Indonesia and World Tourism News

Ecotourism in ‘Lord Jim’ country

There’s a lot of curiosity and much activity among the mud and mangroves at a Kahayan River inlet in Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan.

Six carpenters are building cabins atop a stripped-down, 20-meter former cargo boat bought by two foreigners with a dream. They want to introduce serious ecotourism to the huge but almost empty province — and by doing so save the forests and the Dayak who depend on them.

The inlet, with two primitive hand-cranked steel cable winches, is a local bush version of a dry dock though heavy rains have flooded the site.

That hasn’t deterred the workers who are racing to get the craft looking presentable for the May 23 celebrations of Central Kalimantan’s 50th anniversary (see sidebar).


When the cheering has faded and the bunting been pulled down the engine will be installed, heaved in by muscle power, for this open-air boatyard has few facilities. Then the fittings will be finessed to ensure they’re of a standard to meet the needs of international clients.

The Dayak Hope will be a floating boutique hotel with five double cabins. It will be capable of sailing into the upper reaches of the province (known locally as Kalteng), giving ecotourists the chance to see distant Dayak villages, wild (not rehabilitated) orangutans scrambling through the treetops and tropical flora and fauna.

For businesswomen Lorna Dowson-Collins and Gaye Thavisin this is a major undertaking. They plan to put the Indonesian part of Borneo on the world map of discerning tourists looking for experiences they can’t get in Amsterdam or Adelaide.

The couple have already sunk more than US$60,000 (Rp 550 million) of their own money into the plan, which includes development of a river port in Palangkaraya, more floating hotels and extensive marketing overseas.

“Gaye and I have gone beyond just ooh-ing and aah-ing and thinking how great it would be to open up the Kalimantan environment to others,” Lorna said.

“We’re now up to our necks in a venture that’s driven by our vision to protect Kalteng’s unique forests and create new sources of income for the local jungle-dwelling communities.”

Up to their necks? An outside observer might think this a defective metaphor. Add the crocodiles of business envy, the leaches of bureaucratic interference, the everyday hazards of remote-area life made doubly difficult in the tropics, and the fickleness of the tourist industry — and you can see that on the Richter risk scale this show is quaking.

Lose one visitor into the swirling brown crocodilian waters or have a hard encounter with a hornbill and the word will move at warp-speed through the Internet.

Fun in frontierland? Sure — but only if it comes with air-conditioning and cell phone access.

Boat-based tourism

This is “Lord Jim” country, the land made famous in Joseph Conrad’s classic. In the story, a disgraced young seaman shrinks from society to live with the Dayak. He helps better their lives but is killed after making a second error of judgment. (Read the book if you want to know the first.)

Fortunately, neither Lorna nor Gaye are dewy-eyed business maidens. Both have sweated long enough in Indonesia to know that foreigners giving birth to a new idea won’t have an easy labor, whatever soothing sounds are made by politicians who say overseas money’s welcome, but won’t ease the traumas of investment.

Lorna grew up in Jakarta where her father was a doctor at the British Embassy until he was kicked out of the country. Before that happened the family went sailing most weekends through the Thousand Islands just offshore from the capital — an experience that helped develop Lorna’s love of adventure.

Dad was expelled allegedly for treating Indonesians and referring patients to Singapore surgeons rather than the locals. Whatever the reason it gave young Lorna insights into the way things are sometimes done in the Republic.

She went on to study anthropology and work in the UK on international development programs, but was soon back in the archipelago.

In Indonesia she’s been a consultant with the Australian aid agency AusAID in Aceh, and with a non-government organization (NGO) in Kalimantan on training projects and developing business enterprises.

Gaye is an Australian who formerly managed the Kalimantan Meeting Center (KMC), a three-star hotel and restaurant at Rungun Sari, about 36 kilometers northwest of Palangkaraya. She now runs a foreign investment company, PT Kalimantan Tourism Development.

Both are members of the Subud community, a spiritual movement started in Java early last century. They live at Rungun Sari where a magnificent meeting hall has been built and is available to all faiths.

“My river journeys whilst working for the NGO took me to the heart of the local people’s lives and their rapidly depleting forests,” Lorna said.

“Rivers are still the main transport system linking remote villages, a fascinating but uncomfortable affair. This led me to think: What could be better than a boat hotel with comfortable cabins and a restaurant viewing deck to enjoy the passing, peaceful days of village and jungle life?”

