Lunatic Magazine June cover story

The June Issue of Lunatic Magazine brings us back to the dangerous animal job roots. The Cobras and crocodile handlers that appeared on the first two covers are followed up here in June by the Komodo National Park hiking guides.  Komodo National Park is, of course, home to the famous Komodo dragons.  They are big.  A single mature Komodo Dragon would hang over the ends of most anyone's dining room table (even with both leaves in).  The dragons are land hunting members of the monitor family and have bacteria in their saliva that has evolved to make the wounds they inflict become infected.  They eat full grown hogs and Sambar Deer (Asia's answer to the elk).

Hiring a guide for walking in the park is mandatory and costs eight dollars for groups of 10 or less.  Guides usually get to work with two groups a day and make sure that the dragons do not get too close to the tourists and visa versa.  To keep the dragons in check, the guides all get an eight foot long forked stick and a shirt that identifies them as guides.

We noticed that no guide was older than 26.  Trin, our guide, was proud to be one of the more experienced dragon handlers.  He had been employed at the park for all of a year and a half.  As we started the tour, Trin explained to us that adult dragons can't climb trees.  At first we thought that this was the first of the many interesting dragon facts that we were going to hear as part of our tour.  Trin was not so much entertaining with that fact as he was advising.  He followed up the interesting fact with, "so if dragon runs at you, try to climb tree.  Stick can not stop dragon."

We asked Trin how many attacks happened per year.  Turns out only 10 tourists were bit so far this year.  The guides are the ones who get bit most.  His poor friend was in the hospital for 2 months with 40 stitches.  Trin was glad that his wounds had finally closed.  Apparently, when the dragons start biting, they just take indiscriminate mouthfuls out of what ever prey they have captured.

Because there are not many jobs for the guys on Komodo who are just starting out, a bunch of the young fellas start working as dragon guides.  That is, just until something better comes along.

Because it is worse than cobra handling and crocodile cage cleaning, Trin and  his fellow Komodo dragon guides, get the cover of Lunatic magazine for June.                

Weird Wildlife (marine style)

We've been spending a lot of time underwater the past week.  Paul and I were thrilled to see three mimic octopus and a pair of seahorses last week.   If you've never seen mimic octopus it's worth Googling it.  We saw two do a sea snake routine.  Our seahorse couple appeared to be pregnant So that was pretty cool.We were also able to snorkel a wrecked  ship which sounds cooler than it is.  We also saw four species of lion fish and a scorpion fish. On another outing we swam with at least six small sharks.  On our last trip they took us to see Manta rays.  We saw two,one at least 15 ft across.  We also saw two 6-7 ft sharks.  Very few things could distract us from such large sharks, but the mantas sure did.   It was a series of truly amazing experiences.  Sorry no pics.

PAUL MUGGED BY MONKEY!

It's true.  That monkey knew about the diet soda he had hidden in his shirt. And he wasn't leaving until he gave it up.  Other than that Bali was great.  Here are some pics of the area where it all went down.  I wasn't able to get photos of the actual incident.

Time with the Toraja

Paul and I spent the better part of last week with the Toraja tribe in Sulawesi.  It was definitely an interesting encounter that left both or us doing some processing.  The Torajans believe the funeral is the most important ceremony a person has and go to great lengths to plan four-day funerals that hundreds of people attend.  It can take years to get up the money and make the preparations and during that time, the dead person stays at home in a big box with all of their things (clothes,tools,etc.).  At the time of the funeral, the box is moved to a cave or hung on the side of a cliff or put in a special house.   Lots of Buffalo and pigs are slaughtered to go with the dead person.  These are eaten by the family who come to the funeral for the most part.   Once the box is moved to its final spot, it begins to rot in the tropical climate exposing the dead person .  We were able to attend a funeral and a couple grave sites.  Paul will describe what we saw.

