Toraja men (and boys) with their buffaloes

Toraja men (and boys) with their buffaloes. Torajans greatly value their buffalo, and will pay high (indeed, quite extravagant) sums for a prestigious albino animal with particular auspicious markings.
John Boyd Macdonald
John Boyd Macdonald

Toraja men (and boys) with their buffaloes. Torajans greatly value their buffalo, and will pay high (indeed, quite extravagant) sums for a prestigious albino animal with particular auspicious markings.

Mass transit system, Toraja style. Compact trucks like this are the almost ubiquitous means of moving large groups of people (and buffaloes, rocks, timber or whatever) around in Toraja, South Sulawesi. And in fact they are really the only feasible…

More from the series 36 Views of Kalimantan – Random photos 2014-17. Hope you like some of them! 36 Views of Kalimantan is published here in three parts. Click on these links to view Part 1 or Part 2. …

More from the series 36 Views of Kalimantan – Random photos 2014-17. Hope you like some of them! 36 Views of Kalimantan is published here in three parts. Click on these links to view Part 1 or Part 3. …

Here’s a somewhat random selection of my photos of Kalimantan, taken from 2014 – 2017. Loosely (very loosely indeed!) inspired by Hokusai’s landscape prints from 1830-32. In fact, his main inspiration, apart from the title, was that he was already…

There are some pretty remarkable creatures here in Kalimantan. Take this little lizard. Only 20cm long – including tail – he (it’s a male) has at least three amazing attributes: 1. That spectacular flap of yellow skin on his neck…

Last year we visited villages in the Krayan district of North Kalimantan, a remote highland area close to the border with Sabah (Malaysia). We were fortunate to be invited to a Dayak Lundayeh wedding ceremony in the village of Terang…

Kedang Ipil village sits beside a small tributary of the Mahakam River, in the district of Long Bangun, about six hours’ by road from where we are living in Balikpapan. The name means ‘River where merbau trees grow’ (Intsia bijuga). Until…