Indeed. Great idea but nothing stands in isolation. The current investment buzzword is “infrastructure” meaning roads, ports, airports, hotels and other public facilities have to be fixed first.

Sustainability

There aren’t too many roads in Kalteng — the biggest province in Borneo at 154,000 square kilometers. However, by Indonesian standards the main links are in reasonable condition.

Borneo isn’t jam-packed Java: There are only 10 million in the whole Indonesian section of the island, with maybe less than 250,000 in Palangkaraya.

The locust swarms of Hondas and Yamahas have yet to plague the highways and the air is breathable outside the smoke season when farmers set fire to the forests in defiance of edicts from Jakarta.

There’s no international airport so connections — frequently late — have to be made through Jakarta or Surabaya. Foreigners remain a rarity — only 2,000 visited last year — and not all Palangkaraya hotels are either comfortable or welcoming to outsiders.

The plan is to run Dayak Hope from the river close to the KMC hotel while port facilities in Palangkaraya are upgraded. Then, if all goes well, boats two and three will be built. These will probably be custom-built rather than converted.

The original budget of Rp 280 million for the boat alone has already doubled. Other investors have come to the rescue so the project is still afloat and heading for commercial operation in September — with a plan to break even by the second year.

Mike Johnson, a marine environmental anthropologist from East Java, has been hired to advise on the work, though the design came from a French marine architect.

Johnson reckons the cost of building a floating hotel from the keel up will be little more than buying and reshaping an old boat — and a lot easier.

The proposed tariff is Rp 4.3 million per person for a three-day, all-found river trip. The partners reckon this will attract a market between backpackers who’ll rough it anywhere, and the top-end tourists who want five star toilets.

Lorna put together a business plan entered it in an international competition and won a useful Rp 74 million for her proposal. Through this she met Dutch travel agents interested in supplying management skills, clients and maybe investment.

“Our first planned tours will be along the Katingan River into the newly established Sebangau National Park, one of the last surviving peat swamp forests in Kalimantan and home to the largest known remaining orangutan populations in the world,” she said.

“Unfortunately, illegal logging and forest fires continue to threaten the survival of the park.

“Our overall aim is to promote ecotourism in Kalteng as a viable way of protecting the forest and promoting the welfare of local communities through creating an effective strategy for economic growth.

“We’ll provide 25 per cent of our boat tour profits to finance village ecotourism and conservation programs using microfinance loans to establish home-stays and train guides.

“The communities depend on the natural resources for their livelihoods. When use is sustainable the balance in the ecosystem is maintained. But where income is low the local people are forced to exploit.

“Poverty is a large threat to biodiversity. To conserve nature it’s important to deal with poverty alleviation.

“We believe that our boat will be the vehicle to develop a social enterprise that can make a real difference.”

Duncan Graham, Contributor, Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan

Add comment June 11th, 2007

Enjoying Borobudur — beyond the monument

There is no doubt that the beauty, glory, and magnificence of the world heritage site, Borobudur temple, is well known not just across Indonesia but also around the globe.

Yet, little may be known about the surrounding areas that are no less interesting destinations and can be enjoyed while visiting Borobudur — the largest Buddhist temple in the world built around the 7th and 8th centuries, located some 60 kilometers north of Yogyakarta.

Among the human achievements are beautiful natural landscapes, the exoticness of traditional Javanese communities tending to their daily activities, and the uniqueness of traditional cuisines and rituals.

“Riding a horse-drawn cart through the traditional villages indeed offers a different experience of enjoying a visit to the temple, making it even more meaningful to visitors,” heritage activist Laretna T. Adishakti told The Jakarta Post recently.

Laretna, also called Sita, is a lecturer and researcher at Gadjah Mada University’s Center for Heritage Conservation.


Sita was in Borobudur to guide a group of visitors on the “Borobudur Fun Heritage Trail”, a special tour that incorporates cultural landscape surrounding the ancient temple.

Some 70 participants had joined the tour, which was jointly organized by the Culture and Tourism Ministry, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-Jakarta, and Jogja Gallery.

The tour group comprised of journalists as well as senior and junior high school students, while the same tour was held previously for a group of senior high school teachers.

“Borobudur has been overburdened with thousands of people visiting it every year,” said Sita, underlining the importance of introducing the cultural attractions around Borobudur to the greater public.

