A Long Walk to Kalimantan, by Michael Lo

Borneo Field Trip Diaries - Part VI
A Long Walk To Kalimantan

by Michael Lo
of Sarawak, Malaysia
From his website: http://www.ibanorum.netfirms.com
Aquarticles

My very first trip to the Indonesia border was on March 16, 2003, with my cousin. That day, we did not take any nets. We were just "surveying" the area near Serikin town. We were hiking around the bordering area and were surprised to see a school of tiger barbs swimming in a stream flowing toward the Kalimantan border. Later, I found out that stream is the headwater of the upper Sungai Sambas of Kalimantan!

July 12, 2004. Monday morning. We decided to re-visit that area. This time Zhou joined us.
First we went to a village not far from Serikin. According to a map that I had found in the library, there is a river flowing in the direction of Kalimantan. When we reached there, we decided to go deep into the border. A local villager showed me the road to a town in Kalimantan when I asked for directions. After half an hour driving on the terrible road, I decided to turn back as the road was getting unsuitable for a normal car to drive on. I was so regretting that I hadn't bought a 4WD car.

One of the roads to Kalimantan.

CLICK ON THUMBNAILS FOR ENLARGEMENTS, THEN GO "BACK."

Then we stopped at a village where there is a river about 10 metres wide flowing towards Indonesia. The three of us headed in different directions to collect fish. At first we only found common species of fish and started to feel doubtful that this was the upper Sg. Sambas. But about half an hour later my cousin found a rasbora which looked like Rasbora brittani. This was the first time we had seen this rasbora. We were getting excited and continued to "hunt" for unknown species of fish. I set up a gillnet in a deeper part of the river and caught a beautiful Rasbora caudimaculata, which has orange coloured spots on the caudal fins.

I had never seen the orange-coloured caudal fins of Rasbora caudimaculata before!

One of the tributaries of Sg. Sambas of Kalimantan.

Rasbora kalbarensis

The road to Kalimantan. Every Sunday, Indonesians travel this road to Serikin town to sell cheap Indonesian produce in the market there.

In the meantime Zhou went into the deeps of the upper part of the river and found Hampala bimaculata (a barb), an unusual species of catfish, and a rasbora that looked like Rasbora brittani.

Then Zhou hurt his toenail and we had to turn back to Bau town. I wanted to continue to collect fish but since we were in a group, I could not be too selfish. Before we left I pulled out my gill net and found two 26cm long Apollo sharks!!! Gosh! This was the first time I had seen the beautiful Apollo shark!

Apollo shark, Luciosoma setigerum

When we finished our lunch in Bau town, we went to Serikin town which is close to the border. I parked my car at the town, then we hiked to the border. We came across an army guard post and asked for permission to go to the border to collect fish. Permission was granted and we continued to hike for 15 minutes until we saw the stream where we had found tiger barbs the year before.

A town near the border.

After taking biotope pictures, we continued to hike. We stopped at another small town where we saw a few motorbikes resting under the huts and trees. All the number plates of the motorbikes were registered in Kalimantan Barat. I was curious and asked a local. He told me that we were stepping on the soil of Kalimantan. I couldn't believe it and started to look for something which would prove to me that the local was not lying. I saw a triangle shaped pole which had a few words written: "Indonesia (Kalimantan Barat)."

This triangle-shaped pole marks the territory of Kalimantan.

All of us wanted to jump up when we saw the words "Kalimantan Barat."

Zhou has a sharp pair of eyes. He saw a local carrying a small basket and asked him to show us what was inside. Oh no! The basket was full of fish collected in the nearby stream, including a few unknown species of catfish and eel. We were shocked to see Betta cf pugnax!!! The local gave us that betta since he was so surprised to see us smiling at that fish like insane people.

Betta cf pugnax "Upper Sg. sambas"

The most interesting species was Puntius kuchingensis. This species is supposed to be endemic to Sarawak but we found it inside the Kalimantan! We took some pictures and then left the town happily.

Everyone was curious that we were taking pictures of the wild fish. Zhou was taking out the fish one by one from the basket. A local joked "Are you looking for flower horn cichlids?"

We hiked back to the Malaysia border and looked for unfamiliar species of fish in the headwaters of Sg. Sambas. We found Rasbora Volzii for the first time. Later, we went back to the stream where we had seen the tiger barbs. I caught a beautiful loach (Nemachilus sp.).

A school of tiger barbs.

A guard post near the border (Malaysia). We were not allowed to take pictures of military personnel or military facilities but we managed to take this picture from a distance.

After spending almost one hour there, we decided to go home.

It was a wonderful trip although we were totally exhausted. My cousin had to walk across the border in bare feet as his slippers were spoiled. I hurt my left leg while crossing a drain and found it difficult to hike. And Zhou was suffering from the toenail he hurt while collecting fish in the river we visited that morning. All of us were paying a price to explore this border area. But after seeing the fish we'd collected that day, we'd already forgotten our pain.

In our minds, we know we will come back to Kalimantan again. "Kalimantan! We shall be back!"