Hopping the Riau

Singapore & the Dreamy Lives of Boats

text and photos

by

keith harmon snow

There are ten thousand ice-lands in the Riau Archipelago. (That is how the Indo-Malay people say “islands”.) And it was on a small skiff crossing between ice-lands in a hard rain that I saw a ghost ship. It was midday, and the rain fell like broken glass. We set off under blue sky in an emerald sea, but a sudden storm whipped itself up and caught us out in the channel. Rain fell across the sun and beyond our tiny boat everything was white. “I no see ice-lands,” Charlie Yung Sook yelled.

Charlie Yung Sook was my Malayan boatman. He had lost his two front teeth while wrestling, drunk, with a huge fish in his boat. (The fish got the better of him and leapt over the side.) He bailed water with one hand and steered with the other, leaning into the rain, but we went nowhere: every effort ended where it started, far off a certain point of land. I kept thinking of those old mariner’s tales—you know, the compass gone haywire, the mast toppled by the storm, faded maps and haunted islands—of sailors and ships condemned to purgatory. We were going in circles and the boat was filling up with water. The ghost ship was out there too, but we never saw it coming.

PULAUS OF PLENTY

Island hopping in the Riau Archipelago! Wow. One launches such an adventure with hopeful fantasies. Nothing turns out to be true in real life, and all of it does. Forgive me for this, but such an adventure becomes very personal, and so I will write about it in the first person. It would never be the same for you (and that is why we travel).

The Indo-Malaysian word for island is pulau, and the assorted pulaus off Singapore present to mariners and simple island hoppers a geography of hazard and chaos: on a map they look like icebergs of unusual shapes and fragments. To live them is to understand them even less.

The Riau Archipelago is bounded by Sumatra; the Straits of Malacca; the Lingga Archipelago in the southeast; and the remote Natuna Islands to the northwest. There are countless bays and harbors from which pirates plied the seas and plundered passing ships. Local ferries today connect the ports-of-call of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Here you will find a clash of civilizations and contradictions of culture that persist, and traditions that live side-by-side with an unrelenting globalization.

But there is something about boats floating that is very dreamy. Hopping the ferry out of Singapore the seascapes abound with drifting boats, boats stranded at the whim of the tide, boats overturned on shore, boats strung on long, empty piers where they shift and jostle like horses tied to a hitching post in some sleepy ghost town of the wild, wild American west. I drift with intention and intrigue like a boat without a sail or anchor.

SEAFARING NOMADS

The Riau is renowned for sea gypsies—the Orang Laut—nomads of the sea. They are a fishing people on rustic boats whose romantic existence is checked by the imperatives of survival. In contrast, the boats at Bintan Lagoon Resort are sleek and shiny fast: there are catamarans, sailboats and other assorted floatables. “You can windsurf, sail, jet-ski—we have everything,” says manager Rie Yanagisawa. I spend the afternoon in my wild windsurfing fantasy: climb on the board, blow a few feet, fall off, do it again.

“This is the longest beach on Bintan Island,” Ms. Yanagisawa told me, “four kilometers.” As I walk further along the beach becomes wilder and wilder. Sea eagles and hawks work the shore, swooping in on reptiles or carrion washed up by the sea. The incoming tide sculpts the shifting sand, obliterates dunes, catches careless crabs and rolls them. A leathery old fisherman walks the beach collecting buoys and rope from the flotsam.

The long beach ends in a rocky promontory where a footpath winds through tall grasses and palm trees; beyond is a local village. At midday Peng Udang is a sleepy hamlet where roosters scratch and crow and chase after wary dogs. The floatable elevated homes of the fisherman, called kelongs, drift in shallow pools, tied to shore like oil tankers in a port. Fisherman young and old gather under the shade of kelong huts to repair their nets and tell stories of sea serpents and ghost ships. By the time I leave there are herons flying across the setting sun, and the surf has drowned the trail that brought me.

