I took this photo from the banks of the Melinau River in the Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, back in 1989.
When I arrived at this location the three boys were playing in the big tree and jumping into the river. They must have gotten bored with that and decided to go do something different. It wasn't as if it was an out-of-time thing since none of them had watches.
Rather than use paddles, they navigated their boat upstream and across the river by poling – not as elegant as punting but the same general approach. I thought it interesting that the boy in the middle was bailing out the boat. It must have a had a leak in it for there was no obvious event I witnessed to have flooded the boat.
I also found the name of the boat to be curious – ‘Carlsberg' copied in a similar style to the beer company's logo text. It just seemed so out of place in this setting.
