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Kathryn Emerson Romeyn
At the 8th-century Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist monument, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, I panicked. Our guide, Hariyanto, had just handed me, my four and a half-year-old daughter, Indah, and my 75-year old dad the UNESCO-required pandan leaf sandals to explore the monument. With notoriously sensitive feet, my dad fumed: “They expect people to walk up and down uneven steps in these? How much harder can they make it?” I helped him put on the awkward sandals, but within minutes he had kicked them off. “I’d rather go barefoot.”
My dad has forever been my up-for-anything adventure buddy—until my husband entered the picture seven years ago. Before this trip through Java and Borneo, our last just-us trip was prior to my marriage and kids and Covid, joyfully marooned together in Nairobi with my sister and her newborn. His frequent globe-trotting, including Machu Picchu and Zambia, belies his age, but still, he’s based in Atlanta, I’m in Bali.
Once common one-on-one opportunities are now precious. But here was a rare one I’d devised for us: a cultural voyage through ancient Central Java and an orangutan-focused mosey through Borneo’s Tanjung Puting National Park on a 16-foot-wide klotok riverboat. His eldest granddaughter, Indah, would join us, her early bedtime allowing us leisurely nights of conversation during the bespoke week beautifully designed by experiential luxury operator and Conde Nast Traveler specialist Extraordinary Journeys. For a deeply sentimental, family-focused nature lover and avid waterman it wasn’t a hard sell.
But not long into the first stretch of the trip, in Indonesia’s artistic city of Yogyakarta and meeting our friendly Yankees-hatted guide, Eko Prayitno, I began to notice my father’s new-found limitations. The shortest walks required negotiation. He relied on hiking poles. After that first day, we fell happy and exhausted into our plump beds at verdant boutique retreat Garrya Bianti Yogyakarta, and I wondered how my dad’s body had seemingly aged overnight. Our guide, Prayitno discreetly altered our itinerary to avoid much walking, but I worried guiltily, was this trip, with its thrillingly full days, too ambitious?
As we went, I realized the answer was no. My father has always burst with pride over his daughters, however here I was beyond proud of his open-minded going for it, even though I could see he was in pain at times. In Jogja’s historic Islamic district he gamely sampled tofu and tempeh, which I knew he detested (and ended up liking!), alongside eye-wateringly potent cabe rawit chili-choked sambal made by our charming hostess, Wiwin, in a mortar and pestle on her home’s lovely terrace. She chuckled when Indah called my dad Babu, which means “grandfather” in Swahili but “servant” in Indonesian—one of his favorite jokes—and I got to admire how his interest in people makes everyone feel seen, no matter their age, gender, or creed.
When we tried our hands at wax-resist batik with heritage preservation organization Jelajah Pusaka, Indah noticed her grandfather growing frustrated with his design and said emphatically, “Babu, the goal is to explore what is in your mind,” lightening the mood. I could tell each activity was a struggle. But he would never surrender. In a busy market, where random hands reached out to pinch Indah’s cheeks, he cracked, “I feel like I’m in Taylor Swift’s entourage.” But at Prambanan, an enchanting 9th-century Hindu temple complex, Indah ran up thigh-high candi (temple) steps leaving me to quietly face dad’s mobility struggles. Ultra cautious, he stayed mostly on the dusty earth, commenting, “If I fell up there it would be a disaster.” He looked visibly peeved—I read it as anger at his body’s betrayal. This is a guy who’s tackled the Camino de Santiago three times.
At Borabudor, we took it slow, with the guide weaving Buddhist tales of suffering—playing to the audience—and nirvana as we spiraled up heavily carved levels to eventually reach a stone forest of 72 Buddha-encased stupas. Up there, orange-robed monks took photos, Indah skipped around, and my father reached something like enlightenment, courtesy of our 63-year-old Muslim guide who sat peaceful and pretzel-like performing mudras as he explained eight precepts for becoming Buddha. Barefoot Babu listened attentively as Hariyanto described the need to be brave: “we can’t be nervous, we need to try new things.” My dad’s appetite for adventure and living on his own terms is stronger than ever, and I hate to see his body holding him back. Asking Hariyanto to please repeat it, Babu recorded the moving speech.
He’d earned it and the glorious Amanjiwo, our lodgings for two nights, provided a well-earned respite: a windy swim in the zero-edge pool, memorable meals, naps in our paras-pillared beds, and delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies, refilled frequently by the hyper-attentive staff who also arranged a Javanese blessing with their resident guru, Bapak Kunjung. Kneeling between my sarong-ed dad and daughter, I choked up at Babu’s wish: More healthy years to enjoy his daughters and grandchildren. Amid melodious chanting I recognized “panjang umur,” meaning “long life;” words that sounded like “moogey moogey” apparently meant “we hope.” I felt my eyes wet.
If Java was about revelations, Borneo was the place for reflection. In Pangkalan Bun, we boarded Spirit of Lamandau, WOW Borneo’s three-cabin klotok riverboat, and glided gloriously slowly through dense Tanjung Puting National Park, comprising more than 1,000,000 protected acres of critically endangered Bornean orangutan habitat. We volleyed between off-grid downtime on the breezy top deck—spotting orangutans and high-flying proboscis monkeys as we cruised—fantastic Indonesian feasts prepared by mother-daughter cooks, and sweaty, exhilarating rainforest treks to witness wild and habituated orangutans gorge themselves on supplemental produce—sweet potatoes, bananas, mangos—offered daily at research stations’ feeding platforms. Babu immediately fell into the flow, picking a nap chair in the bow and inquiring about the riverboat’s construction. The low-key pace felt foreign to my go-go-go brain, yet I constantly complain about time moving too fast and here it was noticeably, happily ebbing.
At each station’s wooden dock, Indah shouted, “Babu, do you want to be an explorer with us?” and he’d heartily reply, “Yes!” before carefully stepping down. Our first encounter with a young hairy auburn dude who shares 97 percent of our DNA stopped us in our tracks: he stood pot-bellied and pigeon-toed with the posture of a nightclub security guard, grasping a tree with one hand, his other knuckles nearly sweeping the ground à la Stretch Armstrong. Each rendezvous, complete with soap opera–worthy drama—hoarding, cheeky teasing, Alex Honnold–worthy climbing, slow-mo acrobatics, and aggression that made gathered onlookers gasp—further cemented our similarities as species. We watched, mesmerized and tickled, as they peeled husks and silks from hundreds of corn cobs before devouring them just as we do, as they crunched, snarled and swung, babies clinging to every possible body part, including perched on shoulders like I did as a toddler so high on my dad’s.
In this equatorial environment, daylight stretched out languorously and deep dark night was accompanied by signs of the wildness around us: howls—likely mating calls—and profuse fireflies, as rare as they are indelible. With Indah already asleep on our last night, we stood in the stern witnessing the synchronous flickers that continue to amaze adult me. “Do you remember, Daddy? We used to catch them in a jar in the backyard.” “Of course,” he replied, eyes on the dazzling mangrove. There, sans phone service, sans stress and real life, nostalgia and presence merged into a momentary elastic timelessness where we were again a little girl and her daddy, wonderstruck together over the magic of Mother Nature.
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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