Archive for June 7th, 2006
Yogyakarta is a famous tourist centre for a number of reasons, but the most impressive – after batik, for which the city is very well known, but which has been exported enough not to be uniquely Yogyakartan any more – are the temples and buildings in the area. I spent Sunday 26th exploring the Sultan’s Palace, watching some Javanese dancing and examining the batik shops, but this was just a stepping-stone on the way to the two serious sights of the area: Borobudur and Prambanan.
I tackled both temple complexes with the help of Tim and Bjorn, a couple of Belgian reprobates1 whom I’d met at the hotel, and who had been just as keen to sample Pizza Hut and McDonald’s as I was.
Swiftly proving themselves to be good company, we combined lazing around and cultural tourism in a way that only those with plenty of time and nothing better to do can. The fact that I was to spend a good ten days in Yogya waiting for a package that had never been sent2 was frustrating, but the Belgian boys made it more than enjoyable.
Cycling in Yogyakarta
The other ‘cultural’ event that we managed to experience in Yogyakarta – putting aside the visits to McDonald’s and Pizza Hut – was a bicycle trip round the local villages and farms. For a tourist tour it was pretty damn good: Tim, Bjorn, myself, and our local guide headed off on the most astoundingly painful bicycles for a bone-rattling and arse-bruising trip into the paddy fields, and I have to say I learned a hell of a lot. Try the following, none of which I knew about before cycling round Yogya. I didn’t even know how rice grew until I took this tour…
Rice in the field
Yes, rice. If you’d asked me to tell you all I knew about rice, I would have told you it grew in waterlogged paddy fields, and, err, that’s it. Does the rice grow in the water or above water level? Does it grow in sheaths, like corncobs, or like wheat, or what? Well, here’s the complete guide to growing rice.
Rice has a three-month growing cycle. Seeds are sown in a soft field by the traditional sower’s-parable-method, where they are left for 25 days to form baby shoots. These shoots are then transplanted into a new paddy field, where they are spaced out with 20cm between each shoot, measured using a bamboo stick with notches cut into it.
The field is left for three months; fertiliser is added in the first month, when the water level is kept high, and the field is allowed to dry up during the second and third months.
By the end of the third month the rice has grown to about three or four feet high, and the seeds are in groups, exactly like wheat or barley.
Workers threshing the rice by bashing bundles of it against wooden planks
The rice is then cut down, and the seeds are removed by one of two methods: they are either bashed against wooden planks by energetic young men (the method we witnessed and, indeed, tried for ourselves), or they are stamped on. Whatever the method, the result is bags and bags of light brown seeds, the kernels of which are the traditional grains of rice; some are put aside at this stage to sow into empty fields, starting the process all over again.
The rest of the grains are laid out in the sun to dry for three or more days, depending on the weather (I’d seen these concrete slabs all over Indonesia, periodically covered in yellow grains), and then the chaff is separated from the kernel by throwing the grain up in the air from a round, flat bowl: the wind blows away the chaff, leaving rice. (They sometimes stamp on the dried grains to separate the rice out, but it’s a common sight to see women tossing the grains like tropical versions of the American gold panners.)
The Sultan’s Palace has some excellent murals
The Pancasila. Ah yes, the Pancasila. On a large sign in every village in Indonesia are the five points of the Pancasila, a kind of creed for the Indonesian Republic, first put forward by President Soekarno in 1945, when he fought the Dutch for an end to colonialism. The five points each have a symbol that go together with the garuda to make up the main coat of arms of the Pancasila. Believe in it…
◦ Star: Faith in one god. This god can be anyone – Christ, Buddha, Siva, Allah, whoever – as long as it’s not subversive. People like the Torajans, with their animist views, have special permission to worship their idols.
◦ Chain: The chain ring symbolises humanity, a sign that Indonesia is part of the unity of humankind. Proof perhaps that Soekarno was a hippy…
◦ Banyan Tree: A united Indonesia, a coming together of all ethnic and religious groups into one united country. Incidentally, it’s also the tree under which Buddha achieved enlightenment, but I don’t think that’s relevant to its inclusion in the Pancasila, seeing as Soekarno was a Muslim.
