Galathea's Landlubbers

The Secret Mission

2006-12-20T15:04:00.000-08:00

Sitting on the veranda of our hut at the foot on Gunung Rinjani in Lombok, sipping our morring-kopi, we discussed the journey and our experiences so far. Somehow, we both agreed, only visiting Bali and Lombok while down here did not feel right. It was in fact a bit like if Hitler had decided to only invade

Poland

and

Denmark

, and be done with it. History would have been a merciless judge of such small-mindedness. World War one-and-a-half has just not got the same ring to it, right?

The numerous other islands of Wallacea – the region from Lombok across to Papua New Guinea – beckoned us with their exotic and alluring names; Sumbawa, Bumba, Sulawesi, Komodo – each of these names having roughly the same meaning to us: “you KNOW you want to!”. Two cups of kopi later, the decision was made: first, we were going to briefly check the far eastern slopes of Gunung Rinjani to see if they offered anything worth staying a bit for – and then we would set off on another ramshackle ferry across the fantastically named “Alas Strait” (we kid you not – check an atlas!), drive the length of Sumbawa, and island-hop our way to Flores via the fabled island of Komodo.

“Komodo, eh?”, Jens said, his eyes gazing towards the horizon, and his right hand slowly fondling his silver-back, alpha-male beard. Clearly, a plan of sorts was brewing and hatching in his immense brain.

“Pray tell, what are you thinking about?”, Dennis urged, hardly able to conceal his excitement at sharing whatever über-nerdism was currently keeping Jens’ neurons busy.

“What kind of animals live on Komodo?”, Jens asked, sounding like Socrates about to lecture on the finer aspects of classic mathematics.

“Komodo dragons, of course!”, Dennis replied, “the huge beasts that can eat a goat in five minutes!”

“Indeed. But have we not also found out that lizards on islands eat something else besides meat?”, Jens inquired.

“Yes – you are right; quite often on islands, small lizards cannot find insects enough to eat, and thus include nectar and fruits in their diet”, Dennis started, “but… Komodo Dragons and nectar?”, Dennis continued, looking as if he had a bit of trouble envisioning a 3-metre carnivorous lizard gently licking the sweet fluid out of a tiny flower.

“But, Dennis, what about fruits? -did you not recently buy a fruit that made our hotel room smell like a mixture of a used jock-strap and a rotting hamster?”, Jens quipped.

“Indeed I did – the infamous durian fruit that looks like a giant round hedgehog, and which you forced me to quarantine in the bathroom”.

“Is it then not possible to fathom that a giant fruit, which has been around since the time when dinosaurs walked the Earth, and which smells like a rotting corpse – among other things – might be ever so slightly tempting to a huge carnivorous and scavenging lizard?”, Jens rhetorically asked.

We both realised the potential for great storytelling, if we succeeded in making the world’s largest lizard eat one of the world’s most mysterious fruits. And so it came to be that our fellowship of two set out from Lombok to feed durian fruits to Komodo Dragons.

After having paid homage to the major cultural icon of Sembalun Lawang, a giant statue of a garlic (!), it turned out that leaving the village was harder than expected.

Our guide from the day before said he had a friend with a very good car, who could take us to the small harbour Labuhanlombok on the east of Lombok. The friend turned up in a shining new car, and proceeded to drive it through the village at 10 km/hour.

“Very fine car”, Dennis said, “is it new?”.

“Berry new, yes, me I teach Englis at local school”, he replied, beaming proudly. “Have you been driving a lot around in Lombok?”, Dennis inquired.

“In village, yes, a lot!”.

After he had failed to change to second gear for more than one kilometre, and we were approaching the steep mountain-pass, we exchanged worried looks… …and at the very first steep bit, he managed to bring the car to a full stop, because he didn’t rev the engine enough to make it. “Berry strange”, he said, looking worried, “is new car!”. He then proceeded to rev the engine at max rpm, and then pressing the BRAKE with the other foot – the car made a few high-pitched noises of protest, and died again. “Are you sure your friend has even driven a car before?”, we asked our guide. “yes, yes – but maybe only in the village. But I think his car is broken”.

The driver got out. “I think my car is broken!” , he exclaimed, looking almost happy that he didn’t have to attempt to go any further, “I’m berry, berry sorry!”. We flagged down a passing small truck going in the wrong direction, filled with goods. The driver smiled and said he’d drop off the stuff and come back to drive us to the coast for a small fee, no worries! You gotta love third-world countries for the magical way in which seemingly large problems always somehow get solved along the way. Literally, in our case. While we waited for the truck to return, a small group of black monkeys made it through the trees right next to the small road, and Jens managed to get some good photos of them jumping from tree to tree. We tried to follow them for a bit to get some feeding observations, but the undergrowth was too dense with thorny lianas.

