Make it Snappy

Balikpapan, Borneo island, Indonesia (map)

In this blog: a strange friend, spolt by local ladies, flight nightmares and a crocodile farm.

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After a month where the longest I'd stayed anywhere was four days, I wanted to stop. I was tired of the road, tired of moving, just tired. In a funny way then it was fortunate then that the city of Balikpapan was nice but boring - a good place for a bit of normality of sorts. But even when i do everything in my power to have a quiet week including spending three days solid on a computer - fun and games still seem to follow and interesting things happen.

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After the epic boat journey we'd had the week before up the Mahakam river, Rene (my Canadian travel buddy) and I arrived back at the city of Samarinda and took a bus to Balikpapan, a journey uneventful bar a busker briefly walking onto the bus playing guitar which made us smile. Once in Balikpapan centre it was back to civilisation, or so it felt anyway. We headed straight to the bakery, after ten days or so without bread left us craving carbs like you wouldn't believe. We then set about finding somewhere to stay, but every place we found was either full, expensive or grotty, and it took a frustrating and sweaty two hours of lots of walking about to finally find a bed - thankfully a fairly rare occurrence on this trip. We relaxed for a bit, walked along a dodgy waterfront market, had tea at a funky cafe with a live band, then passed a party we spotted earlier only to find we'd annoyingly just missed out on free food for all. 

The next three days were a blur of computers - two full days of writing blogs on my tablet in the room, then one day copying and uploading pictures in an ear-poppingly noisy and sweaty internet cafe; it all takes forever. The evenings provided some light relief though. I shaved off a five-week travel beard, wandered past a little cafe called 'Bude' (like the Cornish town), then watched some guys playing chess on the street. A local guy got chatting to us - a commercial diver, who upon hearing we'd done some diving recently, instantly whipped out his tablet, and full of joy and excitement showed us underwater videos he'd downloaded from the internet.

Another night we fancied a beer, but being a Muslim country it can be hard to get hold of at times. We asked a guy on the street and he pointed up towards some market stalls and getting there, we asked the owner. She nodded gently, as if to say 'yes, but keep it quiet' and told us a price. As ever in Asia we tried to negotiate, only for her to shake her head in disgust at the price and totally offended, walked away back to her friend. We were as shocked as her, that never happens! When we asked another guy nearby his eyes darted from side to side, before he reached under the counter and quickly pulled out two bottles and put them straight into our rucksacks like nothing had happened, as if it was a drug deal or something.

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Stenly

We were having a wander one evening when a young local guy casually said hello and introduced himself as Stenly, a pleasant but slightly strange young freelance English teacher. 'That's not a very Indonesian name' I pointed out and he agreed without explanation. We asked for a recommendation for somewhere to eat, and he pointed out a place and walked off, before catching us up again saying 'actually there's a better place across the road' and led us there. 'Across the road' ended up being a mile away up a hill, and after an excellent buffet of fish dishes he suggested taking a bus back, which he assumed we would pay his share of. It was cheap, so fine. We went into the Internet cafe where he said he was going in the first place and whilst we spent two hours there, oddly didn't actually use a computer and just sat there chatting or texting.

The following evening Rene and I went to the cinema to see 'Edge of Tomorrow' and he asked if he could tag along. Without realising it we had inadvertently bought tickets in a VIP screen before he arrived where there was just thirty huge plush electric recliners, acres of legroom, a call button for drinks and popcorn, and a blanket each to tackle the ice cold aircon. I'd never experienced anything like it, and at £2.75 it was a complete luxurious bargain. Afterwards when it came to paying though, Stenly said he'd forgotten his wallet saying he'd meet the next morning to pay us back. He never showed up nor replied to any messages. It was only a couple of quid each so the money was incidental, and in the end we decided that he just saw us as rare white 'friends' who could afford to treat him. However, this money soon balanced back out as you'll read later.

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Crocs

Balikpapan is a pleasant city thanks to money from an economy based around the many offshore oil platforms nearby, but is pretty short on anything interesting to see. This was fine with us as we wanted a break from sightseeing, but one attraction was too much to resist - a nearby crocodile farm. It was a proper hoohaa to get there thanks to a bus driver mishearing where we wanted to go and a one hour journey turned into nearly three, but it was worth it. 

