Female orangutan, Sumatra

I DON'T KNOW HOW how anybody is going to save orangutans by tangling everything in red tape. In three and a half weeks my airline ticket says I should be going to Indonesia on July 11, but after two months the orangutan organization inviting me there has yet to write the letter which I need to apply for a special journalist's visa which I'm told takes two months. Sigh. No wonder the Indonesians simply ignore the law and do what they want to do. Rather than lose the airline ticket, I may have to go on a tourist visa and not talk to anyone, just soak in the sights, which, come to think of it, is not a bad idea. I like being in a country where they don't drink alcohol. It keeps your head clear.

To amuse myself, I'm thinking of going into police stations to ask if they can investigate the murder of orangutans and see what happens. This is the beginning of a bigger moral experiment. I want to test the attitude of everyone I meet about basic moral issues that have to do with the rainforest and orangutans. Just start conversations on this and see where they go. I'm also thinking of taking a stuffed orangutan I found several years ago with me as a travelling companion. You push a button inside him and he talks with a French accent. I wonder whose idea it was to make a stuffed orangutan with a French accent since the French are nowhere near Borneo and Sumatra where orangutans are found.

There will also be a presidential election in Indonesia in July, which is with watching from inside the country. I was there during a previous presidential election and a cab driver in Pangkalan Bun gave me the campaign button of the man who eventually won. I should take that button with me and wear it to show I have a record of being on the winning side in Indonesia. If I run into any candidates, I'm going to ask what their orangutan platform is. Any candidate who is supporting orangutans has got to stand out from the crowd, although I wonder if he (or she) will get the palm oil vote. In fact, I should do some street polls to see how much support there would be for that kind of candidate. It's funny what sort of good ideas come out of frustration. Red tape makes us creative.