Tembawang: The Dayak Forest That Calls Our Souls Back to Earth

 

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Oleh Dessy Rizki 

Imagine this: a village kid from the Indonesian–Malaysian border, who probably saw more wild boars than DSLR cameras, suddenly pops up in the world’s megacities—New York, Tokyo, Washington DC—and instead of thinking “wow, cool,” he just feels even more like a villager. Alexander Mering, author of two books titled Traveler Kampung, is not your typical Instagram tourist striking yoga poses on a cliff and adding some stolen poetic caption from Pinterest. He’s more like a lost villager who, instead of pretending to be sophisticated, turns his own rustic awkwardness into a magnifying glass to look at the world.

The launch of his latest books, done online from Yogyakarta, may look simple—just a video uploaded to his social media channels. But that’s exactly where the charm lies. Mering isn’t trying to build a grand stage. He’s basically just saying: “Here, my two books are done, go enjoy them. Don’t like them? Doesn’t matter—they’ll still stand tall, like a one pace flag flapping on a presidential security car’s rearview mirror during Independence Day.”

These two books aren’t tourist brochures or catalogs of trendy “healing destinations.” The sunset-colored cover contains 15 travel notes from village to village across Indonesia, while the blue cover holds 10 notes from villages abroad. A duet of books born from journeys written between 2005 and 2019—an era when selfies still required digital cameras and free Wi-Fi was treated like a royal gift.

Mering doesn’t write from an ivory tower, but from the dust of village roads. Some of the pieces came from his days as a journalist, others from his time working as a communications specialist at the Partnership for Governance Reform (Kemitraan) in Jakarta. Here’s the absurd yet brilliant part: tired of drafting stiff, formal project reports for donors, he decided to write them like love letters instead. Imagine donors who usually doze off over dry reports suddenly getting emotional—without realizing they’re still reading an official project document. If there were a Nobel Prize in Literature for donor reports, Mering would probably have lifted the trophy with a wry grin.

Behind the humor, Mering’s writing carries serious weight. He can conjure characters, dialogues, and vivid descriptions so that readers feel like they’re sitting on a bamboo bench in some remote hamlet or lost in a village alleyway overseas. There’s a mix of simplicity and depth that makes his stories timelessly engaging.

So why the title Traveler Kampung? The answer is simple but piercing: even after living in Jakarta for nearly a decade, circling half the globe, and strolling down the streets of New York, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, Mering still feels like a villager. “I feel like the most village-like villager whenever I’m in a big city,” he says. That very feeling is what makes his perspective unique. He doesn’t write from skyscrapers, but through the eyes of a village boy who just happens to glimpse the world.

And his motivation? Not to chase another Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI) certificate (though he already got one for his book 100 Anak Tambang Indonesia), nor to flaunt his work in art galleries (though his book The Shadow Knight was launched at Nyoman Nuarta’s NuArt Museum in Bandung). This time, his motivation is deeply personal: to document experiences, to write down stories of villages often ignored by Indonesian travel writers of the 2000s—writers who were too busy swooning over the Eiffel Tower or Disneyland instead of noticing the beauty of their own backyards.

Mering seems to be saying: “Hey, villages are sexy too, Bro. Don’t let them lose their charm to Starbucks cafés or Budapest getaways.”

The blue book even takes this perspective abroad. He writes about village folk across the globe, still through the lens of a villager. In some stories, he even casts his own rustic self as the main character, letting readers share his awkwardness while laughing along the way.

Now, in an era when smartphones have officially tied the knot with artificial intelligence, Mering’s books arrive as a small rebellion. Like a photographer who still enjoys shooting with his camera while the rest of the world whips up images instantly with AI generators. Some things can’t be replaced by algorithms. As Jesus of Nazareth said two thousand years ago: “Man shall not live on bread alone.” Through his books, Mering shows us that human life isn’t nourished by TikTok content alone.

The online launch from Yogyakarta may feel extremely simple. No stage lights, no over-the-top MC, no countdown like a concert. Just a video—seasoned with a touch of AI—marking the birth of two books. Simple, rustic, but sincere.

And therein lies the reflection: true travel isn’t about conquering destinations, but about the courage to document life honestly. Traveler Kampung is a mirror showing us that being “kampungan”—rustic, unsophisticated—is not a shame, but a perspective. Villages teach us to celebrate small details, to listen to the little people, and to laugh at ourselves.

In the end, Mering seems to plant a tiny signpost in the noisy rush of the digital world: “Hey, there’s still space for village stories. There’s still room for sincerity.” And who knows, maybe it’s from the villages that we’ll learn to see the world more clearly, more playfully, and still—deeply—human.

 

Yogyakarta, August 17, 2025