The truck arrived, and with death-defying speed we made it through some very nice forest (dang!) down to the ferry harbour, and jumped onto yet another wreck of a ferry that probably came from a small ex-Soviet country that no longer exists. Crossing the Alas Strait to Labuhan Tano in Sumbawa took only a few hours, then with a bus to the city of Sumbawa Besar, where we checked into a small, rather seedy hotel. The room looked as if it was usually rented on a hourly basis; crappy beds with thin matresses, stains of a mysterious nature on all walls, and 1,976 cigarette stubs in the drawer of the small desk. Yum.

The following day we caught a bus in the afternoon that would take us to Bima, the second large-ish city on Sumbawa. Looking on a map, Sumbawa looks long, but not that long. Wrong. After a gruelling seven-hour bus ride along a road that hugs every single bay on the coast, driving at a max speed of 40-50 km/h, we made it to the outskirts of Bima shortly before midnight. We chartered a tiny horse-drawn cart to take us into town to a hotel, and packed ourselves and our luggage onto the miniscule vehicle – probably much to the chagrin of the poor horse that had to pull it all.

In the hotel, before drifting off to dreamland, we plotted and schemed some more. How were we going to feed a giant durian fruit to a Komodo dragon without the national park ranger noticing? How would we get away alive, if the dragon preferred us to the fruit? How were we going to get a durian fruit out to Komodo in the first place? Many things to ponder…

Next morning, we had hoped to get a ferry from Sape on the east coast of Flores to go to Komodo, but apparently it only sailed on Saturdays. Two days from now. We could not afford to lose any time, as Dennis had to be close to a working (!) telephone for a job-interview on the coming Monday. We had to face it: our attempt to do it on the cheap, and see Sumbawa as well, had failed. Luckily, there was a small airport close to Bima, from where we flew all the way back to Bali, and caught another plane to Flores – to the east of Komodo – the next morning. Proper island-hopping! (hopping back and forth, that is…).

“Could you please tell us when the ferry for Komodo leaves”, Jens asked Thommy and Louis, the two rastafarians whose car we had chartered at the airport. They both looked at us, and started laughing; “Man, the ferry stopped sailing five years ago, maaan!”. Bugger. The tiny harbour of Labuhan Bajo did indeed not seem to hold any ferries – but tonnes of other, smaller vessels.

“Don’t worry, we have a friend with a good boat, man, you come see him, man! Let’s go have lunch and discuss business, man!”. Yah, man.

Thommy and Louis made us an offer for a three days/two nights boat charter to go to the islands of Rinca and Komodo – both part of the Komodo National Park – where there are many dragons. After a great deal of bartering, we had negotiated a good price – and Jens added, “we will take the deal, IF you can get us two ripe durian fruits!”. Silence and disbelief. “What, man??!!”. “Two durians, or no deal!”, Jens repeated; “we need them for some… …photographs! –we are journalists, you see”. “Okeh, man… -whatever, man”. They went off to buy provisions. And durian fruits.

Half an hour later, they came back, looking a bit worried. “No durians, man, not the right season, man…”. We looked at each other, the sheer and utter desperation of being so close and yet so far probably clearly visible on our faces – because now Louis proudly held up a chunk of ripe, yellow, slimy, sticky and smelly… …jackfruit! “Whaddabout dis, man? Almost same!”.

In fact, durians are from a tree in the Bombacaceae family, and jackfruits are from the Moraceae – that is, not very closely related – but they do indeed share certain traits. They are both from old plant families that would have co-existed with dinosaurs and giant lizards. They are both giant fruits, weighing up to several kilos each, which hang directly on the trunks and large branches of the trees.

They both have a hard spiky surface, and soft, smelly pulp inside. In other words, they are a good example of convergent evolution, where similar selective pressures can sometimes mold unrelated species into sharing some of the same traits.

We looked at each other. This would have to do; there was absolutely no turning back so close to the target. Admittedly, a durian smells worse than a jackfruit – but the very similar sickly-sweet semi-rotten smell that the jackfruit gave off would have to do. Jens inspected the jackfruit very closely, and nodded. Off to Rinca, Komodo, and beyond!

The boat turned out to be a rather large wooden vessel of some 20 metres in length, manned by Harry, the captain, Faisal, the cook and sailor, and Lyngo, the boat-boy.

We were seated at a low table, coffee was served with bananas, and off we went – feeling mightily like a couple of imperialistic explorers on our chartered boat; a crew to serve us and all. When the evening approached, Harry anchored the boat next to a fairly small mangrove island. “Wait”, he simply said. We were joined by another boat, carrying a Spanish tourist. Clearly something was going to happen, as our boats lay side by side, facing the small island.