The bus dropped us in an unassuming spot and we wandered down a quiet lane between some buildings, eventually finding the complex of delapated buildings that formed this commercial crocodile farm which reared hundreds of these brutes for their meat and skin. Inside were a number of concrete pens, which we soon discovered were held shut with nothing but toilet door latches or bits of bent wire - I kid you not! I tentatively looked over the wall for my first glimpse, and the hairs on my neck stood on end briefly. They were grouped by age and pretty packed in, often lying on top of one another motionless, expect for the occasional splash as they quickly moved into the water. 

I motioned to one of the staff to ask where the crocs were killed and he pointed over a wall, so I climbed on a bench for a peek, quite taken back to find the peculiar scene of hundreds of decapatated crocodile heads laying on top of cages. Outside as a side attraction a couple of elephants with chains round their ankles grazed in a field, and some monkeys were kept in small rubbish strewn pens, not very pleasant and the stuff of nightmares for animal rights activists I imagine. I probably only encouraged this more when upon seeing an old guy offering, spontaneously decided to break a phobia of mine by holding a snake for the first time. The skin felt like latex, and the bones were very prominent underneath though thankfully it didn't really wriggle much. It's mouth was curiously held shut with Sellotape, but whilst a little creepy at first, the experience was actually quite tolerable. Another 'things to do before you die' box ticked.

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With the babies

Personal space? Pah!

The butcher's yard

Where next?

Borneo is a big island and in my mind without thinking I was going to see it all, until Rene mentioned he was thinking of moving on. It had been two months since I arrived from Singapore, and as much as I love Borneo's wild beauty and off the beaten track adventures, suddenly I realised I needed a change. It was time to move on. For a few days it looked like our travel partnership was coming to an end, as we both had different plans since Rene had visas to get for the journey ahead, but at the last moment he worked out a different way of doing things and decided to join me to the crazy looking (on a map at least) Sulawesi island.

The ferry schedule to get there didn't work with our timing, so once again I found myself in the position on trying to book a flight for the same day. It's not normally a major issue as prices don't really go up last-minute in Asia - but on this occasion things conspired against us with flights going up in cost before our eyes, selling out, two lots of payment problems and having to stay another night. After a whole frustrating afternoon disappeared by, eventually we resorted to a good old-fashioned travel agent nearby who surprisingly did it for the same price, and our Borneo exit was sorted.

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Kept men

One night for the week Rene and I stopped at a quiet bar on the waterfront for a drink and got talking to the owner - a 27 year old girl called Ubai (short for Djubaidah), a petite, pretty and chatty 'businesswoman' as she called herself, divorced with a seven year old son. Little did we know what was going to follow!

I mentioned to her I was going to get a haircut the next day. 'I'll show you where to go if you like' she said, so Rene and I met up late the following afternoon with Ubai and her friend Liona. It turned out the place was a few miles away, and she insisted on chauffeuring us there in her shiny one week old Honda wagon. Arriving at this fancy mall the hairdressers there was way too fancy and expensive for my backpacker budget, so we went for seafood soup and rice in a restaurant nearby and Ubai insisted on paying. She then took us to a little neighbourhood barbers nearby where they pruned Rene's mop and travellers beard into a work of art then butchered too much from mine, and this time Liona insisted on paying - the grand sum of £0.75 each! 

The girls had planned to go out to a bar that night and invited us to join them, so a couple of hours later Ubai and another friend of her's - Nila, an accountant, collected us and drove a few miles out of town. We reached Joy's bar, full of mostly foreign male expats and local women, and was pretty lively with it's live band and people getting up and dancing on the bar. Most of the expats work locally in the oil and coal industries, and one of them, a chubby double-chinned Kiwi guy who deals with hydraulics came and chatted for a while, crushing our hands with the most almighty of handshakes and proclaiming his love for living in Balikpapan. The owner Jerry introduced himself and handed us a free tequila, whilst a local girl beat every person in the house (including me) at pool. We met loads of people through the girls and had a great night out, yet once again when it came to paying our bar bill at the end of the night, we found the girls had already done it and once again wouldn't accept our share - over £25 of it! As we had a flight the next day, we said goodbye and went home in disbelief at the generosity.

