In Borneo the cats have no tails
In the minds of Western people, the name of the biggest island in Asia inevitably evokes intrusive images of muggy jungles swarming with insects and reptiles; of rivers the colour of hot cocoa, always swollen because of tropical rain; of a natural zoo with rare animals and tribes untouched by the 21st century.
This romantic picture is still valid to a certain extent, but at the same time Borneo has undoubtedly modern aspects as well. However, no matter how much it is influenced by modern civilization, when you leave for Borneo don’t expect it to be like Bali. Straddling the equator, the island is shared by three countries: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The northern one third, where the Malayan states Sarawak and Sabah are located, as well as the palaces of the richest man on the planet, the sultan of Brunei, offer comparatively easily achieved satisfaction for the lovers of unspoiled equatorial nature and more or less authentic local customs. For unknown reasons–and quite fortunately for Borneo–it remains outside the touristic tsunami that swoops upon the beaches of Southeast Asia from all over the world all year around. Nobody has invested here in resorts like Penang or Phuket and the tourist industry aims mainly at satisfying the mobile traveler and not the consuming holiday-maker.
After the phantasmagorical glass-and-concrete colossi of the avant-garde city of Singapore, the capital of Sarawak, Kuching, seems sleepily unassuming. The tropical depression over the South China Sea that has plunged everything into sticky grayness doesn’t make things better. The temperature is over 30 degrees Celsius and the humidity almost 100 %, and when you breathe you have the feeling that the oxygen has become as solid as glass. But so it is in these parts of the world. Maybe that’s why life here is like a slow-motion movie scene, and every quickening of mind and heart causes unnecessary biological drain. So here—like high in the mountains—energy should be saved, as it vanishes easily without anything significant being done. We quickly consent to this obvious truth and go with the tide…
Several of the natural phenomena of Borneo are situated around Kuching. They are duly preserved for the next generations in the form of national parks. Before we set off for the parks, we take a slow walk along the bank of the river flowing through the city. In the Malay language Kuching means cat, which immediately creates the impression of a very felicitous name, and not only because of the expected abundance of cats–a local breed, skinny and with stunted tails that are difficult to perceive. It deserves its name also because of the catlike smoothness and slowness of local life. It is as if the whole city stretches sensually, lazily examines everything around and then–with light footfalls–turns to its not so urgent tasks.
Although small—with an area of only 27 square kilometers—Bako National park is situated on a picturesque peninsula with a deeply indented coastline and a virgin jungle creeping upon the Karst rocks right to the sea. You can reach it only by sea, and after half an hour of rocking against the waves of the surf we berth in a cove where we are met by an unexpected hubbub. A flock of mischievous macaque monkeys has come down for some fun to the premises of their biped relatives from the park administration, and two employees are trying–with much effort and a pair of bamboo sticks–to drive the intruders away from the office. The cries are inarticulate and it is difficult to distinguish between the people’s and the monkey’s voices.
Aside from the macaque monkeys, other dangerous species also live in the Bako jungle. Before we take the narrow path towards the interior of the peninsula, a guide politely shows us what awaits us on the road. Among the branches of a mangrove tree lies a fat green snake, coiled
like an eight. There is no need for the guide to explain to us how deadly its bite is—its poisonous colour is quite eloquent. With faltering steps we enter the jungle reverberating with the buzzing of billions of insects. The sound attack is so direct that you have the feeling even the trees are creaking, squeaking and jingling. Time and again we freeze in our places mistaking—in the semi-darkness of the forest–the lianas hanging down for reptiles lying in wait. The more we advance, the denser the stuffy atmosphere becomes. The thick vegetation greedily robs the oxygen from the air and fills it with carbon dioxide sultriness. My body is all in a sweat, resembling a cracked pipe–and I thought of myself as someone who hardly perspires.
At last after a two-hour march, we hear the rumbling of the surf and take a look down to a desolate sandy beach reminding us of Robinson Crusoe. The waters of the South China Sea turn out to be not only crystal clear but also heavenly cool. On our way back through the jungle, the inevitable afternoon flood rain lashes down. However, it provides no coolness—the thick canopy of leaves above our heads doesn’t let the rain drops reach us. To make up for that, the sauna effect increases drastically.