When night had almost fallen, we could suddenly make out a few large, silent animals flying out from the island and across our boats; their wings beating slowly and somehow not quite bird-like…

We both quickly realised that we were looking at large fruitbats, or flying foxes, that were setting out from their daytime roosting trees – the mangrove island in this case – to forage on fruits and nectar all night long. We had both seen fruitbats before, and agreed that this view was not really that special, when we realised that the few fruitbats had become tens of bats flying out, then hundreds, then finally thousands of bats passing us in a wide arc from the small island towards the mainland!

For more than half an hour, until we could only hear their almost silent wings and a few scattered chatterings, they poured forth – we estimated at least some 30,000 to 50,000 large fruitbats. Now, that was something very special to behold indeed, and we spent the rest of the evening chatting about how these bats fit into the ecosystems and habitats we had seen. Nerdism pure. The night was spent on mattresses on a small extra-deck on the roof of the bridge – where a cool breeze made it very comfortable indeed.

In the wee hours of dawn we were woken by the noises of the crew making coffee and breakfast – which we enjoyed while the course was set towards Rinca, the first island of Dragons. The archipelago we were sailing through was stark but beautiful. The islands were hilly and almost barren; dry brown grass and a few trees. However, the beaches we passed could easily compete with the most gorgeous tropical beaches we had seen elsewhere, but no people in sight anywhere. Bliss.

Getting close to dragon-land, we had to figure out how to get the jackfruit onto the island. We both wanted to be the one to carry the fruit, and subsequently feed it to the dragons. A minor discussion broke out.

“No worries, I can fit it in my backpack”, Jens said.

“Ah, but it’s rather heavy, no problem, I will take it”, Dennis tried to be nice. Suddenly, we both somehow had the same thought simultaneosuly. What if the dragons actually really liked the fruit? Walking around on an island with 600 of the buggers, carrying what could amount to an olfactory “eat me!” commercial might become a bit tricky.

“Ok, Jens, you can take it”.

“No, no, Dennis, please, you should be the one to have the honour”.

“I insist, Jens, you are the biggest nerd”.

Finally, bowing to the pressure from the alpha-male, Dennis put the sack with the fruit in his backpack. All set and ready to go.

Arriving at Rinca, we saw our first dragon sleeping halfway underneath some shrubs next to the pier. Promising. At the the rangers’ house, there were a handful of large creatures moving around in the dust, obviously fighting over something. Four large dragons sqabbling over some food scraps from the kitchen. Very promising.

We got our first good dragon-photos here. One of the dragons approached us a bit, flicking its large tongue out and in – seemingly in the general direction of Dennis’ backpack. It sat down and started to salivate. Very worrying.

The ranger, who was going to accompany us, grabbed a rather flimsy-looking stick with a forked end from a rack. “Let’s go!”, he said. We felt like asking him how this stick should keep a 3-metre dragon from putting us on its menu, but he looked very sure of himself and the stick, so we went along.

We made our way through a very dry landscape with tall grass and lots of shrubs. Perfect hiding places for a dragon-ambush, we thought. It is an eerie experience to walk somewhere where you realise that you have suddenly been relegated from the top of the food chain to somewhere further down.

Presently, we came across a huge circular mound of dirt, some 6-7 metres across, and one metre high. It had several large holes dug into it. “This is an old megapode nest, which has afterwards been used by dragons to lay their eggs”, the ranger said.

Megapodes! We both very much wanted to see these fantastic birds! They are 40-50 cm tall ground-dwelling birds with powerful legs, which they use to scrape large amounts of organic matter and soil together in huge mounds like the one we were standing at. They then proceed to dig a hole in the middle in which the female lays her eggs and covers them with dirt again. The mound now functions as a giant incubator; the rotting organic matter (most often leaves) gives off heat in which the embryos can develop inside the eggs. Meanwhile, the parent birds adjust the temperature by either scraping off surplus dirt, or by adding more on top. We were definitely going to keep an eye open for these wonderful birds! As well as any hungry reptiles.

After having passed through a narrow dry gully, we heard something moving to our right. Something very large. Slowly parting the shrubs, we were relieved to see a massive grey waterbuffalo peacefully nibbling away at a small shrub. Probably at the moment blissfully unaware of the fact that it is one of the usual items on the dragons’ diet, together with deer.

Komodo Dragons do not have to outright kill their prey by sheer force; it is enough for them to deliver a few powerful bites and wound the prey – and then hang around a few days, waiting for the animal to slowly die. It was long believed that an extremely lethal combination of infectious bacteria in the dragons’ saliva sped up the process of death – but recent research has also identified several poisons normally found in snakes in the saliva of the dragons. These fascinating creatures clearly hold many secrets yet. We wondered, was occasional fruit-eating one of them?

Around the next bend in the path, we came to a sudden stop as we spotted a sleeping dragon, smack in the middle of the path. It gave us a good opportunity to more closely study its wrinkly skin with the hard scales, and the massive claws on the feet.