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It wasn't over though 'cause the next afternoon I received a message asking if we'd like to hang out before our flight, so with a few hours to spare Ubai again drove the four of us to a smart beachside restaurant where the moneyed middle-class hang out, and we had a few fruit juices and chatted away for a couple of hours. Their English was excellent having worked for international companies based locally, and despite our insistence otherwise, the bill was paid again and we were dropped at the airport before saying goodbye. 

Rene and I sat in the departure lounge a little dazed by the whole experience. On reflection we decided it was a mixture of the Indonesian warmness we'd experienced previously, and maybe just a little bit of Indonesian women using their money to attract western men, even if they didn't push that idea too much. You know these stories you hear about western men buying foreign brides? Well, in a strange turn of events somehow the opposite nearly happened to us. There's no wedding bells, but a fun story all the same. 

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So after two months on Borneo, the third largest island in the world, that's it. I knew it wasn't going to be the untapped paradise it sounded and once was, but I was still surprised by both how developed it is, and just how much it's been ruined by logging and other more dirty industries. There's still an amazing amount of natural beauty though in the primary rainforest when you find it, and some very exotic plants and creatures. Was it what I expected? Yes, and more.

Busker on the bus

Rene desperate to tuck in

Indonesian's like to adapt their scooters for all sorts of purposes

Hard day at work

Rene, Nila, Ubai and I by the beach

Photos: Indonesia I

My first couple of weeks in Indonesia in photographic form - now online here. Enjoy!

Up the Mahakam - part III

Up the Mahakam - part II

Muara Muntai to Jantur to Tanjung Isuy to Muara Pahu

Borneo Island, Indonesia

In this blog: motorboating on marshy lakes, surprise football, dancing at a funeral, and a tour of a tugboat

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This is part two, of a three part journey up the Mahakam river. I suggest you read the first part before this so it makes a wee bit of sense.

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Our route up the Mahakam river

Still in the stilt village of Muara Muntai, we wanted to hire another ces motorboat to get to our next destination, but unfortunately our idea of just walking to the river and sorting this out in five minutes didn't quite happen. This was a town where barely a word of English was spoken, which is actually quite rare, and we spent nearly three hours walking around trying to find a boat with no luck. Some girls tried to help us, a guy gave us a ridiculous price, we felt pretty stuck. Meanwhile an ice cream man with a pushcart played the same irritating ten second melodic sound non stop for over two hours, which echoed around my skull all day like white noise. It was a hot and frustrating morning, but eventually someone was willing to take us and with negotiations done by a mixture of sign language and passing a pen and pad forward and back drawing maps and crossing out prices, we were eventually on our way and the day got much better.

The boat set off up the main river before darting off down a tributary which then entered a marshy lake. A path had been cut through the reeds and we turned quickly through the bends - it was great fun, from our low viewpoint sat on the floor of the boat.

Jantur

We reached the village of Jantur, said to be the most interesting on the journey up the Mahakam river and which barely sees any foreigners. Once again it was far from any roads, and built on stilts on a bit of solid ground amongst the marshes. We passed a small but noisy sawmill on stilts, and a yellow mosque with a shiny polished dome before getting out for a walk. All the houses were brightly painted, and many families lazed on decks and verandas outside their houses, often smiling or waving as we passed - this was one laid back village. Men fished on the waters edge using huge hand-held nets that they repeatedly swept through the water, pulling out a little catch each time. A pair of girls around six wanted us to take their picture, then kept following and posing again and again. It was another world.

We met the boatman at the other end, and set off on a pleasurable journey across another huge open lake where the other side was but a glimmer on the horizon, and after half an hour or so reached the village of Tanjung Isuy.

The boardwalk at Jantur

Jantur, the most laid back village in the world?