This way, according to Sita, the surrounding communities would benefit financially from tourists visiting the heritage site, and Borobudur could be preserved at the same time.

At least five sites, including the temple, were on the tour’s agenda that day, which was conducted mostly via andong — horse-drawn carts — with three to four participants to a cart. The other sites were the villages of Tuksongo, Tanjungsari, Karanganyar and Candirejo.

Tuksongo was on the tour program for its traditional production center of pati onggok — sago palm flour — and glass noodles.

Tanjungsari is known for its tofu production while Karanganyar is a center of traditional earthenware.

Participants gathered at the Borobudur Tourism Information Center, a kilometer to the east of the temple, where they were divided into two smaller groups so the andong caravan would not stretch out too long en route to the scheduled sites. The two groups were assigned separate trails, and the tour was off.

The first group took a route through Tuksongo, Tanjungsari, Karanganyar, and Candirejo; the other started at Karanganyar then continued through Tanjungsari and Tuksongo, to regroup at Candirejo.

A feeling of exotic nostalgia arose once tour members boarded their andong and rolled to the clopping rhythm of the horses.

The leisurely tour revealed views of traditional kampongs with shady trees — mostly fruit trees — lining the village roads, with grinning children and villagers waving or nodding their heads in greeting, and traditional houses with spacious yards.

“Hellooo!” several children cried as they ran alongside the carts as the tour passed them.

“The residents here are used to having tourists visiting their villages like this,” Yusuf, an andong driver, commented spontaneously.

Yusuf, 60, said he had frequently taken tourists to areas around Borobudur, adding that tourists were welcome to join the villagers in harvesting rice and vegetable crops, as well as pick fruits grown in private gardens.

“But you have to tell them prior to the visit so that they can arrange that for you,” he advised.

Enjoying a panoramic view of the temple atop its hill, creating a backdrop to a green expanse of rice fields as farmers tended to the harvest, adds another level of excitement for visitors on the heritage tour.

“This is truly something that we could never enjoy at the temple,” said Ratna, a journalist on the tour. “From here, the temple looks much more glorious and magnificent to me.”

At strategic points where photographic opportunities were evident, participants were indeed welcome to alight from the andong to take pictures or simply to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

“I will surely come back here later and bring my family to enjoy all of this. I might even spend a night or two here,” Ratna added.

Visitors can stay in the area at local accommodations for a night or more to further explore the surrounding area. Candirejo village, only some 3 kilometers to the south of Borobudur, has 50 or so home stays open to visitors.

Over the past four years, the village has been developed steadily into a tourist destination, and offers several different tour packages, including a cooking class on traditional cuisines and snacks.

Candirejo was also where that day’s Borobudur Fun Heritage Trail participants stopped by for a rest and lunch.

From there, the andong journey continued to Borobudur. Upon ascending the temple’s steps, tour participants were able to recognize the places they had just visited. And from the temple’s many relief panels, they were able to learn about daily life in the past, which made the visit much more meaningful.

On the return trip to Yogyakarta, this time on buses, participants were taken for a short visit to a nearby river to trace the remains of a prehistoric lake believe to have once surrounded Borobudur temple.

Geologist Helmy Murwanto of the Yogyakarta-based UPN Veteran’s University accompanied this part of the tour, explaining his recent scientific findings on the existence of the lake.

The findings and ongoing research on the lake has inspired heritage activists to design possible trails for special-interest groups, keeping in mind the benefits to local communities and heritage conservation.

“Heritage conservation is not romanticism of the past. In fact, it is for developing the future by sustaining the potentials of the past toward select development today,” Sita said.

As regards Borobudur in terms of heritage conservation, she continued, it was not just about the monument’s physical structure but also its intangible aspects, including culture, potentials and the daily life of surrounding communities.

In line with this thinking, the Borobudur Fun Heritage Trail is available to everyone who wishes to enjoy the cultural landscape of Borobudur Temple.

The five villages visited above are just a few of the tour’s attraction.

Cultural landscape heritage, or pusaka saujana as it has been popularized by local heritage activists, is defined as a mix of natural and cultural heritage within a unity of place and time.

“Unfortunately, the preservation of the cultural landscape here is not yet fully understood, regardless that Indonesia possesses one of the world’s largest mosaics of cultural landscapes,” said Sita, and that it was time for the government to start adopting the concept as part of its development policy.

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Magelang, C. Java

Add comment June 11th, 2007