Our ranger gently pushed the forked end of the stick behind the dragon’s hindleg to make it move away from the path

– the dragon sprang into action with remarkable speed, whipping out with its powerful tail at the ranger, and scuttling off into the undergrowth. Whatever happened to “letting sleeping dragons lie”?

Oh well, at least it showed us that for some weird reason, the dragons respect the flimsy sticks. That is, until one of them realises that it is in fact only a flimsy stick.

A bit further along, we spotted a large male dragon, making its way across a grassy hill on a small path.

He was walking slowly, tongue flicking in and out when he spotted us. Perfect place. Now or never. “You know, four years ago, back in Europe, Jens and I made a bet”, Dennis said to the ranger. “We discussed whether a Komodo Dragon would eat a jackfruit”. The ranger looked at us, flummoxed. “On many other islands, lizards eat fruits”, Jens chipped in, “even large varanids do so”.

Dennis added, “I think Komodo Dragons eat jackfruits; in fact I bet Jens two bottles of Arak [local rice-brandy] that they will”. The ranger looked even more perplexed.

“Say, what if – by sheer coincidence – I would happen to have a jackfruit in my backpack; would it be ok to put it out on the path in front of the dragon to see what happens?”, Dennis said, with his most innocent face. While the ranger looked as if he was contemplating the emerging fact that he was guiding two madmen around the island, we pulled the sack with the jackfruit out of the backpack, and showed him. Yes, definitely. These two Danes were completely and utterly mad.

Before he could find anything to say for or against our insane proposal, we quickly stepped on the fruit, breaking it open to reveal the slimy, smelly yellow pulp inside. The dragon was still walking along the same path.

We placed the fruit smack in the middle of the path, about 10 metres in front of the dragon. Cameras poised, we waited. Closer, closer still. Five metres; the dragon had definitely seen the jackfruit now; its tongue flicked rapidly in and out. So close.

We could almost already see our photos on the frontpage of Nature or Science (two tabloid weekly science magazines). Without stopping for second thoughts, the dragon went straight towards the fruit… …and then, right in front of the fruit, veered off; stepping down from the path and into the tall grass! It acted as if the smell of the fruit was just about the most revolting thing it had ever faced! (and, coming from an animal that loves to gorge on rotting meat, that’s quite bad, we reckon).

We looked flabbergasted at each other; what the heck was that all about??! The dragon had not even tasted the fruit, but in fact seemed positively revolted by it. Had we unwittingly stumbled across a hitherto unknown dragon-repellent? Would it from now on not be necessary for the rangers to carry the sacred dragon-scarer™ stick with them? (-here, sir, please anoint yourself with this yummy but rather smelly and sticky jackfruit-pulp before you venture out into dragon-land, if you would be so good).

In the meantime, our ranger had started giggling, and was now roaring with laughter. “Dragon, eat fruit? Hahahaha! –only eat meat!”. He was utterly unable to speak for the next five minutes, as he shook his head and laughed at the sheer folly of these Danes. He picked up one of the chunks of jackfruit, and proceeded to relish the sweet pulp himself, then offered some of it to us with a solemn face. “Here, have some. It is good… …for humans, not dragons!”, promptly collapsing with laughter again.

Keeping in line with our concocted excuse, Dennis started to complain, “that was only one trial, Jens! You have to give me a second chance to prove my theory right!”. Jens good-heartedly played along, “ok, laddie, you get a second chance, but if it doesn’t work, you owe me four bottles of arak!”.

Slowly making our way back to the rangers’ station, we spot the occasional dragon, but none that seem in the right place to try our luck a second time. We decided to try some of the large dragons back at the station. When we got back, they were lying in the shade under the house by now, but two of them came out to investigate when we put the by now very smily, very sticky, and very smelly remains of the jackfruit within five metres of them. They approached, flicked their tongues over the fruit a couple of times, and then one of them promptly tried to mount the other and mate with it! The ranger’s bellows of laughter could no doubt be heard on the other side of Flores.

So, summa summarum, we dismally failed to prove our hypothesis – but came up with two alternatives, based on our data: jackfruit is either a) a dragon repellant, or b) a dragon aphrodisiac. The jury is still out on this one. And we still need to repeat the experiment with durians. Any funders out there?

After our adventures on Rinca, we set off towards Komodo, where we arrived after yet another night’s great sleep on the boat.

Approaching the pier, we could make out a small but distinctly dragon-like shape right on the beach a few hundred metres away. Luckily, the dragon more or less stayed where it was until we got off the boat, and could move towards it – yet again being joined by a ranger with a flimsy stick. The dragon was posing like a photomodel for us for the next half an hour; we were both in utter and absolute Nerdvana! It strolled leisurely down the beach; it went close to the water and stretched its neck, looking like Nessie – it simply almost convinced us that we had somehow managed to enter a time-machine and arrived back in the age of reptiles.

The ranger said that we were very lucky; that it was rare to see a dragon on the beach for this long. We did indeed feel lucky. Very lucky. And very happy to be so close to such a fantastic animal!