There are no sharks in pools at Bintan resorts. Instead I find water polo and rubber ducks. A mile swim in the curvaceous pool is followed by dinner and dancing at the Silk nightclub. The place is spanking new, with red lights, mirrors and chrome: a popular choice for people foolishly sunburned. Manager Eidel Wise is twenty-five and single, and I complain about being underdressed. “You are at a resort,” she scoffs, “and it’s in the middle of the jungle.” She pushes me into the DJ’s booth, and together we spin a little vinyl.

ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

From Bintan Lagoon I hop a sampan—a local skiff—and motor up-rivers into the heart of Bintan’s jungle. The estuarine ecology supports some 300 species of birds. Mangroves sprout along the shores of all the ice-lands here; they are the filters and purifiers of aquatic systems, but mangrove environments are everywhere under siege.

With my boatman inching us closer I stand on the bow of the sampan and stick my camera into the face of a yellow-banded mangrove snake. “Be careful,” whispers Aloot Nihoy, my driver, “that is very deadly snake.” No one on the boat is breathing, including me, and the snake is purportedly sleeping. I pull back suddenly, remembering a Somali proverb: “If your enemy has warned you, he hasn’t killed you. Yet.” We count seven pythons, three green snakes and four mangrove snakes in a brief one-hour survey amidst low-hanging vines and gnarled trees. The elusive otters elude us. Kingfishers plunge into pools and fly back to some perch, silver fish tails flopping from their bills. The water is cool and fresh, and I dive in: the crocodiles are long since gone here; riptides and currents are the only dangers.

Sitting in the lifeguard chair at Mana Mana, another Bintan resort, dive manager Witjak Santoso is polishing a brass bell. “It was salvaged from the wreck of the schooner Emily Bouchard. Sank off the coast here in a storm in 1980. The divemaster got the bell off the wreck.” Witjak Santoso says he wouldn’t have taken the bell. “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles.”

At 35 meters the Emily Bouchard is one of many hot dive spots around the Riau; the wreck of the Turtle is another. You can certify here for 75 bucks Singapore ($US 48), which includes a boat dive off Barracuda Point. “The best diving is Sumpat Point,” says Witjak Santoso. “Or you can go to Mapur Island: that is the real paradise.”

SPLISH SPLASH FISH

Bintan’s long Trikora beach begins and ends with fishing culture. In the middle are long stretches of white sand and coconut trees; boats and anchors are high-and-dry. Kelongs everywhere sleep on beaches: they are dragged by boat out to sea for long stretches of night fishing.

Pantai Trikora is attractive but my taxi speeds on to find some yet unidentified port—a hopping off point to my fantasy island. The search ends at a long pier in a harbor full of boats where a man they call “Captain Elly” does not yet know that he will take me to paradise: Mapur is the new ice-land of my dreams.

The long pier at Teluk Batau opens through a few dark rooms where the night’s catch of fish will be sold before breakfast is eaten. Walking the planks seaward I find a quaint family “restaurant” run by three sassy Indonesian gals. My dinner, this day, will be pepper crab with fried rice, carrot-orange juice, and fresh coconut. I write in my journal: “Just ate the absolute BEST seafood dinner I have EVER eaten.” This is true again and again.

The planked walkway extends far out over the water to a giant corral. Nets are strung through the corral to hold fish and trap others that swim through loopholes. An immature fish eagle hovers around, scavenging scraps, while the local sharks of Teluk Batau hover over the green felt of the pool table and prey on cynical foreign journalists. A giant banner stretched over the outside wall announces TOM CRUISE in black leather and fiery colors. Tiny sampan rowboats dangle off the backs of greasy trawlers tied along the pier.

As the sun sets over the pier the little fish eagle sleeps with one eye to the water. Tourists in the bungalow next to mine cast lures from fish poles. A slim silver fish takes the bait and runs with it, breaks the surface and bounces over the water like a skipped rock, and cuts loose. The excited fisherman wilts. Onshore, boys pay to dance with girls to music blasting over loudspeakers. It’s a festival: Moslem women in colored scarves peddle western noisemakers and little pistols that go POP! once or twice and then break.