We spend some more days in the area of the cat city unsuccessfully trying to find the gigantic red flower, rafflesia, which reaches a diameter of one meter. It turns out that the season of its blossoming is either over or has not started yet. Besides the sluggish tempo of things on the Equator, the border between phenomena is washed away. Day passes over to night in no time, with no dusk, so that you don’t realise when it has got dark. The morning also comes suddenly, without the usual dawn. And the seasons merge into an impersonal string of hot, fatigued sameness.
At the Kuching harbour, we board the so-called Express—a passenger ship to Sibu, the first port upstream on the famous Batang Rajang, the longest and mightiest river of Borneo. Sailing along the river we shall reach the remote parts of the jungle where we expect to meet tribes that to a certain extent have still preserved their traditional way of life as well as their typical “longhouses”—a common wooden house, usually a pile-dwelling, where all the people of the respective village live together.
Built entirely of metal and resembling a submarine or an airplane without wings the Express is operated by two roaring diesel engines reaching a velocity of 70 km/h. In direct ratio to their strength, the engines power the air-conditioning in the ship’s belly to such an extreme that we have to put on all our scarce clothes to avoid catching pneumonia. After two days of sailing and 700 kilometers of freezing, we berth in Belaga, the last modern settlement on the upper reaches of the Batang Rajang. From now on one can only proceed in long motor-powered pirogues—the means of transport of the local people. We arrange with the boatman, Kayan, to take us on a visit to one of the villages of the Kemajan tribe, an hour’s sail away. We buy food for ourselves and presents for our hosts: rice brandy, tuak, for the chieftain and balloons for the children.
While thus far the river was overcrowded, wide and heavy like liquid chocolate, from now on its bed gets narrow and full of threatening swift currents. The fresh scars of logging on its banks almost vanish and under the mystical vapours of the recent rain hanging over the jungle, the association with the river sequences of the film “Apocalypse Now” is downright unavoidable. Every now and then Kayan shows us wood-carved tribal totems erected at visible places above the water. We slalom endlessly among branches, floating trunks and all possible tree pieces dragged along by the stream.
After a while, the first signs of human life appear. The swollen river has flooded the pile-house up to the entrance steps, and from the boat we go directly onto a spacious veranda where we are met by the village’s inhabitants. We feel somehow like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. The Kemajans are small like most Borneans, with features typical of the peoples of South East Asia. They are polite but reserved and show us their house, although primitive, with dignity.
After we present our gifts, accompanied by swarms of children with inflated gay balloons, we set off to explore the village. All inhabitants of Jimani, about 500 people, occupy one single longhouse, resembling a huge “pile-hotel” with some hundred rooms opening onto a common veranda. This style of living together is as unique as it is practical. It embodies the spirit of helping each other typical of the jungle tribes of Borneo. When there is a happy event in the longhouse, everybody rejoices. When there is a sad moment, everybody grieves. Although they live in primitive circumstances, these people have an outstanding sense of responsibility and concern for others.
The rumour that my fellow traveler, Elena, is a doctor has already spread in the longhouse, and several elderly people unostentatiously approach us asking for medical advice. The consultation in such circumstances is, of course, a complete improvisation, but we know from experience that sympathy and an encouraging word can do wonders, along with medicine from our first aid kit, even if it might only be an aspirin tablet.
We shall spend the night in the house of the chieftain, and his wife starts preparing the dinner—rice with boiled fish from the river, some kind of stewed vegetable from the jungle and chicken from the town. For dinner we sit down on the floor, cross-legged. This is what the tradition enjoins, although I notice a table and chairs in the room. According again to tradition, the guests eat alone, before the hosts, who dine after them. The hostess hands over the food with both hands and we have to take it in the same way. This is how the idea of giving and taking without reservations, with all one’s heart, is expressed. After dinner we sit together on the veranda and drink a glass of tuak.
The day, as usual, dies quickly, and the river swashes in a slow rhythm under our feet. Several pirogues with late fishermen pull up. Their boats glide over the dark water like alligators. Three women go down to bathe wrapped in gaily-coloured sarongs. The gigantic shadow of a tailless cat sneaks like a lurking puma across the yellowish halo of the oil lamp.
For the night we are put up in a room together with the whole family and with our boatman. Outside the wooden walls the jungle wakens for its nightlife, and its music, muted by the darkness, starts to jingle in a new tonality. Our senses are utterly strained, and it is difficult to put them to sleep. I try to drop off to sleep imagining Borneo before the era of television—a land of tigers, wild rivers and aristocratic natives together with white skinned individuals spending their earthly days on the principle “it is better to live one day as a tiger than a whole life as a mouse’.