TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / MAY 2017 81
uncomplicated. Many villagers earn money harvesting copra
coconut meat, which is sold for oil. There’s a volleyball net on a
dusty patch that gets a lot of attention at dusk. Along the dirt track
between here and Hollow Tree’s I count five churches, three in
disrepair in the wake of the 2010 tsunami.
The majority of Katiet village is here at mass, and the men and
women sit on opposite sides of the chapel. I’m in the last pew staring
at the bald, bowed head of the elderly man in front of me, wondering
how long he has believed in Jesus. Then I realize I know the answer:
After Indonesia gained independence in 1945 and new laws were
drafted to ensure all citizens embraced the new nation’s recognized
religions—Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism or
Buddhism. Before this, people in these parts were mostly animist.
A little girl starts to sing. Her voice echoes around the high walls
and fills the ears of the congregation who close their eyes and drink
in her words—entrancing even me, though I can’t understand her
Mentawai dialect.
As soon as her song ends, there’s a synchronized snap of lighters
and every man is puffing away on clove cigarettes and chatting
with his neighbor, turning the place into some kind of rowdy—but
dry—bar scene. We spill out of the church with kids hanging from
us, tugging at my hands, asking, “Where from?” and screaming,
“Allo, allo!” merrily while inspecting my notebook, as a gaggle of
girls demands Eszter take their photo. Their spiritual cups full, the
residents of Katiet shelve the somber tone for another week.THERE’S NO SUCH DISTINCTION BETWEEN DAILY
life and the divine on Siberut Island, the largest island in the
Mentawais, where our beach bubble has been burst by the sharp
end of the machete the half-naked tribesman is swinging next to
me. He hacks down a sago palm tree, fishes out a massive worm,
squeezes it dead and stuffs it into his mouth. His name is Kapik
Sibajak, and he is a Sikerei medicine man of the indigenous
Mentawai Tribe, and our host for the next few days.
The Sikerei are a special class of male forest shamans and
healers. They practice animism, wear hibiscus flowers, ink
themselves with magic tattoos and sharpen their teeth. They have
resisted evangelism, modernization and government attempts to
get them to both resettle and abandon their non-sanctioned beliefs.
They have endured and, thanks in part to a trickle of tourism, now
are largely left alone to live how they please in the jungle.We are here for four days. The trip is way
too short, stupidly so. Eszter, our
photographer, wears a permanent goofy grin
on her face the whole time. She’s nagging me to
extend the visit. I learn that everyone who
comes here suffers the same plight: “Just one
more week. Please.”
Teiki lives at the resort with his Thai-
German girlfriend, Sina, who looks like she
was shaken from a coconut tree reserved for
beautiful tropical damsels. Janine is at the
resort, too, all 69 years of her exuding cool-
mum vibes, and at dinnertime she entertains
us with salty tales of a magnificent (“mog-niff-
ee-cent”) life at sea. One evening we are all
huddled round the banquet table, bellies full of
garlic lobster coated with lemon mayonnaise,
and finally that fresh sugar-coated guava pie,
and I’m giggling because mum and son are
having a heated but playful debate.
He insists that over the course of their
lifetime, the Ballians have sailed 14 nautical
miles short of the distance between the Earth
and the moon.
“No, no, Teiki, dat is not true!”
“Haha, so close, mama,” Teiki replies
showing her the calculator on his phone.
“Adrift in space!”
My mind wanders as I look at the empty
seat next to Janine. “He’s here, too, you know,”
Teiki had told me earlier that day of his beloved
dad, who had passed away only two weeks
before, as we sat on the beach together. I
thought he meant metaphorically and nodded
silently until I realized he meant the ashes.
“We’re going to spread them out at sea,” he
said. “I just don’t know when.” My heart aches
for him, and I imagine being on the Ballians’
yacht with the whole family, learning all I can
about seafaring, navigation and adventure
from wise father Daniel.
Teiki, too, is an explorer and over the next
few days, he and Sina lead us to secluded spots,
dumbfounding us with tangerine sunsets over
empty surf breaks. Sipora is a continual
contrast to Bali, where a multi-million-dollar-
a-year surf industry has boomed since the
1960s. Bali’s breaks became stepping-stones
for waves in Nias and Lakey Peak in Sumbawa,
G-Land off East Java and, eventually, here, the
Mentawais, stirring more adventurous surfers
who hear the call of lonely waves.
IT’S SUNDAY MORNING AND I’M
doing something unexpected: Dressed in a
smart shirt and trousers sitting in a church at
mass with Mentawai Catholics. We are in the
village of Katiet, inland of the small peninsula
that houses Hollow Tree’s, where life remains