Martapura
A Diamond Town Where Stones Are Still Dug By Hand From Flooded Pits At Cempaka And Cut In Workshops A Few Kilometres Away · Martapura, South Kalimantan
DIAMONDS COME OUT OF THE GROUND AT CEMPAKA AND THEY COME OUT BY HAND. Men stand waist-deep in flooded pits dug into the alluvial gravel, hauling up buckets, and women PAN THE GRAVEL IN WIDE WOODEN DISHES looking for stones - the same method used here for centuries, on land that has produced some genuinely large finds. A FEW KILOMETRES AWAY IN MARTAPURA THE STONES ARE CUT AND POLISHED in small workshops and sold in a market that deals in diamonds, agate and every kind of coloured stone. IT IS NOT A DEMONSTRATION AND NOBODY IS PERFORMING: this is a hard, poorly paid, dangerous living, and the pits collapse. Martapura is also a RELIGIOUS TOWN, a centre of Islamic scholarship in South Kalimantan with a major mosque and a pilgrimage tradition, and the two things sit side by side without much comment. Go early, when the market is dealing and the cutting wheels are turning, and take a local driver out to Cempaka - the pits have no gate, no barrier and no supervision, and asking before you enter or photograph anything is the whole of the etiquette.
Martapura and Cempaka, Banjar Regency, South Kalimantan, Martapura, South Kalimantan, Indonesia
MARTAPURA IS ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES TO AN HOUR BY ROAD FROM BANJARMASIN, and is on the way to LOKSADO and the Meratus. THE GEM MARKET keeps daytime hours and is busiest in the morning; CUTTING AND POLISHING WORKSHOPS around it work ordinary hours and generally welcome people who look. THE DIAMOND FIELDS AT CEMPAKA are a short drive further and are A WORKING SITE WITH NO GATE, NO TICKET AND NO SUPERVISION - go with a local driver or guide, ask before entering any working area, KEEP WELL BACK FROM PIT EDGES, and do not photograph people without asking. BUYING STONES REQUIRES KNOWLEDGE YOU PROBABLY DO NOT HAVE; treat the market as a place to watch rather than to invest. It is hot and humid; mornings are better. Friday midday is prayers.