A trip to Borneo

This past week the kids had a mid-semester break. Along with some Canadian friends from the Green School, we decided to go to Borneo to see Orangutans. We did some research and found the best place in Indonesia for Orangutans is in Tanjing Puting National Park on the island of Borneo in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan. And... here's the best part - the park is located along a series of small rivers, accessible only by boat. So for three days we hired a boat (or as it's known in Kalimantan a Klotok) with a captain, an assistant captain, a cook, an assistant cook and a guide. It felt a bit like our house! Here's what the boat looks like (although this is not our boat, ours was actually a bit bigger because there was ten of us).

From A trip to Borneo

The trip worked liked this. We spent three days and nights on the river. We arrived around 6:00pm on the first night, a bit later than we hoped, as our flight was delayed. We set sail in the dark, up a large river from the port of Kumai. After about an hour, we turned onto Setonyer river, and sailed another hour or so. It was hard to see anything, but we did pass some amazing trees that were full of fireflies. They looked like Christmas trees (albeit French-Canadian trees as they were blinking). We ate a delicous dinner prepared by the crew. The mattresses and mosquito nets then came out and we slept on the deck. A little hot at first, but great to go to sleep in the middle of nowhere, with only the sounds of the jungle as the soundtrack.

The next morning we woke and sailed about 3 hours to Camp Leakey, a research station founded by a Canadian woman in the 1970's. She is the Diane Fossey/Jane Goodall of orangutans. She works here only occasionly now, but is well-regarded for her work on orangutans. There are about 5000 orangutans in the park, about 300 of those are rehabilitated from zoos and pets. They still offer daily feedings to make sure they don't starve. At the camp, we hiked about 25 minutes into the feeding station and watched in amazement as about a dozen orangutans came swinging out of the forest to eat the provided bananas. Here's a few pictures:

From A trip to Borneo

From A trip to Borneo

From A trip to Borneo

The cycle then repeated itself. We visited three camps in all, sailing about 2 hours between each of them. We spent a few hours at each camp, looking at the orangutans. We saw over 40 orangutans in total. We also saw 5 wild orangutans off the side of the boat as we sailed on the river. The rest of the time we read, played cards, swam a little (though we had to be careful as there are crocodiles in the river) and shot our latest short film... oh yes, we've shot another one. This one is called "Up the River" and will be done soon and posted here.

After three days we were sad to leave. Life on the boat was great.

Click on the photo below to go to a slide show of about 50 pictures with captions from our trip.

A trip to Borneo

Janet goes to a local medicine man...

This is a post by Janet:

I went to see a Bali healer, twice.
I went out of curiosity.
I went because I am interested in all healing modalities.
But mostly I went to see if he could heal my summer/fall, ten year old, nocturnal neck and arm heat rash. Those of you that know me well have heard me complain bitterly that for four 4 months of the year I am up a night icing my arms and neck for pain relief.

From October in Bali

First, a bit about Balians, which is what they are called.
The guiding principle behind this magico-medical practice comes from a
traditional Balinese saying: Desa, kala, patra; which translates as
place, time, and circumstance. In other words knowledge, action,
health or life happenings need to be contextualized in place, time
and circumstance. With this in mind treatments are particular, not
general. By ‘particular’ I mean that they believe that illness comes
from either karma or others using poison or black magic on you.

Every village has at least four Balians. There are said to be more
than 8000 in Bali, and with a population of 4 million, they are
plentiful. There are four streams of Balians, I went to see the most
common kind, an Usada, who studies sacred Balinese texts that contain
information on illnesses and how to diagnose and cure them. Many
healers do not see foreigners as they feel that the cultural barrier
is just too vast. Not surprisingly since Eat, Pray, Love numerous
healers are cashing in on the interest by tourists to visit them,
often pulling in $30.00 to $60.00 dollars a client). Our friend and
driver Agus has taken many tourists to see Elizabeth Gilbert’s healer
(though now over 90 and as of August is in the hospital). He told that
me that he heard him say the exact same thing to all the women, a few
positive general comments with a strong emphasis that they are great
in bed.

Visits to the healer are done in public with often a combination of
locals and foreigners watching and listening. Treatments generally
hurt, a lot. I screamed and howled, a lot. The pain was similar to
labour. Sharp and nasty.