For twenty Sing dollars ($US 12) I sleep out over the water in a breezy bungalow. The lights of the pier paint everything metallic blue. After the dancing, after the tinny music has stopped and the night’s lovers have been decided, you hear the creaking of planks and the knock of drifting boats and the splash of fish. At twilight I hear the CHUG CHUG CHUG of a boat: out the window I see a tiny flash of light every three seconds but the boat slips into the harbor in blackness. The engine dies and silence is broken only by waves lapping the pier.

At sunrise we negotiate. Mr. A. Hiong of Kolam Kelong Trikora Fishing—a.k.a. “Captain Elly”—is the man. “I take you to Mapur ice-land.” Captain Elly is a Chinese businessman who seems to own the pier and everything on it. On the walls of his joint at pier’s end are photos of monster fish like you ain’t seen in a while. The customers in these photos are smiling, but the photos are faded and curling off the walls. I ask about one ugly MONSTER fish—twice as long as the guy who supposedly caught it—that has floppy ears, the head of an elephant, and a daunting, teethy, overbite.

“Dass big tiga sha-hak,” Captain Elly tells me. He looks serious. “No, it ain’t.” I know a tiger and that’s no tiger. “Dat TIGA sha-hak.” Elly is insistent. Suddenly I am uncertain about the man whose boat I will take on the open seas. On a fish chart nearby I find the monster fish. It is no tiger. Do you know how many species of shark live in the South China Sea? One hundred and ten.

TICKET TO PARADISE

We bargain the round-trip price, with drop-off (Monday) and pick-up (Friday) like this:

Captain Elly: “Too hunda Sing dolla.” I laugh and shake my head no. “One hundred Sing dolla.” Captain Elly laughs and shakes his head no. Captain Elly: “One hunda senny figh Sing dolla.”

Keith: “One hundred thirty.” Captain Elly: “One hunda fiffy Sing dolla.” Keith: “One hundred fifty-five.” Captain Elly speaks to his friend in Mandarin. The guy nods—trying not to laugh—and Captain Elly blurts out: “O.K. Deal!”

It’s agreed. Captain Elly is pleased with himself. I negotiate stops at desert islands en route to Mapur. “Can go dees ice-land,” says Captain Elly. He pinpoints P. Beralas Basir on a big nautical map. “Can no go dis ice-land,” he says, pointing at P. Beralas Bakau right next to it. “Too much flies. Dey eat you alibe.”

It’s settled. I talk Captain Elly into snorkel, mask, fins and swim time. His sixteen-footer is all wood, with a clean, shiny V-6 engine amidships, and he sends me off with two young boatmen after the morning market has closed. By 10:00 AM I am flipper-finning in the big blue sea off Pulau Beralas Basir. I hover over corals and drop off the reef into deep dark water. Schools of bright fish dart through giant polyps above me, silhouettes against the sky, while a manta ray glides dreamily through inner space below. Bubbles gurgle into silence. I laugh out loud at the preposterous proposition of hopping ice-lands in the Riau.

LITTLE PINK HOUSES

Captain Elly’s boat drops me at the docks of the Battuta Resort on Mapur Island. The “resort” is a collection of stilted bungalows, out over the water, tied to a central lodge on a long dock. Battuta is closed for repairs and the owner will not negotiate a reduced rate for a single traveler with no reservations. I shrug. My heart is still singing in sub-oceanic bliss. What happens, happens for a reason.

For four days I explore island living with Daisy, her friend Sundari, and Sundari’s two children. Daisy and her husband have eked a farm out of rainforest at the center of the island. Pushing her wheelbarrow, Daisy daily wheels her son to school along a cement causeway cut through palm swamp meadows. It’s a four-kilometer wheelbarrow push. The only English speaker on Mapur, Daisy sets me up with Sundari, whose husband is four weeks fishing out at sea.

