Travel Destination » Travel to Indonesia

INDONESIA
Motor-powered vessels can be big, fast and powerful, but for real adventure on the high seas nothing matches a sailing boat. For many centuries true adventurers bound for the Great Unknown set out in sailing craft, taking their chances with the elements. Today, many of us still harbour dreams of setting out for exotic lands in a graceful wooden ship, smooth canvas sails straining against stout masts, sharp bow carving effortlessly through the ocean. Sadly, the golden age of sailing is gone ... or is it? In the far-flung islands of Indonesia, caught in a time warp, is the largest commercial fleet still under sail: the Bugis schooners. Better still, some of these elegant ships take passengers. Those with an adventurous heart can still experience the haunting beauty of sailing through the Spice Islands on a ship from a by gone age of adventure.

The coast of Borneo was just visible through the haze of smoke created by the great forest fires raging in the hinterland. We were about a kilometre off the mouth of the Sangai Barito River. Our destination, Banjarmasin, a river port on the Sangai Barito, was some twenty kilometres upstream. With a bit of luck we would drop anchor there by nightfall. To help us negotiate the sand bars and strong currents at the river mouth, our boat – an archaic ‘Bugis seliooner’ cargo vessel named the Sama Enre – was being towed by a small tug. For the captain and the 11-man crew — all Bugis sailors from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi — it was just another day in their lifetimes spent at sea. For me, however, making my first landfall on the island of Borneo, it was a special moment. Then, as I paced the deck trying to absorb as much of the scene as I could, I felt a shudder run through the Sama Enre. We had run aground on a sand bank.

As if that wasn’t enough of a nuisance, I suddenly saw a new threat: bearing down on us rapidly, riding the ebbing tide, was a large, modern tug towing two massive barges loaded with coal. Our crew yelled to the captain of our tug, trying to let him know we were hard aground. Meanwhile, I watched as the other tug and its barges loomed closer. “This is going to be a near miss,” I thought, not liking the look of this whole predicament. The captain of our tug finally grasped the situation. But amazingly, while his two crew wrestled like playful puppies, the captain spun the wheelof his boat and our quivering to line right towards the path of the oncoming tug and barges. “What the hell is he doing” I cried out But our captain and crew clearly shared my sentiments: they started screaming, waving their arms frantically and exchanging horrified looks.

The oncoming tug sounded its h long notes of warning telling us there no chance that he could stop or alter co If we had pulled free of the bar at that the Sama Enre would have b crushed beneath the steel bow of this vessel. The Sama Enre’s crew d around me in a panic pointing to their ski and then to the small tug towing boat trying to explain to me what had already concluded ... of our tug was insane.

Right at the last second our swung back to the edge of the s ping channel allowing the on tug to sweep past the Sama with only a few metres of water tween our wooden hull and his thick steel. Once the filthy b barges had cleared past us — even less room to spare — we began to breathe again.

More anxious hours passed we waited to be set free by the tide. We were still there at down. Darkness descended, but considerable period of time before our captain decided to us a fighting chance of not being down by turning on the ship’s Even that wasn’t a straight for operation. He flipped the repeatedly and nothing opened. But he clearly under the mysteries of his electrical and with a few well whacks against the fuse box got lights to flicker into life. By time, the romance of sailing a cargo boat to Borneo had all but appeared. I was ready to jump.

Finally we got some water der our keel and were able to enter the Sangai Barito. Shortly before midnight, is the lights of Banjarmasin glowed around the ship’s bell rang, signalling to the carry that it was time to drop anchor. Our usage was nearly complete.

The world’s last great commercial fleet still under sail. They are crafted and crewed by the Bugis people who have been living in the southern regions of Sulawesi for over 1000 years. Always great seafarers, they roamed freely across the southern Pacific and Indian Oceans, leaving behind traces of their culture and language. They brought back anything they could trade and their competitive nature insured their reknown for driving a hard bargain. From the turn of the sixteenth century until the Dutch gained control of Indonesia, the Bugis were the preeminent trading power in the region and even today their aggressive and wily nature in business dealings serves them well amongst the gentler and quieter peoples of the rest of Indonesia.

This colourful history of elegant trading vessels plying their wares amongst the Indonesian islands and beyond is not just a thing of the past. The BUgiS people still play very active roles in the economy of the islands — farming rice and fishing — and today their pin is continuous to be an important means of transporting cargo. Carrying grice, beer and just about everything else that can be fitted on board, more than 800 of them maintain a centuries-old trade between the many islands of Indonesia.

They also carried the Bugis on trading voyages as far as Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, and to northern Australia. One Bugis sailor, a crew on Magellan’s globe-circling expedition, made his little-her aided mark on the exploration of the world by becoming the first man to circumnavigate earth.

With more than 13,000 islands, Indonesia has a thriving trade in local merchandise. The Bugis proved themselves masters at this and went on to dominate trade routes across the southern seas.

A few hours’ drive to the southwest of Ujung Pandang is the bustling coastal town of Tanah Beru, the main centre for shipbuilding on Sulawesi. It was near here, at the head of the Gulf of Bone, that another of Joseph Conrad’s haunted characters, the chieftain Karain, was born to a Bugis queen. Conrad describes a European trading schooner’s first encounter with Karain and the Bugis tribes people he led: “They had an independent hearing, resolute eyes, a restrained manner and we seem to hear xet their soft voices speaking of battles, travels and escapes; boasting with composure; joking; sometimes in well-bred murmurs extolling their own valour, or generosity; or celebtating with loyal enthusiasm the virtues of their ruler ... we seem to feel the touch of friendly brown hands that, after a short !!rasp, return to a chased hilt. They were Karam’s people - a devoted following.” Jutting from beneath the coconut palms lining’lanah Beru’s beach were the shapely bows of scores of wooden boats in varying stages of construction. Along the water’s edge fishermen mended nets or prepared their outrigger canoes for fishing expeditions. A constant rhythm of hammering resounded through the palms as wooden pegs ftraditionally used instead of metal bolts and screws) were pounded into the planking of the hulls, and caulking was forced into innumerable seams.