The Ramayana being performed in Yogya; on the left is the evil Ravana, on the right his sidekick
Buffalo Head: Democracy, or at least Indonesia’s version of it. It’s a democracy based on village deliberation, a governing of local issues by locals while the government makes all the important, nationwide decisions. Most Indonesians describe their country as a democracy, but when I was there this was a semantic subtlety: the government threw elections every few years, but seeing as the ruling Golkar party had the power to choose the opposition party’s policies, leaders and election candidates, the balance was a little one-sided. Combined with Golkar’s control of the media and its huge election resources, it was no surprise that President Soeharto would getting around 70 per cent of the vote every time an election was called, as he had done since he turfed out Soekarno in the 1965 coup. Democracy, my foot, though happily things do seem to be changing, slowly, now that Soeharto has been ousted.
◦ Rice and Cotton Stalks: Social justice, or that a just society will provide adequate food and clothing for all its people. Of course, that doesn’t include all the beggars in the trains…
• The Siskamling is another good example of a people’s democracy. In every village, at midnight, ten locals meet in a building called the Poskamling according to a rota, and tour the village, checking for any law-breakers, like thieves or murderers. If they find anything they call the police, but it’s a clever way of taking the onus off the police to be everywhere all the time, and makes the people think they’re responsible for upholding the law: Siskamling means System (sistem) Security (keamanan) Environment (lingkungan). Of course, the people are powerless over the government’s human rights and environmental policies, but nobody seems to complain that much.
Mud bricks drying in the sun
Brick making is manual in Indonesia: of course it is, labour is cheap. Bricks are made from a mixture of clay and water, stuffed into a simple five-brick mould, and turned out onto concrete to dry in the sun for a week. That’s it, and a good brick maker makes 500 bricks a day, worth 50rp each. Even breeze blocks are made this way, manually.
• Tempe is a local delicacy, made by boiling soya beans for three hours, stamping on them, leaving them overnight, boiling for another three hours, mixing them with yeast and packing them in banana leaves. After exactly three days – no more, no less – the tempe is ready to eat, lightly fried in oil with garlic and salt. It’s actually rather pleasant, but don’t eat out-of-date tempe: it goes mouldy like there’s no tomorrow, which there probably won’t be if you eat it.
Batik being made in the backstreets
Not bad for a day’s cycling. We also invaded a school and thrilled a classroom of children with our western ways (this wasn’t scheduled, Tim and Bjorn just rode into the school and went wild), saw peanut farms, beans growing anti-clockwise round their poles, corn fields, sugar cane, soya bean plants, teak trees, banana trees… and plenty of other weird and wonderful parts of the Indonesian countryside that you wouldn’t otherwise see.
It was almost worth getting a couple of buttocks that hurt even more than after the buses in Flores and Sulawesi. Which is saying something.
The tidy barracks of Fort Vredeburg
The only other visit of note in Yogyakarta before our departure was to Fort Vredeburg in the middle of town. This Dutch colonial fort was pleasant enough for its classic architecture, but more interesting were the three rooms of dioramas depicting the history of the independence movement (a diorama, I discovered, is the name given to a model of an event in time, such as the signing of an important document, or the invasion of a building).
The dioramas were interesting more for what they didn’t say than what they did. As should be expected from a dictatorship, the version of the story told in the Vredeburg was, well, biased. The first room told of the early history, from the underhand Dutch capture of the local sultan and his exile to Sulawesi, to the creation of the health service and education system, right up to the beginning of the war. The second room showed the brutality of the Japanese invasion and occupation, and the end of the war. Both these rooms were captioned in both Indonesian and English.