The only other dragons we saw on Komodo were three large males, living underneath the rangers’ house, also here living off the food scraps thrown to them, and probably the occasional misbehaving child. That’ll learn them.

We did, however, see some fantastic birds on Komodo; firstly, we spotted several of the intriguing megapodes, striding through the forest and foraging by scraping in the litter with their powerful feet.

We also came across a 2-metre long, brown sausage that was hanging along the major branch of a tree –which on closer inspection turned out to be a resting swarm of the large honey bee Apis cerana on the lookout for a new home.

Letting sleeping bees lie/hang, we proceeded into the dry forest which was dominated by a large palm, of which many were fruiting. These palms only fruit once in their life, after which they die and become naked grey skeletons – but they carry a LOT of fruits, which function as a magnet for all fruit-eating animals (alas, apparently not including the dragons).

We spotted the green imperial pigeon, a large beautiful bird, feeding on the fruits, as well as a very Australian fauna-element, the sulphur-crested cockatoo.

A bit later, observing a strange looking friarbird – a special kind of honeyeater – foraging on nectar, we realised that we were deep into the region of Wallacea indeed!

Finally, just before leaving Komodo again, we enjoyed a well-earned bottle of cold water, while enjoying several other species of nectar-feeding birds frolicking in a flowering tree close by – white-eyes, sunbirds, orioles, and flower-peckers.

Pure bliss and Nerdvana! –and two very tired, but very happy biologists (and a bit of shameless product placement).

Bali & Lombok - different, yes, but not due to the Wallace Line!

2006-12-07T05:12:00.000-08:00

Let us see. We ended the last installment of this blog with the following lines, about us wanting to “explore the slopes of the highest mountain, Gunung Agung, where we will do a pollination observation transect… …we will do the same on Lombok’s highest mountain, and then compare and contrast the results we get”. So far, so good.

From the botanic garden in Bedugul, we set off towards the volcano Gunung Agung and the first pollination transect. On the way we stayed in the small tourist trap of Lovina on the north coast, where we finally managed to get close to the sunbirds visiting an, ahem, erhm, endemic and VERY rare Hibiscus in the garden just outside our window. Yes, that will do.

Mmm, the joys of living in a tourist trap. If the Chinese and Japanese can be said to sometimes have a problem with the letter ‘r’ – then the Indonesian equivalent is the letter ‘f’. This is commonly pronounced as the letter ‘p’, making for some fun misunderstandings.
“Good morring, pried rice and kopi?” What?!
“Do you peel happy in Bali?” Que? –no thanks, we think we’ll just hold on to our skin for a little bit longer, if you don’t mind.

Anyway, next day we arrived at the foot of the volcano, where we once again managed – completely and utterly unknowingly, of course – to check into a rather spiffingly nice little homestay. It was nestled in a beautiful valley among emerald-green rice fields in the village of Sidemen, to the south of Gunung Agung. In the late afternoon sun, we explore the beautiful rice fields, and thoroughly enjoy the tranquility of the village and its surroundings. We get back to our “fieldstation”, and enjoy a beer on the veranda – looking longingly at the massive volcano that dominates the view to the north.
In the evening we get a good example of the mixture of ancient and modern that is Bali. There is going to be a blessing of a newly bought car. The son of the homestay-owner has returned from Canada with money to spend. His grandmother, a tiny woman with skin like brown leather, presides over the scene together with a Hindu-priest, clad completely in white. The car is covered with offerings of food to please the gods (of which the Balinese pantheon holds plenty).

After the blessing, we are offered to taste some of the things, including a palm-leaf wrapped bar made out of black rice pudding, palm sugar, and banana. One such bar looks like it contains as much energy as about seven of the fabled lembas-breads of elvish Middle-Earth fame. Perfect for the ascent into the jungles of Gunung Agung!

