slashed.
When there were too many bodies piled up to be able to reach the central stake,
the buffalo victims were simply tied to another buffalo's horns. The carnage
from the slaughter was quite a sight as the large couryard was filled with a
lake of blood and stacks of buffalo carcasses lying in whatever position they
happened to fall in.
The carving up of the buffaloes then took the rest of the day, leaving the
actual burial for day five. The death toll for the ceremony ended at an
impressive 32 buffalo and over 140 pigs.
The final day of the funeral started with a large number of photo sessions with
grandma. Some up in her tower, and others after she was carried down to the
ground.
Someone began speaking over the loudspeaker saying a few last words, all while
everyone leisurely milled about. I was just beginning to be amazed by what a
light and festive occasion the entire ceremony was, when an elderly woman broke
into hysterical deep sobbing and threw herself in front of the body. This
reaction was followed by other family members, and soon there were about forty
people sobbing around the casket. Those that were not part of the crying seemed
to think that it was all quite funny.
After the purging of sorrow was complete, things became light and cheery again
as grandma was placed into her litter and paraded around. This time, the body
was raced into a field and was soon in the midst of a mud fight.
From the field, the body was carried up the mountain to a huge limestone boulder
into which a small tomb had been carved. The body was inserted inside the tomb
along with some basic worldly possessions, and the funeral was then complete
leaving only the tear down of all the temporary lodging which took about three
more days.
I ended up spending the next three days with the family, while hiring a car and
doing a bit of sight seeing during the days. Interestingly, most of the sights
center around the Torajans bizzare death rituals, such as visiting the caves
where bodies were stored, and seeing the cliff faces embedded with burial tombs
and balconies of tau-taus which are life-sized statue likenesses of the deceased
contained within the tombs. They were a little eerie to look at as their bright
white zombie like eyes seemed to be staring right down at you. Another strange
sight was the baby tombs which are dug into a special type of tree.
I temporarily said good-bye to my Indonesian friends as they headed back to
Ujung Pandang and I headed to a mountain village of Batutumonga. I experienced
more friendly Torajan hospitality when a local invited me to his house to eat
and sleep on my final night in Toraja. His suggested menu was curried dog meat
washed down with tuak, and I was especially shocked when I discovered he was
ready to butcher his own pet dog for this special meal. Thankfully, I had
refused.
Back in Ujung Pandang, I hooked up with the family I had been staying with, and
spent my last four days in Sulawesi sampling the tourist attractions and
enjoying more good hospitality.
It was actually quite sad to leave my Indonesian friends behind, but there was
no way to extend my stay as I needed to meet my brother in Singapore.
Singapore again proved a good place to get all of those admin type things done,
stock up on film, and enjoy a few western delicacies like cafe lattes and
lasagna.
Tomorrow, my brother and I will be flying to the Malaysian city of Kota Kinabalu
on the island of Borneo. We will be touring across the island through Sarawak
and on to Pontianak, before I sadly wrap up my trip with some time in Bali and a
few other Indonesian islands.