From October in Bali

On my first visit I started with a 60 second explanation of my hot arm
which he didn’t seem terribly interested in. He sat me down on the mat
in front of him and pressed all sorts of points on my head and in my
ears with his hands. This was the beginning of the magical torture
session. Next he lay me down on my back and and with his small wooden
mallet he pressed my vital organs as represented on the tips of my
toes (lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys.....). They all hurt. I screamed.

From October in Bali

He then drew some patterns over my body, said a few things, and then
pressed the points again. No change. Repeat. Some change. Repeat with
a few mudras and then finally NO PAIN. That’s right. When he pressed
that nasty wooden instrument into my toes the pain was gone. He then
proceeded to take a tiny glass jar, no larger than my thumb, and with
the opening down he placed it on the base of my big toe. He pressed
hard, I screamed (I had let my guard down thinking the pain was over),
he continued for what felt like 6 months, and within 2 minutes he was
done. NO PAIN. He was taking out the toxins I was told. It took a
while to get them out he offered as an explanation for the finale.

Over the course of the treatment he told me:
-I was allergic to stress
-To look in the mirror and tell myself I was beautiful
-To swallow my smile and not smile for other people but for myself
-To do ashtanga yoga
-To meditate every day and smile while I do so
-To take his oil and put it on my neck and arms
-That my lymph nodes where all blocked
-The my sushumna energy line was blocked and to open those chakras

My rash disappeared. Yup. 100% all gone by days end. I had my first
night’s sleep without a trip to the freezer since July 3rd. 10 full
days of relief. But then.....it returned.

From October in Bali

So I returned for visit two.
Second visit was a little less magical. I was sure he would remember
me. No. I was sure he would do a follow up inquiry into my smiling
meditation. No. I was sure he would look at my arms and a small light
of recognition would go off as to who I was. No. He seemed distracted
and bored. He poked me with that darn stick and I screamed. He didn’t
seem so interested in healing me or connecting with me.
He told me not to eat fish or eggs as I was shuffling back to the car.
It was all over in 3 minutes.

And that was my trip to the healer.

Emmet goes to the hospital (and does an interview)

This weekend Emmet was playing at a friend's house and he got hit in the head with a miniature surfboard. It cut him open just above his right eye. He went to the hospital and got seven stiches. He's doing great (it doesn't hurt anymore), but he can't swim for a week. So he's bummed about that. Here are two pictures.

From October in Bali

From October in Bali

Before the accident I did an interview with him about his thoughts on life in Bali. Here it is:

Question: Okay so here I am with Emmet. Emmet, what do you think of Bali so far?

Emmet: It’s very interesting.. It’s more bio-diverse than Canada. There’s a lot of interesting plants, palm trees. You never see those in Canada.

Question: So that’s the thing you notice the most so far?

Emmet: No that’s not the thing I notice the most. Well the motor bikes, they take up the streets, it’s really geared towards motorbikes. I notice that. I notice a lot of things. And I’m getting used to the monkeys in the parking lot near the monkey forest. Which is weird… I shouldn’t be getting used to that. I’m Canadian.

Question: But what’s your favourite thing so far about being in Bali?

Emmet: The school. Meeting new people.…I like the teachers. It’s pretty multicultural. It’s probably not what they dreamed, which is people from every single nation, or every single big nation. But I have friends from all over now. It’s good I can talk to them on facebook when I leave, email, stay in touch. Yeah maybe the school is what I like the most.

Question: What is something else that you like about Bali?

Emmet: Our house. I like our house. And the people. They’re nice. Learning the language which is fun. I’m getting there. Still at the basics, but the language is really easy.

Question: What about the food? What do you think of the food so far?

Emmet: I like the rice you know. I really like the fried rice. There is four different kinds of rice. I went to a rice field today with my school. They were just growing one type of rice, the new hybrid one. Rice is on every street, everywhere here. But that was the first time I’ve been right up to it.

Question: Okay the so the food is okay would you say?

Emmet: No, the food is pretty good. And there is still western food so it’s not like I’m going to be eating total Indonesian food for a year. Most big restaurants have western food.

Question: And what about the beaches in Bali? Have you been to any beaches? What are your thoughts about the beaches here?

Emmet: We came to Bali and we weren’t obviously like ‘let’s go to Bali for the beaches!’ it was more like let’s go to Bali for the experience. So we are somewhat in the middle of Bali, there’s no beaches. But it’s nice to get to the beaches every weekend or every other weekend.

Question: What’s something you don’t like about Bali?

Emmet: Youtube is really slow here!