The next morning, bright and early, our driver arrives with the car. It is none other than the Hindu-priest from the night before, now wearing a t-shirt and a cap instead of his white gown – but still the same wide smile. But of course. With a driver like that, we reckon that the gods of Gunung Agung will look with great favour upon our little quest.
“Jens, did you remember the One Ring? We MUST throw it into the fiery chasm from whence it came, to destroy it before Anders Fogh [Danish PM] can lay his slimy hands on it!”, Dennis exclaims, with nerdy passion and a goofy smile.
“Dennis, stop it, for crying out loud!”, Jens cries out, the despair evident in his face that he will have to endure this for yet another two-and-a-half months. Little did he know. Alas.
We reach the temple (of which Bali has enough to make sure that even the smallest deity feels loved) halfway up the volcano, and set off into the forest that beckons behind it. Just behind the temple the forest is absolute crap; invasive shrubs, herbs, and trees. Nevertheless, we start recording every pollination interaction we see – maybe we can observe a gradual shift in pollinators as we ascend up into the real forest?
After climbing a few hundred metres, we realise that the forest is STILL absolute crap; invasive shrubs, herbs, and trees. Where is the rainforest? Where are the epiphytes, the orchids, the fig trees? What has happened?
Without the often taken-for-granted instant access to a good chunk of the world’s scholarly journals via the Internet, it is hard to tell if anyone has studied this, and come up with an answer. We came up with the following hypothesis: After the eruption in 1963, the native forest was badly damaged. The nearest source for regeneration was from the agricultural lands just below – from where the birds ate the berries and fruits of introduced and invasive species. Depositing them onto the ash-fertilised remains of the native forest, the seeds quickly grew into a forest of invasive species, before the few remaining native plants could regenerate.
We don’t know if the forest on the entire volcano looks as bad as here, but time is running, and sadly we cannot afford to spend too much time exploring here. We have to leave for Lombok, and hope that the volcano forest there is in better shape.
After a looong walk down from the volcano, we happily flag down a bemo that takes us the last 15 km down to Sidemen - Dennis has to fold over three times to crawl into the vehicle, which is tiny indeed.

We embark on the ferry to Lombok at Pandangbai, a small, bustling town on the eastern coast of Bali. Now is the time. The fabled Wallace Line awaits. We both stare towards the horizon, where we can see the coast of Lombok. Somewhere out there. Nerd-fever rising, we flip open a laptop and read the bit from Wallace’s ‘Malay Archipelago’, where he recounts this small, but very significant step on his way to becoming the Father of Biogeography. Almost exactly 150 years ago, in July 1856, Wallace sailed here. Is it just the wind, or is it a gust of history blowing across our faces? (yes, yes, Dennis, cut it. We get the idea. –Jens).
Halfway across the strait, we see it! The Line! …-or is it just an oil-spill? Fata Morgana for nerds? Who can tell; but we are mightily excited, that’s for sure!

In Lombok, we jump into a small, ancient bus that looks as if it could well have been the very same one that carried Wallace so long ago. We share the bus with a few other tourists, who probably all are going up north to the Gili Islands – Lombok’s 7’in-place’ among the hip & cool backpackers who dare to venture out from Bali. Gili means ‘island’ in Indonesian –so, “the island islands”? – maybe like the Irish, who like to say “to be sure, to be sure”? Just to be sure.

We depart from the merry crowd of surfers and drinkers in Mataram, the capital of Lombok, and charter a small bemo (local mini-mini busses, which nevertheless sometimes manage to hold 15 people with luggage, 7 goats and 381 ducks). This takes us eventually to Senaru, a small village at 500 m above sea level, and on the northern slopes of Gunung Rinjani – the highest volcano, and second-highest mountain in Indonesia (around 3700 m). We find a lsmall lodge with a perfect view of the rainforest.
A perfect hiking trail goes all the way to the top, so we set out the next morning to explore – and found that the rainforest WAS there (lo and behold!) – but it only starts after an hour of steep uphill walking through two villages and banana/coffee ‘forests’.
“At least we get our morning exercise before work starts”, Jens cheerfully said, while watching the very last 3 square centimetres of his t-shirt that did not yet look like a wetsuit succumb to the tide of sweat. Luckily, there was a tiny hut just before the rainforest, where yet another ancient, tiny woman sold bananas and Coca-colas and Fantas. Lifesaving.

The forest, though! Mindblowing, tall, green, dark, humid, yummy.
We walked up the steep path, wringing sweat from our t-shirts every 500 metres, and looked. And looked. And found almost nothing in flower! As even an imbecile can tell, after some mild tutoring involving a bamboo stick and a carrot, pollination biologists NEED flowers to achieve their Nerdvana.
It was the end of the dry season, the rains had still not begun, and were more than a month late. Consequently, most plants were waiting for the first downpour before comitting to reproduction. We managed to find two species of parasitic orchids (i.e. no chlorophyll and no leaves) in flower, and spent hours observing both species the next four days, but saw nothing apart from a few flies landing on the outside of the flower. Meagre food for pollination biologists indeed.

We had better luck with fruits, as we unexpectedly encountered our friend, the giant fig from Bali, again at 1500-1800 m above sea level, where the forest was getting a bit more open and low. Here in Lombok, there was also nothing eating these figs – we found many rotten and semi-rotten fruits on the ground.

But the forest also held a plethora of other fig species; huge trees with thousands of fruits adorning their trunks and branches – and at one of these trees, we saw the long-tailed macaque eating the fruits. Our first seed dispersal interaction! The next days we hauled our camera equipment to these trees, and spent hours observing them.

