Our klotok was our home for 4 days and 3 nights. We had our own crew which consisted of Emul, our guide, Hussma, our captain, Amin, the assistant, and Iyou, our cook.
This was no five star cruise but we had fun. The crew was nothing except gracious, informative, and kind.
Emul spoke broken English and, at first, it took time to understand his every word. He was also interested in learning more English as we were in learning how to speak simple Indonesia phrases.
At first, Hussma was at first shy but as the trip went on, he would come up on the deck at night with Emul and learn more English. He also loved having his picture taken and wore a ready smile.
Iyou cooked some great meals for us which consisted of variations of fish, shrimp, chicken, eggs and different vegetables. She was very shy.
Amin was extremely shy. Both Emul and Hussma loved to teased him.
Our crew kept our klotok cleaned. It was swept, wiped down and bathroom cleaned every time we would stopped to go ashore.
We slept on the deck on hard mattress type of mats under mosquito netting. The side plastic shading was let down at the night to avoid the high moisture though Candice and I preferred to have one side opened to allow the breeze to flow through.
Everyone went to bed early as it was a way to avoid the mosquitos and various bugs buzzing around. It wasn’t unusual for us to bed down by 7:30pm, only to wake up to the monkeys and birds talking to each other at 5:00am
The river itself was either muddy brown or murky black. Everything went into the river. and parts were stagnant.
One of the hardest parts was the basic “Western” style opened aired facilities-notice the bucket for flushing. Our water for showers was pumped from the river and surprisingly cold or with a bucket of river water with a dipper. Hot water was not an option.
The other was ignoring how our dishes were washed. We did finally realized that Iyou used disinfectant dish soap.
Besides having to put aside some of our “American way of sanitation”, neither Candice nor I would have missed this part of the trip.