Jantur

Tanjung Isuy

This was a traditional Dayak (native tribe) village, and being being well off the tourist trail (or so we thought), we had high hopes of not seeing any other westerners for the whole week. This sounds a bit anti-social I know, but the idea of entering completely into a world unaffected by tourism greatly appealed. This was broken however when we came across a group of ten French tourists on a tour, who had come a much shorter route by road. The village was unaffected by tourism though, barring the lovely bare-wood traditional longhouse where we stayed, which had been converted from homes to a guesthouse.

Rene and I went to get some lunch and were met with a surprise when we came across a  big volleyball and football match happening side by side on a large park, set like a village green in the village centre. Far from the olde world we'd come from and expected, everyone had proper kit, the pitches were properly marked out and referees looked thoroughly professional. We watched the end of the girls football then the first half of the boys - it was some sort of local championship and it seemed everyone in town was around the pitch watching and cheering. We felt very fortunate to have arrived on this particular day, but it wasn't the only stroke of luck on this journey up river.

We explored further, passing a man carving out totem poles from tree trunks, a traditional longhouse, and along dirt streets lined by wooden homes - we could honestly have been in the seventieth century at this point were it not for the motorbikes parked up. It was very strange, a real journey back in time, and so unique. This was more the tiny sleepy village we expected.

That evening we headed out to grab a bite to eat and got much more than we bargained for. Outside our longhouse, the French tour group had paid the locals to do some traditional dancing. I hate that sort of thing, it seems so fake, not a proper cultural experience and quickly left, whilst wondering if that was a bit of an arrogant attitude for me to have. The only cafe we found was just closing, but a guy eating there offered to lead us to another one hidden away nearby, strangely leaving his toddler sat alone on a chair without a word to the owner. A few hundred metres up the road, then down a dark narrow path we were at a tarpaulin and dirt floor place, where we ate very tasty stay chicken served with a kind of rice sausage. Many locals were heading down a dirt track to the side on their scooters, so intrigued, we went for a look. What we found under another tarpaulin tent was basically a gambling hall, despite the fact that both gambling is illegal in Indonesia, and we were directly behind the fence of the Police station! I guess some bribes had been paid...

The fifty or so people barely batted an eye when we walked in, they were so into their games. One table held a card game, another had a felt mat with markings and people throwing money into the centre from all angles, and another table used a special type of card with patterns that seemed to match up. None of it made an ounce of sense no matter how much we tried to decipher it. 

Dancing at a funeral, though we didn't know it!

We could hear some singing from another building nearby so after an hour went for a look, and it runes out to be at the community longhouse, or in our terms the village hall. Initially we just looked in from outside before someone ushered us in, and we sat cross legged on the floor with them. It was a traditional Dayak ceremony, Dayaks being the native tribe in this part of Borneo. After two men had finished chanting, people went around handing out headdresses and palm leaf pom-poms ready for the next stage. 'You dancing?' one of them said to me, 'sure!' I replied, and along with Rene was kitted out with the traditional accessories. We danced slowly and repetitively in a big loop around a big box that was suspended from the ceiling. It was difficult to follow in some ways but lots of fun, and we felt really privileged to have found such an authentic experience and penetrated their culture a little, which totally galvanised my thoughts on the earlier 'fake' show I'd dismissed. The most amusing side to all this, which we only learnt a couple of days later was that this ceremony was actually a traditional Dayak funeral ceremony - we'd been dancing at a funeral!

Wild ride

It was onwards again the next morning, and we hired a ces boat for the third time to take us back to the Mahakam river to catch the ferry upstream. The boatman was a nice guy who spoke some English but was very reluctant to go on the route we requested, but somehow we persuaded him. We started out across the same lake as the day before, before half an hour later reaching the exciting bit, where without warning he powered straight into the marshy looking reeds. Woah! Yeah!

He was actually looking for a proper channel that was cut through, but had got a bit lost and we suddenly understood his earlier reluctance to go this way. The stern parted the reeds whilst the propeller got a bit tangled a few times, but he kept battling through until finding the clearing. Except it appeared to be seldom used and full of debris - logs, leaves and branches. He hesitated for a moment before again laying down the power and barging through, the boats hull echoing the racket of impacts below.