Most of the time, the monkeys proceeded to sit and eat figs tantalisingly near to our poised cameras, but they somehow always managed to either, a) sit with their backs to us, proudly displaying their tail and buttocks, or b) sit in cover behind a thick branch. In both cases the result was the same: only the slurping noises and a glimpse of a simian hand or leg holding on to a fig reached our perceptive apparatuses (apparati? aperitif? anyone? –where’s the dictionary?) – and hence the sensor plates in our digital cameras had to remain hungry for the time being.
“This pisses me off”, Dennis blurped out,
“Rather”, Jens added,
“Bugger”, Dennis said, once again using his favourite British swearword.

We had now spent four days exploring the rain forest on the slopes of Gunung Rinjani, and had only one more day left here. We decided to go to Sembalun Lawang, a village on the north-eastern slope of Gunung Rinjani, and up in 1200 m above sea level, to check the forest here. We chartered yet another bemo for the drive, and finally found out where the name derives from: “Bouncing and Erratically Moving Object”. Ouch.
On a particularly steep part of the badly maintained road, the driver had to remove the spare tyre to remove a small plastic object from beneath the car; two blows, removing 2 litres of oil onto the road, and we were ready to go again. We were calmed by noting that the spare tyre at least was in a good shape. It was in fact more or less round, and had a layer of rubber left that in comparison made the membrane of a condom seem very thick indeed. Splendid.

Sembalun Lawang turned out to be on a wide grassy plain, surrounded by grassy hills, where all the forest had been burnt and removed a long time ago. Bugger.
However, we met a few local trekking guides who invited us in for a kup of kopi, and all was better then.

Afterwards, we had a few hours of touristing around the village with the guides and some local boys - and saying “hello” to about 2,189 people who all (but one!) smiled widely. THEN the rains came, a! It was good fun watching the kids play around on the still hot tarmac roads, and enjoying the shower from above.

Also, Jens got a horde of new admirers; mayb the nest generation of tropical biologists?

The kids were also more than happy to show us their new puppy - even though it had to be hauled up on the leash to make it into the photo. Alas - dogs are not worth too much on Bali...Next morning, a gorgeous sunrise showed us the volcano in all its glory - yumyum for photo-nerds.

Right now, we are in a secret place, hatching secret plans that if it turns out all right will secure us the front page of Nature. Cross your fingers. More later. Giggle.

Bali - land of giant figs and drunk Australians

2006-11-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

First ten days in Bali. The expedition is off to a flying start. Studying pollination and seed dispersal interactions in three different island regions of the world: Bali & Lombok, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia – from ancient volcanic islands to Gondwanaland relicts. First night, arriving late and utterly exhausted in Denpasar airport, we of course manage to let a nice woman book us into one of the two hotels that Lonely Planet warns are “past their prime” (i.e. old, over-priced tourist-traps). For two Danes just escaped from the gloom of winter, however, it was paradise to spend an hour in 32 degrees (midnight temperature) on the beach with a beer – and to retreat to a nice and cool 25 degrees airconditioned room afterwards. First day was spent in a haze of heat and jetlag; we repaired to a nearby hotel – also straight on the beach – which had a most beautiful garden in which we saw the first 1,678 of Bali’s 34,987 shades of green.

Next day we went up to the central mountains, to Bedugul, to see the botanic gardens and get an idea of what the native vegetation looks like. Being lazy bastards, and realising that a car WITH a driver costs only 10 dollars more per day than a car without one, we chartered a car & driver for the whole day, and set off. Bali is incredibly fertile – it had its latest shower of ash from a huge volcanic eruption in 1963. We were both stunned at how green and lush everything was – and this is at the end of the dry season! Of course, most of the island is covered in rice fields (but extremely pittoresque ones, that is; countless emerald green terraces hugging the hills), which leaves only little room for natural forests.

Traffic in Bali. What can we say? From the cars’ perspective, it is no better or worse than, say, Cairo or Port Louis. However, here in Bali you have the added delight of a horde of fast and death-defying small motorbikes zooming around the cars, weaving their way through the traffic whereever there is a gap of 20 cm. Sitting in a car, it felt as if we were surrounded by lots of large mechanical mosquitoes zooming by on all sides. Generally, one motorbike will carry at least two people (range = 1-4), usually a guy and a woman and up to two kids, and what seems to be a random assortment of household equipment and other necessities.

We had a hard time explaining our driver that we wanted to see some real forest and wildlife, and after the first three stops at monkey-infested temples, villages with caged birds, and other touristy knick-knack, we resigned, and let him show us whatever pleased him on our way up into the mountains. The botanic garden was very nice and at 1200 m above sea level a few degrees cooler than at the coast; an added bonus. We quickly descend down on the eastern side of the island, though, to meet Max van Balgooy in Jasri, where he escapes some of the Dutch winter.