Really we saw two separate things.   The first was The funeral of police major Raham Kumbong and the second was a Torajan cemetery.  Police major Kumbong's funeral was billed as a proper Christian affair and day one  started as such.  What happened after the hymns stopped and the coffin was hoisted on to the elevated platform above the bull fighting area was enough to send even the most devout Christian  onto the margins of the festival grounds.  Without even a change in rhythm the program switched from amazing grace and how great art thou to an animistic shaman shouting verses of ancient language.  All of his  couplets started with a scream that approximated the noise Aurthur Fonzarelli would make after slamming his hand in a car door. "And then it came to pass" translates as "ayaaaaayh" screamed in ancient Torajan.

After thirty minutes of the man screaming at the start of every other sentence,  he finally stopped.  Some of the other men started carrying bamboo stick tied squealing hogs on to the festival grounds while the family and friends of the deceased, in their nicest Sunday go to meeting clothes, promonaded across those same grounds and into the family sitting area.  Around 25 hogs were assembled by the time the final mourner reached the seating area to take tea and cake while the names of those who had donated each hog was read. 

After the donor's name was announced, his initials were spray painted onto the hog and it was carried to a different area between the coffin platform and the family area.  In short order several groups of men had all 25 hogs killed and butchered right there on the ground.  Eight hogs at a time were stabbed thru the heart, bleed into a bamboo tube, de-haired by blow torch(Unlike the market pigs), gutted, and dismembered while Major Kumbong's kith and kin chatted over an afternoon  snack.

After the hog slaughter, everyone made a big circle and the bull fighting began.  Indonesian bull fights are just that, bull on bull til one turns tail and runs.  Jen and I stuck toward the back because there were no barriers between the people and the bulls.  Even with with this modicum of caution, we got close enough to one of the winners to get an autograph.  We were never in danger of joining police major Kumbong and his 25 hogs in the afterlife, but I am glad we were not any closer to that bull either.  I have had pork and I have  seen card playing and gambling at a number of Christian funerals.  Betting on bull fights and hog slaughter at one was new to me.  We did not come back for days two thru four, but I will never forget day one of police major Raham Kumbong's final going away party.

Torajan cemetaries are truly creepy places.  They are located on cliffsides and it is all the better if the cliff has a cave in it.  Some folks carve their own family tunnels into the cliffs that don't have caves and other  families construct hanging wooden burial arks to hang from the cliff face.  At each burial site there is also a spot where people whose families have managed to slaughter 24 bulls at their relative's funeral can place a life size effigy of them.

If a family has a tunnel, the whole burial thing is like a moseleum and not that weird other than the open door, communal burials, and exposed bones.  The hanging graves are more creepy because they also have many generations of dead guys in each one and they lose structural integrity as years pass.  Piles of bones and an errant skull or two beneath the older ones does  not seem to cause any concern for the living.  We were at a site during a hard rain and really had to give the hanging graves a wide birth.  Getting dripped on with dead guy water is one of the grossest things I can imagine.

That is except for a cave full of coffins and bones that gets played off as a tourist attraction.   The cave burial site we visited was a natural limestone cave chock full of bones coffins and offerings.  A guide leads you via the light a Coleman lantern into the cave.  Here and there you notice groups of skulls on the natural ledges of the first few chambers, but it is not until you get a hundred yards or So back into the cave when the piles of coffins and bones really start dominating the scene.  Newer coffins are just haphazardly piled onto older ones and the bones of those whose coffins have desintegrated.   Floor to ceiling disorganized piles of  bones and boxes.  The latest date i saw on a coffin was a fifty four year old who died in 2010. We cut the cave tour a little short, but on the way out I did stop to get a photo of me with my face behind three skulls that were strategicly placed for tourists to get the requsite shot of a visit to the cave.  Like getting a photo of me and Mickey at Disneyland, it seemed like I kinda had to.  Our guide mentioned that the Torajans started using formaldehyde just 30 years ago.  I bet that is going to change things.