Houses here reflect the division of the macrocosm into the upper world, the seat of deities and the ancestors. Sundari treats me like a deity. Her little pink house, like all of them, is on stilts: the tide sweeps in and out, twice a day, sloshing beneath my bed. She has three cats, and cats here everywhere scrap with cats. They fly down gangplanks and corner each other like pirates forced to walk the plank. I see weaker cats leap into the sea and swim back to shore. Singapura… At low tide cats scrap under the stilt houses, chase each other down the beach, leap in and out of stranded boats.

ONE HUNDRED DREAMS OF SOLITUDE

Mapur is an island of dreams: those who live here dream of other lives; those who visit dream of staying forever. Fishermen craft the boats of their dreams: they cut the decks out of rough logs, polish brass propellers, lacquer hulls, all by hand. Children dream of football or TV stardom. “I want to be a tours director at Bintan Resorts,” says Daisy. “That is my dream.” For three days I make her Director of Tourism, Mapur Island.

Days on Mapur are spent diving off docks; hiking remote beaches; sunbathing naked; snorkeling coral reefs; exploring mangrove swamps at low tide; or knocking on the doors of stilt houses where red roses grow, where children fish with sticks and twine out of living room windows, where old fisherman sit around and dream of youth.

Daisy arranges a boat to circle Mapur and together we explore Pantai Belakang, another empty white sand beach. Yawn... My shy friend Jungjim—a twelve-year old who has never seen the back of his own island—plays in the emerald surf. Fish fly out of the waves and flash in the sun. There are sandbars and rock cliffs and freshwater lagoons. Macaques swoop and howl in the forests when sea eagles fly over. We depart in time to make evening prayers at the village mosque, after searching the beach for booty.

THE SULTANS OF ICE-LANDS

I have hopped another island. With tuk-tuk and driver I am chasing down treasure and ruins on Pulau Penyengat, a small ice-land named for penyengat (biting) bees that attack and kill sailors. An ethno-archeological excavation of culture and history reveals myriad philosophical and spiritual realities.

Chinese junks trading with India and Sumatra once ruled the Riau; ceramics of the Sung Dynasty (960-1127) have been found throughout the archipelago. During the rule of the Sultan Mansur Shah (1459-1456), the Malacca Sultanate controlled the Riau: Islam predominated, and massive palaces were constructed and fortified.

“Here, there are little islands,” wrote Ibn Battuta, an Arab explorer of the 13^th century, “from which armed black pirates with poised arrows emerged, possessing armed warships; they plunder people but do not enslave them.”

Portuguese galleons armed with crosses and cannon conquered Riau far and wide by 1511, but an unremitting Sultan named Mahmud set up warrior fiefdoms, conquering islands in turn. Pulau Penyengat was one of these, and the history of conquest and resistance is written in palaces, mausoleums, mosques and old forts on this little ice-land. Spanish conquistadores also pillaged here.

Riau offers many living testimonials to the rise and fall of empires: Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, British: they came, they plundered, they fled for their lives. The Mausoleum of Raja Haji Ali Fisabilillah commemorates the war on terror waged by the local Sultanates against foreign infidels seeking to control the trade in spices, opium, tea, porcelain and silk.

“This ice-land was gifted to Engku Puteri, Queen of Sultan Mahmud,” says Maradou Simangunsong, my driver of tuk-tuks and explainer-of-herstory, “as part of her marriage dowry.” Locals worship the mausoleum of Engku Puteri and other Royal Gravesites for their powers of keramat—miracle working—and berniat—guidance or blessings on their wishes. “You must make wish,” says Maradou, “maybe wish good luck and protection for boat to go to nudder ice-land.”

REQUIEM FOR A GHOST SHIP

We left Pulau Penyengat under the spell of fate cast by the spirit of Queen Engku Puteri. Charlie Yung Sook was hard on the boat. The sky was blue and the sea green, and the pier behind was fast disappearing. The storm rose out of the ocean like a sneeze. There were no clouds, just that hard, cutting rain that sparkled as it washed over the sun and fell on us. Everything was white.

