We managed to get Morning Glory up the river to Kumai yesterday. We were immediately met by local fellows looking to arrange our klotok trip. A klotok is a small river boat that they use to take us deep into the winding winding rivers surrounded by jungle where we will find the people of the forest (orang utan), crocodiles and their favorite snack--proboscis monkeys, as well as many other creatures. It will be a three day 2 night trip on this mostly open boat, sleeping on cushions on the deck under mosquito netting. It will be a bit like a trip on the African Queen, only without the intrigue and the nice boat. But supposedly, based on the accounts of some friends, the food is to be fantastic.

Like most other places in remote parts of the world, its not always what you expect. Kumai is a bustling little town of about 10,000 people. It is full of heavy industry. Lots of ships and heavy equipment. I would say the amount of heavy equipment is disproportionate to the size of the population. But its not surprising because it is here for a narrow purpose of extracting natural resources. We are not sure, yet, what industries operate here, but we do know that palm oil is a big industry here. I love the name of the big barge in the photo. Add the word green, and everything seems good. Is it a reference to the environment? Or money? The biggest bills in Indonsia are 100,000Rp (about 8.5 bucks) -- and they are red. Maybe they just like to name their equipment after colors in the rainbow...

I should point out that I like heavy industry. I would love to have one of the huge barges they operate here. Some are self powered -- not just moved by tugs. When they anchor them at night they just push themselves up onto the mud. I wish we could do that with our boat. And then we'd have room for tennis couts, olympic size swimming pool, dirt bike track, perhaps a saturday market, a nice cafe. Hmmmmm.....perhaps not what they are intended for...