The Strangers From Town
Original Post Date : August 15, 2005
One University Holiday, me and my mom went to Central Borneo, Kalteng, to visit my dad. He worked there and only went home to Jakarta once every few weeks or months.
At first, we spent few days in my hometown,Pontianak, West Borneo, to visit my grandparent’s grave, tasted the best food in the world, and met my junior high’s best friend.
From Pontianak to Kalteng, we needed two and a half hour flight, with…aeroplane?
It was a eight seater plane. I was seated at the co-pilot chair, next to the pilot, while behind me there were two rows of seater, three people each row. Gosh, the plane was smaller than Kijang!?
Full of confusion, before the plane departed, sometimes the pilot asked me to do things, adjust some equipments, opened and closed window, and the window was not like sliding up and down or more modern type, but those which you have to scroll a pipe (like car window). So, kletek kletek kletek, then window would then open or close.
Hehhehe, after feeling important and became the co-pilot for a while, the plane started to run. Then, what to call, turbine or propeller maybe, baling2, stopped moving. So, the pilot had to go down and did something. I looked around at the other passengers nervously. My mom was sitting behind busy fanning herself, because it was hot! Non-aircon mikrolet.
The flight was quite smooth, all we saw was Kapuas river from my hometown (longest river in Indonesia hehhe, I suspect it also visible from the moon, same like The Great Wall :) green, green, jungles, jungles for that 2.5 hours drive. Finally we reached the airport, moho, the view was indeed different from that seat. I saw a guy waving two round signs, commonly used for air navigation signs, in the ground as the plane moving toward him. Then he ran away, and pup, we were landed, no generous walkway for the plane, the pilot, now I admired him, had to be skilful enough to make used of the short road.
There we were. The place my dad spent most of his life, to feed us.
We stayed at the company/my dad’s partner house, which was big, located in the city and …. creepy.
It was a multilevel house, short stairs here and there, spiral stair, and common stair which had 50 cm, 40 cm, 30 cm, 25 cm, 50 cm, 25 cm, 30 cm steps respectively.
Knowing that my mom was a proper person, my dad did his best to make the house looked its best. He bought new beds and cleaned the house. But still, my mom was quite freak out.
I called it bat house. We slept at second story. Second story didn’t have false ceiling, so we had to stare at the wood block / roof support, which has quite a big population of uhm, bats.
The bats were hanging upside down staring at us. They were small in size, but still creepy, sometimes they flew down. One time, while I was sleeping, a bat flew down to my pillow. Strange, I was not scared, grabbed its wing, and released it. When my uncle visited us, he caught one, held it by its wing and banged it to the wall. That one, I was very scared. Cruel uncle.
The other creepy thing in that house was there were two big dark rooms in front of living room. Seemed like they were used for coal storage in the past. It was about two meters high, no door, and very2 dark. So, my mom and me tried to cut short every visit to the bathroom, which was located in front of that. To add to the ambient, there were dried animal decorations around the house, the living room wall and some of the carpets were dark maroon. My dad really had a strange partner.
(Update: there was some scary thing indeed happened to that house after my dad no longer stayed there)
Other than that, it was supposed to be a good house. Aircon, big TV with cable etc etc. But when my dad went to office, we stayed away from the house as much as we can, spent time in my uncle’s or walked around the town. It was a Dayak town. Outside the bad reputation it gained during the conflict with Madura, I always believe in their kindness because I heard story from their side too. They are gentle, kind, helpful and hand working. My dad is close buddy with many of them, and most of them, look pretty much like us. It was the community I proud to be with. So, I like to confess that I’m Dayak. Hehehhehe…
Spent about three weeks – one month there was quite relaxing. Not need to think about study, we ate those enormous yummy prawns and crabs almost everyday. Love it!
My dad liked to take us to nearby island to visit for temple or for fun. He could handle speedboat pretty well. There was one very small island where Buddhists liked to go there and prayed. I remember it was called Tanjung Keluang. My cousin said when they spent the night there, there were visited by ‘something’ that was scratching all over their tent. They called it ‘Nail Ghost’. Since then, people only went there for day trip.
Central Borneo was famous for its orang utan. There were bunch of foreigners stayed there to study them. They made friends with the locals; they even presented my dad with their book about orang utan. Sometimes, I do admire their wills to leave everything behind for what they love to do.
There were many islands where orang utans roamed freely because there were their habitats. So, one day, with my second aunt, fifth and seventh, many of the cousins, my mom and me, we chartered a boat and visited one of the islands. We had to go through a river. My dad was one of the team who opened the river for transportation, when he was very young. That river was full of crocodiles, black crocodiles. We saw a few floating near our boat. But our boat was a steady double deck boat, so we were not scared, and the crocodiles also looked calm, although they were huge. Uhm…
The orang utans, your brothers ;p was funny creatures. They followed us, begged for food, some played with the cats. One made my poor old auntie ran around because it was peeping her from the top of the toilet, lucky she was finished with her business. The was one huge one hanging from tree to tree, she looked quite fierce and wanted to scared us away, turned out her children were behind us. There of them, very small, each holding another from the back, walked together, it was very funny. They ignored us for a while, then, the last one walked to me and started to climb my leg. Of course I was terrified, then it looked like it wanted to be carried to the conservation house to have its milk lunch.
