May I recount a very long story about remote living and unrealistic expectations?
I was working in the centre of Borneo, the actual centre of the island, seven days travel by boat from the coast, bringing in all my own food because the local people fished, hunted what little meat they ate and lived mainly on rice and cassava leaf. After many months of daily cassava leaf and rice, one lusts after some Western variety.
One day a stream of villagers came up the hill to my doorway to present Two Western Tourists who had arrived in the settlement by boat. My neighbours instantly gave me the responsibility for looking after them. They were French-speaking Belgiums, one spoke English, neither spoke Bahasa Indonesia and, that far up the river, most of the locals didn’t speak Bahasa Indonesia either. Communication was interesting. The Tourists told me that they had purchased a map, produced in Germany, that indicated a very short distance over the watershed between two major rivers that flow through Borneo. The rainfall where I was working was four metres a year: the river went up and down like filling or draining a bathtub. The Tourists wished to walk over the watershed. I looked at their equipment: flip flops and day bags, no food, nothing. “Unfortunately, your map is not accurate” I told them. “But it is German!” they protested. I then pointed out that there were six villages further upstream that were missing on the map. And massive rapids between the villages. And that it took several days to walk that watershed between rivers, through primary rainforest covering mountains with slopes so steep the locals cut down trees and cut notches for toe holds to get up and down them. “We want to get off the tourist trail” I was told.
I said I would arrange a meeting with the Village Head for the next morning so further travel could be discussed. OK, they said, and asked where was the hotel for them to sleep that night and where was a good restaurant for their meal? I stared with blank amazement at two Tourists who had traveled up a river through rainforest for days and simply had not noticed that the most basic travellers’ facilities had vanished at least three days before. They were pleased to be “off the beaten track”. The lovely people of Indonesia are very generous in taking care of Western fools. “I’m your hotel tonight and I will be cooking for you”. Years later I still faintly resent using one of my precious tins of tomato puree in their meal: should have given them rice and cassava leaf. Over our meal they asked why a road hadn’t been built over the watershed as it would help tourism. My eyes rolled and whirled and went red: I was in Kalimantan researching human ecology and forest conservation. The only roads were logging tracks to extract timber.
Next day there was a big group discussion with the Village Head, several experienced men, me and the Tourists. Local tribal languages translated into Bahasa Indonesia into English into French and back again. The villagers reckoned three days upstream to a point where it was possible to walk over the watershed, two days walking for locals alone but they thought five with the Tourists, then a day to construct a log raft and then three days floating down to reach the first village on the second river where the Tourists would have a chance of picking up a motor boat to go on down towards the coast. For this, the village guides requested $200. There was intense discussion in French before I was told in English that the cost was “Too high”, which I translated into Bahasa Indonesia to then turn into the local tribal languages. After further discussion in French, the tourists asked me to arrange a boat up to the logging camp. I had told them that local roads were logging tracks so they thought they would try to hire a vehicle to drive.
I never heard a word about the Tourists ever again, nor did the Village Head which was odd as rumours flew through that forest faster than radio links could keep up. I hope they were transported out of the region by the logging guys. Maybe not.
Some people are tourists, handed a pre-packaged “experience” on a plate. Some people are travellers and have experience themselves. Travellers are happy to pass on experience and information but tourists are often too wedded to their preconceptions and opinions to hear the advice offered.
@stirrups1 Have a look at these two UK horse travel companies. They will have a far lower markup than US ones and they have personal knowledge of the packages because staff go on them. I have used them multiple times.
www.unicorntrails.com
www.rideworldwide.com
nearly as much as I want to camp with my own brave quirky mare.