The scenery then changed again, as we entered a narrow meandering river through the forest and I couldn't help but smile straight away - it was the sort of jungle river journey I'd always dreamed of finding one day. We saw a couple of monitor lizards swim across in front of us, and some macaque monkeys foraging in the undergrowth on the banks. For forty-five minutes we weaved through these muddy waters, killing the engine to soak up the atmosphere for a few minutes along the way, and passing the odd fisherman manning Chinese fishing nets - large wooden contraptions with nets that dip into the water for their catch.

This was one of the best parts of the whole trip up the Mahakam - so exciting, beautiful and interesting, a real adrenaline rush.

On a ces boat passing down a passage through the reeds

... then entering the jungle!

Muara Pahu

We reached the small village of Muara Pahu around 2pm, and were dropped on a jetty where we were told we had to wait until night time to catch the ferry upstream. Some said it would arrive at 10pm, others as late as 1am, we had no idea. All we knew was that we were hungry and drained by the heat, so after lunch dozed for an hour or so in an open-sided waiting room by the river. It was at this point Rene said 'well this isn't a bad way to spend your birthday'. What! A birthday! I treated him to dinner and an orange juice that night. It cost me 75p!

We went for a wander around the village, and whilst stood by the riverbank a young tug boat driver waved to invite us onto his boat, so we went for a look. It was a bit rusty and old, and fairly small by tug boat standards being only able to pull small barges and boats around, but it was interesting to check out, and I even enjoyed a good poke around the engine room. He kindly offered us a soft drink, and despite the lack of mutual language we managed to converse a little by pointing a lot, and saying place names. We managed to while away the nine-hours of waiting quite easily, and at 11.30pm saw the lights of the ferry coming around the bend. As advised by the locals, Rene stood on the end of the pier flashing his torch and waving his arms to get them to stop, and we were soon on board, and led upstairs to an open area where everyone slept on thin narrow mattresses - eighty of them, and we settled down for the night under the drone of the loud diesel engine.

(Continues in two days time) 

Net fishing at Jantur

Volleyball match, Tanjung Isuy

The traditional longhouse we stayed at in Tanjung Isuy

Basic but all you need

Kids playing in Muara Pahu

Up the Mahakam - part I

Samarinda to Tenggarong to Muara Muntai

Borneo Island, Indonesia

In this blog: we head off on a river trip, meet a plethora of helpful people, cruise across marshy lakes by longboat, and see the wild west on stilts.

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Our route over 8 days up the Mahakam river

The Mahakam is a motorway on water except with little traffic - a massive river which leads to the heart of Borneo where no roads go. At over five hundred miles it's the longest river on Borneo island, and a journey upstream has been a must do for a while for me. So this past week Rene and I spent eight days on ferries and speedboats, heading inland to places as off the beaten track as I've ever gone, through marshes, lakes, jungle, to small tribal villages and by chance traditional local events. We've also encountered a lot of very friendly and kind people as you'll see. In a three part special (what's this, Top Gear?), here's what went down.

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Sitting on the roof of a small chug-chug old ferry boat, we crossed from our last stop in Samarinda across the near kilometre-wide Mahakam river to the bus station. The contrast on the other side was remarkable; we'd gone from a modern concrete city to a dilapidated wooden slum in just a few minutes. On the half mile walk to the bus station, kids cheerily chased us and even more people than ever shouted 'hello mister' in our direction. 'Wow that was overwhelming' Rene said as we got to the bus station. We'd decided to cut five hours out of the river journey by taking a tiny minibus to the next city and I sat next to a pleasant man in his fifties called Safri who spoke a bit of English. He showed me photos of his family, told me about how he does instrument calibration for industrial plants, then curiously asked away about my trip, eventually deciding to give me his number saying 'any problems or questions in Indonesia, call me and I'll help'. Rene meanwhile was sat next to Handa, a 22 year old Muslim girl wearing the traditional headscarf, who was fascinated by his journey and photos.

