Mixing waters

The image of black water coming off the peat swamps and drifting into the muddy Kahayan River water looks like an odd painting, where the undercoat has still to be glazed by the final murky brown or conversely by the translucent black. But this scene is normal from the vantage point of the bridge over the Kahayan. A nearby creek which has run over the peat deposits on which Palangka Raya sits, sends its brackish water off to a swirling battle, where these days the muddy water will win. Once, they say, all the rivers of Kalimantan were black.