But the third room was only captioned in Indonesian, and depicted the struggle for independence against the scurrilous Dutchmen and their underhand collaborators. Every Dutch soldier was depicted as mad with blood lust, every Indonesian as heroic, of course. But I wonder why the captions weren’t in a language that foreign visitors could understand…
1 Our relationship is probably best summed up by the fact that Tim and Bjorn said they’d buy me two large beers each if I shaved off my beard, so I did. Fickle, vacuous and college-boy stoopid it might have been, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting heartily drunk on my last night in Bali, at someone else’s expense. Seems that if I run out of money, I can always count on my beard to bail me out…
2 My computer had died, and Acorn were kindly sending me a replacement, but they couldn’t send it to Yogyakarta as the parcel company refused to send it to anywhere that didn’t have a phone number. I would have to wait until Singapore to receive the replacement, which was hard to handle for such a technology addict.
source : www.moxon.net/indonesia/yogyakarta.html
June 7th, 2006
Indonesia is the world’s largest coral reef nation, with over 50 000 square kilometers of reefs (17 percent of the world total), extending nearly 5 000 kilometers from east to west, and harboring over 17000 islands (including rocks and sandbanks). It touches on both the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well as many seas, including the Andaman, Java, South China, Sulawesi, Banda and Arafura Seas. This same country has a vast array of coral reefs, many poorly described or completely unknown, while it completely straddles the region with the greatest reef biodiversity in the world. For the purposes of this account the physical and biological descriptions are subdivided into a number of geographic sub-units, however human and socio-economic issues are considered together for the entire country.
Despite the vast area of the Indonesian Archipelago and the lack of detailed information about its reef communities, the majority of its coastal area is already heavily utilized, particularly in the west, and considerable areas are under increasing stress from human activities. About 6 000 of Indonesia’s islands are inhabited, and marine and coastal resources and activities generate 25 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. One study along the west coast of Lombok made a detailed assessment of coral reef value, particularly looking at fisheries production, but also at tourism, mariculture, ornamental trade and other resources. The estimated value of the reefs in the area was US$5 800 per hectare. This same coastline was utilized by 7 100 fishermen and over 35 percent of
their fish catch came from coral reefs.
Fisheries are a major activity, and it has been estimated that 60 percent of protein consumption is derived from fisheries. About 90 percent of all fisheries are artisanal, with products for local consumption or for sale in local markets. Unfortunately overfishing is widespread and is almost continuous in all regions from Sulawesi westwards. In addition a number of destructive fishing practices, blast and cyanide fishing amongst them, are employed in all areas, including many remote reefs and atolls. Blast fishing, in particular, is having an extremely detrimental effect across the country. Although illegal since 1985, few places have escaped it, even in protected areas. The total cost of this fishery to the country, in terms of long-term fishery losses and loss of tourist income, has been estimated at US$3 billion over the 20 years from 1999. Indonesia is the largest supplier of live food fish to the Asian markets with large vessels operating among the more remote reefs, and mostly using cyanide (although illegal since 1995). Muro-ami fishing has significant impacts in a number of areas, including Kepulauan Seribu. This involves the use of large nets and large groups of fishers, often children, who swim with poles or rocks on ropes and smash the reef surface to frighten fish up into the nets. The impacts of trawling on submerged reef systems are less well known, in part because the location and extent of these reefs is unknown.
Collection of fish and corals for export in the ornamental and aquarium trade is considerable. Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter of corals under the regulations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Reaching well over 1 000 tons of coral per year in the early 1990s and now exporting around 500 tons per year, Indonesia has provided approximately 41 percent of all coral exports worldwide since 1985. These exports are relatively low on a unit-area basis because of the very large coral reef area in the country, but they may have localized impacts.
Coastal development causes considerable problems, particularly in the western half of the country. Extensive deforestation has greatly exacerbated the natural influences of freshwater and sediment discharge on reef growth and condition, and these impacts are continually expanding to new areas. Urban and industrial pollution is widespread, entering coastal areas through rivers and discharge pipes. In 1998 it was reported that there was no sewage treatment plant in any major coastal city. Agricultural development is leading to increased inputs of nutrients and chemicals, and their effects are now widely apparent. In a gradient across the Spermonde Archipelago, for example, there is a rapid decline in biodiversity and coral cover closely linked with proximity to the highly polluted coastline approaching Makassar. Coral cover at 68 kilometers distance from the town is over 65 percent, dropping to 14 percent at 1.3 kilometers. Mangroves have been widely removed, often for the development of shrimp ponds, but also for commercial woodchip or pulp production, or due to general overexploitation by growing coastal populations. Coral mining is also common, with corals being used for various purposes including building (houses, road foundations, sea walls and jetties), to lime production (for mortar), and decorative use both within the country and for export.