Max is a retired botanist from Leiden in the Netherlands, and is after a lifetime of exploration and research arguably one of the most knowledgable scientists working with plants in Southeast Asia. We stayed at a small homestay near Max’ place – which was run by a 50-year old ex-pat Australian, whose answering machine said, in a thick Aussie lingo, “If I’m not answering, I’m either out surfing or drunk”. ‘Or both’ we felt like adding, after seeing the copious amounts of beer he gulped down with gusto, while holding on to his 18-year old Balinese girlfriend. Bali is home to some weird creatures indeed.

Next day, Max took us to a holy moutain, where the forest was still relatively intact, and where there were steps all the way up through the forest – with a generous helping of temples scattered along the way. Here, we got our first whiff of real forest – which was increased to being blown away the next day, when we went with Max to the botanic garden, lodging in their fabulous Balinese-style guesthouse right next to the rainforested mountains. From here, we went into the forest -and obviously took a lot of photos on the way.

The stroll through this mountain forest was like unleashing two kids in a candy store; we continually emitted sounds like “wow!”, “look at THAT!” – usually followed by a “bloody dang leeches!”.

Max to the rescue – he kindly demonstrated two of the 999 ways to get rid of leeches: burning them off with a match, or simply tearing them off and biting them in half (quote: chew, chew, “this is a tough one!”). Unlike the darn mozzies, the leeches carry no diseases – but they are indeed infinitely more gross than any blood-sucking dipterans. The most intriguing find was a giant (and we MEAN giant!) fig fruit, half rotten on the ground.

The beast was a full 12-14 cm in diameter, and had obviously lain on the ground for quite a while without being eaten. Despite searching, we could not find the fig tree it had come from, and retired to our bungalows before the night set in with its blessed relatively cool air (even a 3-degree drop is MOST welcome, we can assure you!).

Next morning, we set out and climbed one of the two mountains behind the botanic gardens, a rather small-looking 1800 m tall – a mere bump from the 1100 m the gardens already are located above sealevel. Or so we thought. With 12 kilos each of camera equipment, it becomes a mighty tall bugger indeed – and copious amounts of sweat were added to the already high humidity of the surroundings. However, if the previous day had been like a candy store – then this was like being taken through the Chocolate Factory! (alas, we didn’t spot Willy Wonka, though). Especially when we spotted two giant, orange-red globes with yellow spots hanging on a liana some 30 metres above our heads – the mystery giant figs in their natural surroundings! We managed to get some photos of the beasts, and were puzzled to see that, despite their apparent ripeness, they looked completely untouched – not even a small nibble scar was visible. In the big tree, on which the fig liana grew, a small brown squirrel-like creature (i.e. most likely a squirrel) crawled around less than 1 m away from the figs – completely ignoring the apparent smorgasbord of figgy yumminess nearby. A mystery indeed.

On the way up, we also saw several species of Hoya (Asclepiadaceae) in flower – and of course, Dennis had to check for coloured nectar. Of which there was none, bugger. We made it to the top of the mountain, where we spent a few hours trying to observe the pollinators of a red-flowering Agalmyla (Gesneriaceae), but no such luck. On the way down, we spotted another spotted fig liana, this one more accessible than any of the others, and we proceeded to do what biologists do best: collect & look at. This involved a great deal of Dennis shaking the liana at ground level, while Jens stood a sensible distance away, promising to yell out if giant figs, lianas, snakes, monkeys, or other (un)desireables chose to let gravity rather than the tree dictate their vertical movement. “There they come! One, two, no THREE figs!” – at the same time, three figs had chosen gravity over continued violent wobbling from side to side, and Dennis jumped to the side – hoping not to be hit by one of them. If worst happened, though, they would surely be rather soft – being red and ripe and all. The steep slope with its dense understory of shrubs and climbers swallowed one of the three figs completely, but two of the others lay right next to each other a mere five metres down. And they were stone-hard, having suffered absolutely no harm from their 25 metre drop.

Ze plot zickens. Why make a giant fig that LOOKS ripe, in clear signal colours, but which is hard and filled with latex, and unripe on the inside? Is this another case of the ‘riddle of the rotten fruit’ – fruits that have lost their dispersing partners, and are now left to rot on the ground? Maybe the signals are warning colours to signal inedibility – like the red fungus from the forests home in Denmark? Maybe the fig only goes soft and start to emit a smell when fallen to the ground? Maybe it evolved on some of the other nearby islands, which have or had forest-living rhinos that ate the figs? More questions than answers, to be sure, but all good reasons to come back and do a proper study of these fascinating buggers later!

Now we are sitting at a hotel at the coast, observing sunbirds pollinating flowers right next to our veranda, and shooting a few photos of those. “We’ll just tell people we got the pictures after extreme hardship in the jungle, right?”, we both agree. Tomorrow we are set to explore the slopes of the highest mountain, Gudung Agung, where we will do a pollination observation transect, spanning the altitudinial range of native vegetation. In a weeks’ time or so, we will do the same on Lombok’s highest mountain, and then compare and contrast the results we get. More adventures coming!