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Published: February 9th 2007
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3 days at sea and 3 days in jakarta i saw the sights and encountered the good and bad- with a free place to stay my money was going further. overly cramped sardine trains, shanty-type towns, polluted rivers and immaculate malls could sum up the city- but my stay was followed by a mammoth 40 hour bus ride to central sumatra, day and night and day and night i spent on the same bus, leaving only for a couple of pit stops and food breaks, a lack of sleep resulted in my immediate sleeping in a closed bar as i arrived at 4am in bukittinggi, the stool and table were to be my bed for the next couple of hours, well until the sun rose.
seeing the sights and organizing my trip to the mentawai islands resembled my first few days here. prices for the trip had gone up but i felt it was still worth it. a night ferry to the west of sumatra on a cranky old wooden boat did the job and it was clear that we were on the last step of leaving this modern civilization behind. i was about to embark on a 10 day
trip- trekking through the jungle finding primitive/ indigenous tribes and attempting to live and work as they do.
a quick wash on a tropical beach fringed with palm trees and we were ready to leave. 2 or 3 hours in a motorized hollowed out log canoe we arrived at a remote river bank. unloading our supplies we walked a short distance through the jungle to a wooden hut, meeting half naked people wearing only loan cloths and decorated in tribal tattoos armed with knives and bows and arrows i felt a million miles away.
living entirely off the land around them they were self sufficient, they hunted and grew what they needed, they had natural medicines and witch doctors if needed. their tradition was also similar to sumba- you had to buy your wife, but here you could use fruit trees, plants buses, palm trees, animals and even a cooking wok. by doing this you owned her and any divorce could result in the loss of you possessions- or her possessions depending on whose to blame and for what reason,
we help the men gather medicine and witch craft stuff and witnessed the ceremony of the a
new baby being brought from the bedroom area to the outside for the first time! helping and observing their everyday activities.
food came in the form of grubbs and compressed palm tree saw-dust like stuff, our only form of fruit was to encourage the tribal kids to climb the highest palm tree for the coca nuts, at first we thought nothing of it but when u see a 6 year old boy at the top of a 40/50 foot palm tree you begin to wonder if it was so funny after all- but it was!!
typical days were slogging through the boggy jungle- knee to thigh deep in mud and swamps, carefully laid logs were to act as walk ways but often too small and not strong enough they usually gave way, not good when you have to cross a river or stream and the single log is 2 meters high.
we came across impressive waterfalls and a variety of animal traps. on one occasion there was a big hunt on for a wild bore, we were told not to go out side or at least stray away from the house too far, it had be darted
by 4 poisonous arrows and killed 7 dogs, a crazed beast was on the loose and with the excitement from the men, we could tell that a hunt like this doesn't happen often. however it was my disappointment that i could join them but with my lack of jungle hunting and stealth maneuvers i had to sit it out
stories of jungle monsters were told through the night and the big bear with red eyes that could turn invisible was their most feared, an ancient tribal story of theirs and an equally as old solution to if you see it- simply shout 'im naked im naked' we were told that this would scare off the monster and you would be safe.
we tried to tell them a few stories of our own but anything to do with the outside world just didnt seem to interest them- they had no concept of it. i told them a few crucial things- such as, the world was round, they still thought it was flat and that man had been to the moon. they just couldnt understand it, a few hows and whys came about but no real interest. they told me
that the moon was an evil spirit and that the stars are holes in the sky from their ancestors who shot the moon with their arrows- each star is a missed shot.
i began to think inside their box and very quickly got a positive and enthusiastic response, questions such as, what's your favorite animal? or what tree do you like best?, which is you favorite dog here? and why?, and the amusing question of how much did your wife cost? or how much is that one over there?
soon a 1 hour long in-depth discussion about chickens and the prices came about- chickens from europe from england from other parts of Indonesia etc etc and they were excited by the idea of battery farms and thousands of chicken
jungle beauty was somewhat different but one old man went to the lengths to carve a set of gold teeth- maybe copper! and have them permanently set in his mouth- only seeing a row or serrated teeth of metal it was one step further than the actual teeth sharpening and chiseling many of the women have.
oh and another thing- no one knows how old they are- they
make up random ages and can olny tell you if they were born in the wet season or dry season and if it was a long time ago or a very long time ago
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Alex
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Mentawai
Hey just wondering when you say the prices have gone up for the mentawai treks how much was it? I'll be aroud there in a few months but by then will be on a bit of a tight budget. Also who did you do it with? Did you just find a random guide in Bukittingi? Thanks Alex