One University Holiday, me and my mom went to Central Borneo, Kalteng, to visit my dad. He worked there and only went home to Jakarta once every few weeks or months.
At first, we spent few days in my hometown,Pontianak, West Borneo, to visit my grandparent’s grave, tasted the best food in the world, and met my junior high’s best friend.
From Pontianak to Kalteng, we needed two and a half hour flight, with…aeroplane?
It was a eight seater plane. I was seated at the co-pilot chair, next to the pilot, while behind me there were two rows of seater, three people each row. Gosh, the plane was smaller than Kijang!?
Full of confusion, before the plane departed, sometimes the pilot asked me to do things, adjust some equipments, opened and closed window, and the window was not like sliding up and down or more modern type, but those which you have to scroll a pipe (like car window). So, kletek kletek kletek, then window would then open or close.
Hehhehe, after feeling important and became the co-pilot for a while, the plane started to run. Then, what to call, turbine or propeller maybe, baling2, stopped moving. So, the pilot had to go down and did something. I looked around at the other passengers nervously. My mom was sitting behind busy fanning herself, because it was hot! Non-aircon mikrolet.
The flight was quite smooth, all we saw was Kapuas river from my hometown (longest river in Indonesia hehhe, I suspect it also visible from the moon, same like The Great Wall :) green, green, jungles, jungles for that 2.5 hours drive. Finally we reached the airport, moho, the view was indeed different from that seat. I saw a guy waving two round signs, commonly used for air navigation signs, in the ground as the plane moving toward him. Then he ran away, and pup, we were landed, no generous walkway for the plane, the pilot, now I admired him, had to be skilful enough to make used of the short road.
There we were. The place my dad spent most of his life, to feed us.
We stayed at the company/my dad’s partner house, which was big, located in the city and …. creepy.
It was a multilevel house, short stairs here and there, spiral stair, and common stair which had 50 cm, 40 cm, 30 cm, 25 cm, 50 cm, 25 cm, 30 cm steps respectively.
Knowing that my mom was a proper person, my dad did his best to make the house looked its best. He bought new beds and cleaned the house. But still, my mom was quite freak out.
I called it bat house. We slept at second story. Second story didn’t have false ceiling, so we had to stare at the wood block / roof support, which has quite a big population of uhm, bats.
The bats were hanging upside down staring at us. They were small in size, but still creepy, sometimes they flew down. One time, while I was sleeping, a bat flew down to my pillow. Strange, I was not scared, grabbed its wing, and released it. When my uncle visited us, he caught one, held it by its wing and banged it to the wall. That one, I was very scared. Cruel uncle.
The other creepy thing in that house was there were two big dark rooms in front of living room. Seemed like they were used for coal storage in the past. It was about two meters high, no door, and very2 dark. So, my mom and me tried to cut short every visit to the bathroom, which was located in front of that. To add to the ambient, there were dried animal decorations around the house, the living room wall and some of the carpets were dark maroon. My dad really had a strange partner.
(Update: there was some scary thing indeed happened to that house after my dad no longer stayed there)
Other than that, it was supposed to be a good house. Aircon, big TV with cable etc etc. But when my dad went to office, we stayed away from the house as much as we can, spent time in my uncle’s or walked around the town. It was a Dayak town. Outside the bad reputation it gained during the conflict with Madura, I always believe in their kindness because I heard story from their side too. They are gentle, kind, helpful and hand working. My dad is close buddy with many of them, and most of them, look pretty much like us. It was the community I proud to be with. So, I like to confess that I’m Dayak. Hehehhehe…
Spent about three weeks – one month there was quite relaxing. Not need to think about study, we ate those enormous yummy prawns and crabs almost everyday. Love it!
My dad liked to take us to nearby island to visit for temple or for fun. He could handle speedboat pretty well. There was one very small island where Buddhists liked to go there and prayed. I remember it was called Tanjung Keluang. My cousin said when they spent the night there, there were visited by ‘something’ that was scratching all over their tent. They called it ‘Nail Ghost’. Since then, people only went there for day trip.
Central Borneo was famous for its orang utan. There were bunch of foreigners stayed there to study them. They made friends with the locals; they even presented my dad with their book about orang utan. Sometimes, I do admire their wills to leave everything behind for what they love to do.
There were many islands where orang utans roamed freely because there were their habitats. So, one day, with my second aunt, fifth and seventh, many of the cousins, my mom and me, we chartered a boat and visited one of the islands. We had to go through a river. My dad was one of the team who opened the river for transportation, when he was very young. That river was full of crocodiles, black crocodiles. We saw a few floating near our boat. But our boat was a steady double deck boat, so we were not scared, and the crocodiles also looked calm, although they were huge. Uhm…
The orang utans, your brothers ;p was funny creatures. They followed us, begged for food, some played with the cats. One made my poor old auntie ran around because it was peeping her from the top of the toilet, lucky she was finished with her business. The was one huge one hanging from tree to tree, she looked quite fierce and wanted to scared us away, turned out her children were behind us. There of them, very small, each holding another from the back, walked together, it was very funny. They ignored us for a while, then, the last one walked to me and started to climb my leg. Of course I was terrified, then it looked like it wanted to be carried to the conservation house to have its milk lunch.
posted by aping | 11:38 PM
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