I didn’t know when or if we’d stop at a place where I could change, so I wore my attempt at leech-proof clothing: long sleeves and a pair of pantyhose under my trousers (I was told they search for an opening to bare skin). Suffice it to say that I was a little overheated before we even got started.
The traffic this time seemed slightly tamer, probably due to a steady flow of traffic in both directions that discouraged passing. Each town we drove through had its own small mosque (some had several), and it seemed like the members of each one were all out there collecting money using nets on the end of poles. They’d set up a makeshift speed bump so you’d slow down.
We also saw lovely wooden homes in their traditional style, built on stilts with beautifully carved wooden panels under the eaves. I thought the stilts were because of the monsoon rains, but Erma explained it was because of tigers. In many front yards we saw people drying their rice in the sun, but also saw small operations drying their coffee and cocoa beans. Personally, I was rooting for more cocoa!
By far, the most unusual sight was the bird saliva towers. The countryside was full of rice paddies, and dotted by these 3-story uninhabited structures with just slits and no windows, and loudspeakers that blared the bird call of that particular species. Erma explained that the Chinese are willing to pay a huge sum for the saliva of a particular bird, so enterprising Indonesians have built these spooky structures to collect it. The birds are very sensitive to cleanliness and smell, so it needs to have clean water and no human presence for several months while the saliva accumulates. For that reason, they’re also known as “ghost houses”.
After a few hours on the windy roads we spotted the ocean! I was so excited at the prospect of going to visit it, but ‘twas not to be. Still, it was a gorgeous view. We stopped at our partner NGO’s office to drop off our non-essential gear for the trip and to borrow some jungle-appropriate “hiking boots”, known as galoshes in my neck of the woods (albeit camouflage green galoshes). What I didn’t realize was that there wasn’t enough to go around, so while I was enjoying some fresh mangosteens (my favorite tropical fruit), I was missing out on my chance to get these shoes. Instead, I was given an old pair of hiking boots—heavy, stiff, and not much taller than the hiking shoes I’d brought with me.
Once we reached the entrance to the park, we stopped for lunch at the ranger station and were treated to a sighting of Raflessia blossoms. These rare beauties are the largest flowers in the world, and smell like rotting meat to attract flies to pollinate them. I was slightly sad that none of them were open, but was also grateful that I didn’t have to eat around that smell.
There are actually people living inside the park, so we still had a quick drive to the home where we were dropped off to begin our hike into the jungle. This was what I had been trying to prepare for, and at first, it was hardly jungle. We hiked through an area that had been cleared to grow pepper, coffee, and chocolate—mostly sunny, dry, and totally leech free. And then we came to…”the river”.
(warning: this is where I get to the leeches. If you’re squeamish or eating, just skip to the part marked *********)
When I’d heard we would need to cross a river that didn’t have a bridge, I had all sorts of images in my mind about how deep it would be or how strong the current could be, what dangerous creatures would be living in there, etc. Like the Oregon Trail, I wondered if I’d ford the stream or caulk my wagon, so to speak, and float across. Its condition depends entirely on the weather and it can change rapidly and violently. Thankfully, the river turned out to be about knee-deep and not that wide.
It was at that point that I opted for fording the stream in my Chacos. I plopped down on the pebbly banks and began removing my layers of boots, socks, etc. only to remember that layer of pantyhose. I couldn’t take them off and it’d be miserable once they got wet, so out came the pocket knife to turn them into leggings. Once this production was completed I quickly crossed the river and climbed up the grassy banks, one of the first to arrive but one of the last people to cross. It was at this point that I decided to switch back to my own hiking boots, and while spending too much time in one place with a group of people, I became the first in the group to find a leech on me.
At this point, I should probably tell you what little I've learned about leeches. In this part of the world, they’re not in the water, but rather in the jungle floor and wet grasses. They look like a worm but move quite fast and are heat-seeking, moving towards their object and climbing until they find a place to suck blood. An Indonesian in the group later demonstrated this by putting a hot cigarette butt near one, and we could watch the leech chase after it. I am not a fan of these guys. Nor are the Indonesians, which is why the smart ones hiked as quickly as possible to our huts.
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| Before they took off for camp. |
I, on the other hand, was not so smart. This was the REAL jungle after all! I kept looking up at the tree canopy, marveling at the buttress roots of trees and insisting on photo ops. Again, stopping was asking for punishment but I’m a slow learner.
It also meant we got separated from our hosts for a bit, and that’s when I realized we were on the road less travelled. We did our best to make out the trail, and to decide which one to take when trails crossed it or it diverged, but I was so grateful when our host came back to find us! The area is used for scientific research so they had transects crisscrossing all over the place. In all, the hike wasn’t too long and was easy by virtue of being flat, but it was a little challenging when the mud started getting several inches thick—at that point I was envying a pair of those galoshes. Six leeches later, we arrived at the research station where we’d spend the night. It was a great set-up: several small buildings on stilts overlooking another small river, and they’d even built their own ping pong table!
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As we sat down to remove our boots and swap leech counts, someone spotted a few monitor lizards crawling up the river bank to our camp! They’re large, but move very slowly and are harmless to humans. After they left, I was ready to cool off.
I’d heard one of the other participants was going swimming in the river and decided to join them. At first, I just hiked along the banks and in the river a little, since it was hardly deep enough. But before long, I saw 2 of the participants paddling towards me in a large inner tube they’d tied boards onto to make into a makeshift raft. My mind instantly flashed to my mom’s concern about the “natives” so I joked with them and pretended to run away before being “captured” and given a cruise along the river. Turns out the natives are friendly, and they even let me take my turn at paddling. We floated downstream a bit to a deeper area for some swimming before heading back. So refreshing after the hot, sweaty hike!
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| The only way to travel leech-free in the jungle! |
Our entertainment that night came from a set of dominoes, a guitar and an English-language songbook that was at least 30 years old. One of my coworkers played for a bit, but it turned out our host had a great ear for music, and one of the Indonesian ladies loved to sing what he could play. When she realized I enjoyed singing and actually recognized most of the songs in the book, I became her BFF as we scanned through the book for songs to sing. The Beatles, “Sound of Music”, and Doris Day songs were all in there. “Que Sera Sera,” anyone? But the audience favorite was “Country Roads”, especially when I insisted on inserting the words “West Sumatra”.
We took a break as the students doing research returned from their night patrols. There was a pair studying bats, and as they took their live specimens out to identify and measure them, they let me try to assist. It was fascinating, but I can’t say those critters were cute.
Before we called it a night, I requested they sing some Indonesian songs and that was great. Indonesians just seem to be a musical people. They even taught me a few dance moves to “Dando Dando”, a song that’s played at every wedding, every party, etc. Basically you just need to give the thumbs-up and dance around. At the time, I didn’t know how handy that knowledge would become.
At last it was time for bed. I was sharing a hut with a Chinese girl getting her PhD in Florida and studying birds. She apologized in advance for needing to wake up so early the next morning, and then proceeded to chatter away into the wee small hours (I think she was a little excited to have an English-speaker around). I was a little too tired to make much conversation, but still had a hard time falling asleep with the heat and night sounds and the perception that bugs were going to get me. In the middle of the night, I grabbed a blanket from the closet and just having something covering me made it easier to sleep.
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