Menyusuri sungai-sungai Riau, tempat perahu, rumah, dan perjalanan sehari-hari terhubung erat dengan air.
In Riau, water is rarely far away. Rivers appear beside roads, behind houses and between settlements. Boats sit against muddy banks. Wooden homes stand close to the water. People fish, travel and work along waterways that are simply part of everyday life.
After years of travelling through Riau, I have come to see the rivers as more than features on a map. They are part of the way the province moves.
Travelling by water
Some of my favourite moments have come from small boats. There is a closeness to the river from this level. The banks pass slowly, houses appear between palms and another boat occasionally moves into view. A boatman at the controls, a simple thumbs up and the open water behind him can say as much about a journey as any landmark.
From above, the same waterways look completely different. Narrow channels cut through the landscape, with long wooden boats pulled against the edge and people standing in the shallows. From the air the relationship between land and water becomes immediately visible.
Homes beside the river
Along the banks are houses built close to the water, sometimes raised on timber posts. Washing hangs outside. Steps lead directly to the river. Boats wait nearby. These are quiet scenes, but they reveal how naturally the river fits into domestic life.
The details are what stay with me. A satellite dish fixed to a wooden house. Bright clothes against weathered timber. A small platform above brown water. Old and new sit together without ceremony.
Work on the water
The rivers are working routes too. Cargo moves by boat, people cross from one bank to another and fishermen find quiet places along the edge. Sometimes the activity is obvious. At other times it is simply one person sitting beside the water with a fishing rod and time to wait.
I am drawn to those quieter photographs. They are not dramatic, but they feel true to the pace of many places I have travelled through in Riau.
Where water meets life
Photographing Riau has made me notice how often ordinary life gathers around water. The river can be a road, a workplace, a front yard or simply somewhere to sit at the end of the day.
These photographs are fragments rather than a complete account. Together, though, they show something I have repeatedly encountered across the province: life continuing beside the water, quietly and without spectacle.
More from this part of Indonesia can be found in my Indonesia photography collection and Fishing Lives of the Archipelago.
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