Charlie Yung Sook’s eyes were wide with uncertainty and his hair hung soggy and flat over his face. He unrolled the curtains down the sides of the skiff, but the rain blew right through. Painted on the curtains was a girl in a low cut dress selling Black Cat batteries with alluring eyes and a seductive smile. Charlie pointed at the girl and yelled, “she real beauty.” But he wasn’t thinking about girls. He was worried: he didn’t know I could swim. He sucked the rain through the gap in his front teeth. “No see ice-lands!” he yelled. Then he pulled his plastic hood over his head and ramped the motor up and drove into oblivion.

The ghost ship appeared suddenly, cutting through the waves and the white rain. With our engine roaring Charlie didn’t hear it, and we couldn’t see it for the rain, and it was coming on us fast, like a torpedo about to ram us amidships. It was a grimy black ship, made blacker against the white rain, and the men on it stood straight and tall and thin as the boat was long, like tombstones in some ghost town.

Their clothes were black, and even their faces seemed to be, and the rain soaked them, but they stared straight ahead as if they had a mission, a purpose, a place they had to get to, and maybe never would. It wasn’t until the ship passed behind us that the three men on the ship turned their heads—all at once—and looked at us. Even their eyes were black. Charlie Yung Sook gasped, and I did, and we stared as the ghost ship vanished as suddenly as it came: a black smear swallowed up by whiteness. Charlie Yung Sook crossed his chest and mumbled a prayer. Then he ramped the motor up, and drove into oblivion.

***

BOX ONE: LION’S ISLAND

Singapore is itself an island, and the place to begin hopping the Riau. I check into a hotel in Chinatown—the cultural heart of the place—and then hop the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) to tour the city. Thirty minutes walk from any station offers an exploration of all things Asian: Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, Indian; Buddhist and Hindu temples; Islamic Mosques; shiny modern architecture.

In 1299 A.D., legends say, the Sumatran prince Sang Nila Utama was sailing in the seas of the Temasek Empire when a big cat—the terrified crew yelled “singa” for lion but it was probably a tiger—leapt out of the sea, landed on all fours on the deck of his ship, and mauled the ship’s captain. The Singa leapt back into the sea, swam to shore and bounded into the forest. The Prince founded a city on the spot, and named it Singapura.

The MRT connects you to Sentosa and Ubin, two islands on the city’s fringe that couldn’t be more different: one is rustic traditionalism, the other luxury theme park where tourists swim with pink dolphins.

Hopping the MRT to the Maritime Museum I find “ancient artifacts”—nets and traps and tools—that I later see in use, as I am hopping the Riau. “The Riau ice-lands have many cultural sites, wild jungles, luxury resorts and long white beaches,” says Ms. Tamling at the downtown Tourist Bureau. “Go beyond Pulau Batam and Pulau Bintan and there are so many ice-lands we don’t even name them.” She is smiling. “People go to these ice-lands and we never see them again.”

BOX TWO: ANGSANA

At the Angsana Spa on Bintan, all my dreams come true—within reason. Angsana offers a luscious, pampered, self-care retreat, a luxury resort in sharp contradistinction to the rough-and-ready life of an island hopping nomad. I do yoga, visit the spa, swim miles along the beach or in the pool, sleep, and dream about other ice-lands.

Angsana was built in 2000, designed for the “family market.” Next door is Banyan Tree, designed for couples and honeymooners. The pair claims the auspicious title as the last coastal rainforest resort in Southeast Asia, with 20 endangered species. Banyan Tree has sixty-two villas, many with their own swimming pools. I have never seen anything like it.

The masseuse offers classic Ayurvedic (Indian) or Ayuthayan (Thai) massage, or signature massage designed by Angsana. It is relaxing indeed. “We want all our guests by the time they leave the resort to do so with body-mind centering,” says manager Pak Erwin. “We get many Japanese tourists, people from Singapore, and Europeans. There are very few Americans like you.”

My days at Angsana were matched by my days at Mapur, but the two couldn’t be more different, and I loved each in its own way. It was here, relaxing into yoga and meditation, that I came to the realization that I wouldn’t want to live in either world without the other, and some better way needs be found to bridge the two.