On a nearly completed boat I watched as a workman with a saw cut with determination through a hardwood beam, his muscles straining beneath the skin of his thin brown arms. However, his tough, rugged appearance was softened somewhat by the right orange dress he was wearing, decorated with a dainty yellow floral pattern, which billowed and fluttered in the wind.

If nothing else, he was the most flamboyantly-dressed worker on the beach. Although an unusual sight in the shipyards, transvestites have traditionally played an important ceremonial role in the courts of the Bugis royalty.

It was fascinating to watch these ships, some as long as 30m, being launched by teams of men using only winches, muscle and ingenuity to coax the ships towards the sea. One crew of sixteen men, working up to their waists in water, giggled and chanted, “HeMo Mis-ter, Hello Mister,” as I photographed them launching a ship. In time to their chant, they pulled on a loop of chain which ran through a block attached to a cable wrapped around the ship’s keel. After great effort the ship moved away from the beach in a short burst, timbers groaning and the massive hull trembling disconcertingly above the crew. The blocks then had to be reset and the process repeated many times — labour that consumed days — before the ship reached deeper water some 50m away.

But before the launching process begins. a local Moslem holy man. the Imam, is called to perform animal sacrifices which are believed to bring favourable blessings to a new ship. The Imam mutters secret praxers in Arabic as a hapless goat’s neck is pulled taught across the ship’s hold. The Imam then Cuts deep with a machete, allowing the blood to flowing across the deck and into the hold. Later the goat’s legs will be suspended from the stern and bow of the ship. When not performing sacrifices, the village Imam also conducts marriage and death rituals, as well as circumcision ceremonies.

The techniques, tools and materials used for building these ships has changed little through the generations. However, some ships are now being fastened with metal bolts, and the whine of power tools is intruding on the more hypnotic sounds of thudding hammers and rasping saws. Over the years a number of foreigners, seduced by the romance and relative low costs of having a boat constructed at Tanah Beru, have commissioned their own boats to be built. A few of these projects have been completed successfully, but most of the time the dreams have been wrecked on the rocks of reality as the costs of finishing the boat — beyond just having the hull and decks constructed — become known. And. on occasion, some less than scrupulous builders have kept some extra money in

The Bugis craftsmen use an amazingly small number of handtools, often passed down from fathers and grandfathers. Traditions like these are still strong and that goes not just for boat-building, but for business, and for just being welcoming and friendly Photos : Stephen O’Connell

A side-view of a typical vessel at rest showing off the characteristic lines of a pinisi. Historically, these schooners have been the best form of transport for many local goods, and even today they remain important, particularly in more inaccessible areas Photo : Stephen O’Connell their pockets by using inferior, less costly woods that are more likely to rot, and even some that have been hollowed out by worms — all much to the future dismay of their owners. Back in Paotere Harbor I found apinisi owner willing to take me as a passenger for the run to Banjarmasin on the island of Borneo. But before I could go I had to secure permission from the local harbour master. When I explained to the harbour master in Ujung Pandang that I wanted to travel as a passenger on a Bugis pinisi to Banjarmasin he looked aghast. He then listed for me all the dangers of voyaging to Banjarmasin, not the least being the horrendous smoke blanketing Borneo from the out-of-control for.est fires. “Cannot see,” he said, making hand gestures suggesting boats colliding and sinking. I was determined to travel on the pinisi, so I sat before him naively brushing aside his concerns until eventually he agreed to sign the papers giving me permission to sail. He did so with heavy sighs and an expression that suggested he was sending me to my doom.

At last, after two weeks of waiting, my ship had its cargo loaded and it was time to sail. I was given last-minute instructions by the owner of the ship — including being asked not to jump overboard to go for a swim, which he had heard was the type of foolish stunt foreigners were likely to pull. I promised that I would remain on the ship at all times. The night before our departure I slept on the deck of the pinisi, m\view of the night sky obscured by a forest of masts and rigging. As we slipped out of the harbour the following morning, with our heavy cargo of rice flour, the waterline of the Sama Enre was disconcertingly near the deck. It took me the better part of the first day at sea, while contemplating the thick stream of water the pump brought up from the depths of the leaky hull, to get used to the idea of sailing to Borneo on what closely resembled a sinking ship.

For five days the Sama Enre plowed across the Straits of Makassar, her massive cam as sails straining in the wind and her deck almost constantly awash. The days were relati\ elv une\ entful, and broken only by the occasional sighting of another ship. Once we were I. visited by a pod of dolphins racing toward us like torpedoes. Only at the last second did they veer away sharply to play in our bow wave and perform leaps of dolphin joy.

During the passage I slept restlessly on the upper deck at the aft end of the boat as it wallowed from side to side in the choppy seas. The crew was greatly amused to have a foreigner join them for the passage and it was easy to keep them all entertained. They would happily stare for hours at my shortwave radio, even if it wasn’t turned on. And everyone enjoyed squeezing my inflatable sleeping pad and taking turns looking through my camera lenses. They were kindly, simple men with obscene senses of burnout and they did their best to let me in on their jokes.