Tourism is now important in many areas, and is itself responsible for a range of problems, particularly associated with the developments on small coral cays. Impacts include land reclamation, dredging of lagoons and mangrove clearance. A large number of the islands in Kepulauan Seribu have been modified in this way. At the same time tourism provides an alternate income source and may lead to the reduction of fishing pressures in some locations. Although there are many protected areas in Indonesia, they do not provide a good network for the vast area of reefs, nor do they yet reach the 300 000 square kilometer goal set by the government for 2000. Most of the existing sites lack comprehensive management and, in many, their conservation value is reported to be rapidly deteriorating.
source : www.reefbase.org/resources/res_overview.asp?changearea=true&Region=0&country=IDN
June 7th, 2006
Kalimantan or Borneo is the place to explore. This world’s third largest island covering the area of 747,000 square kilometer and covered by one of the world’s largest stretches of tropical rain forest through which flows tremendous mighty rivers which are the island’s highway.
The Dayak Tribes, the indigenous people of Kalimantan were some of the fierce head-hunters. Today, they are no longer collect grisly trophies; the men hunt with blowguns while the women weave baskets of rattans using age-ol patterns and techniques or together hack their fields out of the jungle, burning the brush to provide nutrients to the poor soil.
The island is rich with many fascinating and endemic wildlife; the orangutans, proboscis monkeys, gibbons and species of monkeys, Argus pheasants, snakes including the three species of flying snakes, sun bears, 600 hundred species of birds including the hornbills which play an important role in the Dayak mythology.
The exotic plants includes the rare black orchids, carnivorous pitcher plants, 70 meter trees including the hardest wood in the rain forest “Iron Wood” and many more.
Our trips will take you to explore the mighty Mahakam river and it’s tributaries to meet the Dayak Tribes and experience their mystical arts & cultures, trekking through the jungle in searching for the exotic flora and fauna.
Our experienced and naturalist guide will make you understand about everything you want to know about the Kalimantan Rain Forest and all creatures live in it and the cultures of the Dayak Tribes.
June 7th, 2006
Many of past clients call this is a “magical trip”. We will take you to meet one of the human’s closest living relatives in animal kingdoms: Orangutan (pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus sp.) living free at their natural home at Camp Leakey, Tanjung Harapan and Pondok Tanguy stations inside the misty rain forest surrounded by proboscis monkeys, macaques, gibbons, birds including the giant hornbills and other exotic flora and fauna. You will explore the quit river on a traditional boat ( “African Queen” river boat style) and having some short walk around the stations.
In the peaceful afternoon, we silently cruise the river to watch the Proboscis “Pinocchio” monkeys (nasalis larvatus), birds and other animals playing in trees on the riverbanks while you enjoying your afternoon tea in the roof of the boat.
Overnight will be on the 2 x 6 meter wide boat with simple toilet, thin mattresses, pillow, healthy meals, water available on board, in order to get better change to watch the animals’ activities in the early morning. No adventure experiences required in this wonderful trip.
INTERACTION WITH ORANGUTAN
For your information in Tanjung Puting National Park there is two different type of orangutan, first is orangutan who originally inhabitant in this park and we called it wild orangutan and second is the rehabilitant orangutan or ex-captive orangutan formerly confiscated and rescue from the people who keep them as a pet. For the wild orangutan it is difficult to play or interact with them due to they are shy animal and always keep the distance with human. For example if you put some fruits on the ground they will never take it till you go away or disappear from their sight. While with the ex-captive or rehabilitant orangutan you have a chance to play or interact with them.
