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Long Bagun
village on the Mahakam
North over the Equator
way up in the far
deep in the proper jungle
and very very hot
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as beyond as i’m going to get
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devices disagree what timezone they’re in
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GoogleMaps and Maps.Me untrustworthy
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Google satellite too blurry for any use
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Nepalese kettle causes powercuts
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and i crossed the equator once if not three times Tuesday
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am ultra-conspicuous in my long thin whiteness
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speak no Bahasa
...
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a long long three-day schlep upriver to get here...
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slow boat
taxi
long wait on dock
speedboat
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leaving the more industrial river zones behind
50 or so k ago
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the smog
the tugs, the coal-hulks, the tankers
the cranes, the high angling conveyor belts
the dozers, the diggers,
the building sites, the refineries
the smog
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the fires glowing at night
from burning jungle,
the high piles of tree trunks
from annihilated forest
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so now
further upstream
there’s less destruction
fewer shorn stretches of ground
less smog
fewer villages
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not close to pristine
yet way more green
...
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here the morning mist rises and thins
and then vanishes
rather than hanging still, all day all night
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i wanted the big wooden two-decked slow boat
a Kapal Biasa
the whole way
for ease and sleeping
and hours of sitting on the bow drifting onwards
upstream
into the greenery
just like i did on the Rio Negro in the Amazon
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yet its the low river of the far end of Dry Season
and no big boats get this far now
until the imminent rains of November
maybe delayed by El Nino
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so
from Tering
it had to be the speedboat
second-best
just like on the Rio Negro
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to here
sweaty in the swelter
sappingly, wiltingly, hot
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as far as i’m going
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Long Bagun
a Dayak village
a different ethnicity
over half-Christian
after predominately Muslim towns and cities
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few foreigners get this far
so i am very VERY conspic
the sight of me brings smiles and grins of happiness
many many cries of Hello Mistah
and What Is Your Nem?
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i would love it if someone could word for me
exactly what goes through an eight or twelve year old’s brain when they see me
what causes the instant grin...
?
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Long Bagun
a different look and feel
a grid of concrete streets
of dark brown longhouses
where the smaller houses are like chalets
and the larger have an elegance
where most are in a rich brown wood
with carved wooden verandahs
and the green of many potted plants
...
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i don’t often get somewhere so remote
so now
i’m as far into the unknown
the tough to get to
as i’m going to be for a while
and, after this, there is only the
turning back
...
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it won’t be straightforward
to return to Samarinda
because it weren’t straightforward schlepping this far
yet if the stars align it’ll
take one less night
to get back from
as far as i’m gonna go
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on my way
possibly
to my first coral atoll
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next step the next step
next stop the next stop
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the longhouse over the road
from my place, the Penginapan Polewari
Long Bagun, a street
Long Bagun, a house
from my mattress on the slowboat from Samarinda
the weaving district in Samarinda