passing through

Of the sundry modes of transport I have used in Indonesia—car, bicycle, becak (rickshaw), ferry, propeller plane, perahu (traditional sailing vessel), coach bus, mikrolet (a minivan with the seats removed that runs on set routes but will only depart when every last cubit of space is occupied by some form of passenger) city bus, double-outrigger longboats, the illustrious Vespa, ojek (a young man who sits under a tree and intermittently sells price negotiable point-to-point rides on his motorbike), commercial jet, and train—I have a new favorite.

A novel means of leaving Kalimantan - referred to by Indonesians simply as ‘speed’ - now tops the list.

There are no dependable roads through the swamps between Pontianak, the province's capital (and most important city in Western Kalimantan) and Southwestern Kalimantan, the only means between the two are airplane or speedboat.

Borneo (the massive island of which the Indonesian portion is called Kalimantan) is dominated by its rivers. These long, dark sinews wind banshee paths up into the the jungle, coils of commerce and Conrad. Indeed, visiting Pontianak is a visit to one of the most affluent, orderly, and clean cities in Indonesia, replete with the river’s spoils: broad boulevards, leafy estates, beautiful exposition centers, and a palatial governor’s residence.

The 6am boat leaves Melano (a place that seriously resembles the end of the world, both geographically as well as millennially), a dingy northern outpost about four hours on the other side of the marshes from Pontianak, from a claptrap of oily boards at the terminus of a 250 meter long cement gulch of two story (mostly vacant) market tenements. Stalls on the first floor sell Ramen noodles and glasses (too hot to touch) of sweet, sludgy coffee to crouching men who wrap plaid sarongs around their shoulders as a means of steeling their hollow chests against the morning mist. Hands are nowhere to be seen; clove cigarettes dangle on their lips. Unlike everything else, the river is moving—meandering in crudely colored eddies past the wharf—but just across the river a decaying sawmill slouches into a mirror.

The boat itself is long and has eight wrought iron benches, wide enough to sit three across on top of deceptively thin brown cloth cushions. Most of the seats are under a hard topped canopy to which long torsoed folk need not apply (especially once the boat actually moves from its bed of glass). A piece of cord, under the disinterested hand of a teenage boy, winds a path across this canopy through luggage loops and suitcase handles as the twin Yamaha 200 horsepower engines murmur to life.

The island’s latticework of rivers makes it possible to accomplish a trip up the coast without touching the ocean, and the speeding boat breaks belatedly at anonymous confluences and spirits schizophrenically through indiscernible mangroves. The captain is a young man who seems stunned to be making more money than anyone else he knows; he sports a red adidas hoodie and prolifically smokes dark cigarettes, individually wrapped in metallic gold paper and the boat shimmies to the right each time he ferrets for the string that releases each cigarette from its wrapper.

After an hour the boat idles next to a puttering barge from which a few unkempt looking men jump down, grab seats and spend the remainder of the journey occupied by video games on their mobile phones. Later, the boat stops at a village built entirely over the river, where you can pay 1000 rupiah to use the bathroom or just wander through an eerie platformed garden of satellite dishes pointing straight up, as if to collect the rain. Indeed, this place waits in the shadow of the equator; the sun is already high. Most of the place is built with the castoffs—flawed boards and cellophane. Men nose their speed boats into the greasy dock and jump off, leaving them idling their way dowm. Strolling back from buying cigarettes, if the engine has not died, they will nonchalantly step off the opposite end of the wharf, and perfunctorily putter off.

The young man in the red sweatshirt silently motions everyone back to the boat, a newly acquired lumpy backpack slung over his shoulder. With the exception of this foray, the trip cuts a swath through a disturbed wilderness where scars dot primitive forests; the captain attempts enough blind 180 degree turns at full speed to convince you that either you are very alone or you just do not value life in the same way. On you race, up canals and past barges, by logging camps and across river mouths. Near the end of the trip children dot the bank to wave and even their haggard mothers look up from the wash with a faint smile. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, the engine is cut; there is a dock. Your ass throbs and people want to carry your bags. You have passed through. You are there.