Actually we do not recommend to initiate contact with them due to the rehabilation process to take them back to their natural habitat, but as they formerly live with human for years so they prefers to play then back to the jungle. It may happen while you trek or at the feeding time you meet them they would like to play with you. Take your hand and walk around the jungle so they will act like your trusty jungle guide 
, riding in your back or something else. It is not also recommend to feed them but in some cases is fine as long as you feed them with their natural food such as fruits. For your information, actually they have their own food in the jungle such as many different kind of fruits, young leaves, bark, termites, shoots, and very rare happen they eat small birds or eggs if they completely run out their food. To anticipate the competition to get food in the park and the fruits season is over so there is a feeding time for them once a day. We give them fruits and milk as supplement food and they can find the rest in the jungle.
source : www.adventureindonesia.com
June 7th, 2006
With thousand of islands, great biological value, hundred of nature reserves and more than 1500 species of birds or 17% of the world’s species represented, 381 could not be found elsewhere on the earth, Indonesia is a birdwatcher’s paradise!
It is a great pleasure for us to take you in the journeys through some of the more easily accessible, though still fascinating, birdwatching sites in the exotic islands of Indonesia archipelago.
See the list of birds:
• SUMATRA:
Black-shouldered Kite, Black Eagle, Salvadori’s Pheasant, Ashy Drongo, Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo, Green Magpie, White-breasted Woodswallow, Gray-chinned Minivet, White-throated Fantail, Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike, Long-tailed Shrik, Lesser Shortwing, White-browed Shortwing, Snowy-browed Flycatcher, Little Pied Flycatcher, Pygmy Blue-Flycatcher, Blue Nuthatch, Asian Martin, Black-capped White-eye, Mountain Tailorbird, Mountain Leaf-Warbler, Chestnut-capped Laughingthrush, Rusty-breasted Wren-Babbler, Golden Babbler, Silver-eared Mesia, Long-tailed Sibia, White-headed Munia, Temminck’s Sunbird.
• KALIMANTAN (BORNEO):
Red-headed Trogon, Long-tailed Broadbill, Slaty-backed Forktail, Green Magpie, and Silver-eared Mesia, Black Laughingthrush, Fire-tufted Barbet, Chestnut-bellied Malkoha and the spectacular Mangrove Pitta, Black-thighed Falconet, Masked Finfoot, Blue-crowned Hanging-Parrot, Raffles’, Chestnut-breasted malkohas, Buffy Fish-Owl, hornbills (including the magnificent Rhinoceros and Helmeted), Malayan Peacock-Pheasant, Crested Fireback, Great Argus, Red-breasted and Crimson-headed partridges, Whitehead’s Trogon, Golden-naped Barbet, Whitehead’s Broadbill, Bornean Treepie, Fruit-hunter, Chestnut-crested Yuhina, Whitehead’s Spiderhunter, Large Frogmouth, Bornean Bristlehead, Storm’s Stork, Blue-headed Pitta, Black-headed Pitta and many more…
• JAVA:
Black-banded Barbet, Javan Kingfisher, Red-billed Malkoha, Javan Hawk-Eagle (rare), Banded Broadbill, Chestnut-capped Thrush, Sunda Forktail, Horsfield’s Babbler, Scarlet Sunbird, Grey Teal, Milky Stork, Lesser Adjutant, Black-winged Starling, Javan White-eye, Streaked Weaver, Red Avadavat, Laced Woodpecker, Blue-eared Kingfisher, Grey-cheeked Green-Pigeon, Black-naped Fruit-Dove, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Pied Fantail, Chestnut-capped Thrush, Orange-headed Thrush, Scarlet-headed Flowerpecker, Plain-throated Sunbird, Olive-backed Sunbird, Chestnut-bellied Partridge, Crimson-winged Woodpecker, Pink-necked Green-Pigeon, Sumatran Green-Pigeon (rare), Dark-backed Imperial-Pigeon, (rare), Sunda Forktail, Javan Tesia, Javan Fulvetta, Spotted Crocias, , Mountain Serin, Wandering Whistling-Duck, Far Eastern Curlew, Pacific Black Duck, Green Junglefowl, Peregrine Falcon).