Lastly,  I have to mention the baby trees.  If a Torajan child dies before cutting teeth,  the body is placed in a special bag and nailed to a tree in his or her village that is designated for baby burial purposes.  The tree has sap that is used to make baby food and the bark of the tree eventually grows over the bag and envelops the baby.  The baby bag is nailed to the tree facing his or her house.  The tree we visited had around eight or nine bags hanging on it.

Weird Wildlife

Last week we got a chance to see some unusual wildlife.  We did some truly amazing snorkelling on a fringing reef.  It seemed like we were in a Discovery Channel special.  The coral and fish were beautiful and we saw a large lionfish and purple spotted ray.  From there we went to a wildlife refuge where we saw the critically endangered black masque, cuscus, and tarsier.  Cuscus are whitish raccoon-sized marsupials with long tails that live in trees.  Tarsiers are tiny hand-sized nocturnal primates.  Paul is convinced they were the inspiration for the Ewoks.  Both were adorable.  / Jen

Rounding Third...

Jen and I are in Indonesia and we just realized today that we are going to have to cut some stops from the itinerary in order to be back to Jakarta in time to catch our June 13th flight.  Wow, we can not believe that the time has gone so quickly.  We will be in Bali for a short time next week, it will probably then take a week to go see the Komodo Dragons, and then a week to travel across Java and see a few things on the way.

No matter how much time you have, you always seem to run short.  It is sad to see some of your preferred destinations slip away.  Travel here is a lot slower than we expected it to be.  It is supposed to take 38-44 hours to get to the stepping off point for Komodo from Bali.  Of course, any sane person is going to want to get off the bus once or twice in 44 hours to stretch their legs a little.  Breaking the trip for a comfortable overnight adds a day on each side.  We may fly.

With 27 days to go, spending 4 of them on a bus just does not seem like our best use of time.



        

The other white meat.

DOG AND CAT LOVERS MAY WISH TO SKIP THIS POST.

CERTAINLY DO NOT LOOK AT THE PICTURES.

OK, if you are still reading it does not mean that you hate dogs.  You might love them in the same way that  the people of Tomohon Indonesia love them.   That way is on satay sticks grilled and marinaded in a sweet garlic and chili sauce.  It kind of ouks you out when you hear about people eating dogs.  Seeing how wholesale dog eating (many restaurants serve dog) is made possible really makes you think about  your carnivorous predilections in general.

People have dogs as pets here.   They come in all shapes and sizes.  "Market Dogs" are all short haired brown or bridle cocker spaniel sized canines.  They are thin and wear the fact that they are meat animals outwardly.  Pet dogs would watch people in a crowded market go by with acknowlegement or begging.  Market dogs shun contact with passersby for obvious reasons.  They are packed into crates at the same size to space ratio as market chickens.   They scatter like fish from a net when the door on top of their kennel is opened and they yelp growl and snap at the rope looped through a  hollow six foot pole that is used in all interaction they have ever had with the dog farmer.

They know when the end is upon them,  but it does not seem that this realization is any different than that of the chickens or pigs a few stalls down the way.

Once a dog is selected and hauled thru the top of the kennel by the rope around it's neck, the guy clubs the dog dead right in front of the customer, any passing folks in the crowded market, and all of the other dogs.  After the dog is dead, the guy guts the dog and uses a blow torch to singe off  all of the hair.  Burnt hair does not really stick out as a bad smell above the others in the meat section of third world markets.  For customers who are in a hurry or for those who want only a quarter or half a dog, there are several preprepared dogs to choose from.   The blow torch guy uses the fixture that he has connected to a propane tank by eight feet of hose to cook the dogs as well as dehair  them.  Dog turns white as it cooks and it takes the guy about half a cigarette to complete the process as he is standing there hawking freshly blowtorched dog.
They bring the pigs in on the backs of scooters already dead.  Their skin can be sold, so there is no blow torching, but they do get butchered in the market.
Fruit bats and rats are also blowtorched although the bat's wings are removed first for use in soup.  Cats are displayed with fur on as they are skinned after purchase.  Bon Appetit!