• BALI:
Green Junglefowl, Lineated Barbet, Dollarbird, Javan Kingfisher, Collared Kingfisher, Sacred Kingfisher, Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, Lesser Coucal, Red-breasted Parakeet, Grey-rumped Treeswift, Island Collared-Dove, Orange-breasted Green-Pigeon, Grey-cheeked Green-Pigeon, Green Imperial-Pigeon, Beach Thick-knee, Black-thighed Falconet, White-faced Heron, Racket-tailed Treepie, White-breasted Woodswallow, Black-winged Starling, Bali Myna (extremely rare), Sooty-headed Bulbul, Java Sparrow (rare), Javan Munia, Collared Kingfisher, Asian Palm-Swift, Collared Scops-Owl, Pallas’s Grasshopper-Warbler.
• SULAWESI:
Maleo (Macrocephalon maleo), Sulawesi Hornbill, Lilac-cheeked Kingfisher, Ochre-bellied Hawk-Owl, Speckled Hawk-Owl, Maroon-chinned Fruit-Dove, Isabelline Waterhen, Lesser Fish-Eagle, Spot-tailed Goshawk, Rufous Night-Heron, Red-bellied Pitta, Knobbed Hornbill, Purple-winged Roller, Purple-bearded Bee-eater, Black-billed Koel, Yellow-billed Malkoha, Ornate Lorikeet, Yellow-and-green Lorikeet, Sulawesi Hanging-Parrot, Red-billed Hanging-Parrot, Purple Needletail, Sulawesi Scops-Owl, White-faced Cuckoo-Dove, Red-eared Fruit-Dove, White-bellied Imperial-Pigeon, Grey-headed Imperial-Pigeon, Green Imperial-Pigeon, Barred Honey-buzzard, Sulawesi Serpent-Eagle, Sulawesi Goshawk, Sulawesi Hawk-Eagle, Dark-eared Myza, White-eared Myza, Piping Crow, Ivory-backed Woodswallow, Sulawesi Cicadabird, Geomalia, Great Shortwing, Sulawesi Myna, White-necked Myna, Fiery-browed Myna, Finch-billed Myna.
• IRIAN JAYA:
Northern Cassowary, Bulwer’s Petrel, Great Frigate Bird, Lesser Frigate Bird, Brown-collared Brush Turkey, Wattled Brush Turkey, Common Scrubfowl, Little Pied Cormorant, Brown Booby, Glossy Ibis, Eastern Reef Egret, Grey-headed Goshawk, Crested Hawk, Long-tailed Buzzard, Gurney’s Eagle, New Guinea Harpy Eagle, Swamp Harrier, Australian Pratincole, Red-necked Phalarope, Whimbrel, Beach Stone Curlew, Red Knot, Black-billed Cuckoo Dove, Beautiful Fruit Dove, Zoe Imperial Pigeon, Spice Imperial Pigeon, Papua Mountain Pigeon, Papuan Lorikeet, Biak Red Lory, Moluccan Red Lory, Western Black-capped Lory, Rainbow Lorikeet, Plum-faced Lorikeet, Papuan King Parrot, Eclectus Parrot, Vulturine Parrot, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Palm Cockatoo, Buff-faced Pygmy Parrot, Large Fig Parrot, Modest Tiger Parrot, Lesser Black Coucal, Biak Paradise Kingfisher, Azure Kingfisher, Yellow-billed Kingfisher, Forest Kingfisher, Rufous-bellied Kookaburra, Marbled Frogmouth, Feline Owlet-nightjar, Papuan Spine-tailed Swift, Spotted Jewel Babbler, Wallace’s Fairy Wren, Emperor Fairy Wren, Northern Fantail, Lesser Ground Robin, Regent Whistler, Crested Pitohui, Mid-mountain Berrypecker, Yellow-bellied Sunbird, Western Mountain White-eye, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Sclater’s Myzomela, Helmeted Friarbird, Papuan Parrot Finch, Mountain Drongo, King Bird of Paradise, Magnificent Bird of Paradise, Lesser Bird of Paradise, Red Bird of Paradise, Torresian Crow.
Source : www.adventureindonesia.com
June 7th, 2006