Safri and Handa in the bus to Tenggarong

Myself, Rene, the ex-bf and Utariat their house

Tenggarong

We arrived at Tenggarong to find the bus station was way out of town, with no way to make the three mile journey to the centre. Handa suggested we walk before partway managing to flag down a van, which I assumed to be a taxi of sorts, but who knows. We got dropped by a cheap hotel that turned out to not have any spare beds, so walked around for a while hoping to find something with no luck. Stood scratching our heads by a busy street, a couple stopped on their scooter and asked if we needed help - a helpful friendly girl called Utari who's a primary school teacher, and what we understood to be her ex-boyfriend. They tried to phone a guesthouse they knew but couldn't get through, so after Rene and I grabbed some satay chicken for tea, they invited us to their house whilst we they kept trying the number. They seemed sound so we hopped on the back of the scooters and slowly wound a couple of miles to the edge of town, ending up in their colourful wooden house in the suburbs where we had a drink whilst watching part of an Indonesian football game on the TV between two local teams. Eventually a hotel was sorted and they dropped us to the door. More nice people.

Rene and I went for a stroll to track down a beer but found nothing - the Muslim influence on the city was obviously strong - substituting it for an ice cream instead. It was Saturday night and the huge market was closing up for the evening as we passed through, so we continued to the waterfront where a group of twenty or so superbike owners met outside a shop and chatted to us in excited bursts of English. Further along we heard music and crossed the road to find a rave in a skatepark by the road, in fact a 17th birthday party where the birthday girls wore ballgowns and everyone else jumped wildly to the pounding baseline, completely sober. 

We went for a look around the city the next morning, stopping for breakfast in a cafe where four girls of about ten giggled hysterically at us for a good few minutes, and breakfast consisted of a very spicy whole baby chicken - oh I wish I could understand the menus properly before ordering. We headed after to the nearby Keraton Museum; a very unique looking Art Deco building that used to be the local Sultan's palace, and only sees 10-15 foreign visitors a month. Probably because it was so boring inside we decided.

With our new biker dude friends

Keraton Museum, Tenggarong - the former sultan's palace

After a walk on the waterfront we decided it was time to move on and tried to get a lift to the out-of-town bus station. Except for some bizarre reason this was a city without taxis if you will. We wandered about and looked, did some waiting, got offered a lift by a guy on a scooter which we declined, but found no taxis. Indonesia feels safe, only richer people can afford cars, and we were a pair, so I proposed hitchhiking the three mile journey and Rene was keen. Within under a minute of sticking my thumb out a car pulled up, and the pleasant driver turned out to not only be going past the bus station, but heading to our destination of Kota Bangun. We hopped in.

The driver was Jul, a guy in his late twenties who was married with two kids, having met his wife whilst working working in Pizza Hut elsewhere in Borneo, the thought of which seemed a million miles from the simple rural villages we were driving through at that moment. He told us he was a taxi driver on a return trip but didn't want any money from us, I questioned it in my mind, but he was true to his word and even bought us lunch in a cafe along the way - oxtail soup and rice, refusing to take any money for it. He told us how he learnt English by watching Hollywood movies (I've heard this a few times now) and chatting to people, and played the usual mixture of terrible dance music and mildly better pop music. It was a first for me to see beggars on country roads - often in the middle of nowhere, where they put tyres and boxes in the centre of the two lane road to slow traffic and held out cardboard boxes or fishing nets to collect money. Very odd, but Jul assured us that's exactly what they were doing. Arriving at the riverside town of Kota Bangun, he took us on a short diversion past his house, lowering all the tinted windows as we slowly passed his Mum and friends as if to say 'look! I have foreign friends!'. 

Lake cruising and Melintang stilt village

We were now back beside the huge Mahakam river, and at a point where some large lakes and marshes open up to each side. The best way to see them was by chartering a ces - a colourful, long and narrow boat powered by a noisy lawnmower engine. Jul had a friend who was a driver so phoned him to meet up with us at the harbour, then helped us translate to negotiate a price before disappearing off - what a delightful guy.

This was turning out to be one action packed day and wasn't over yet. 

With a ces hired for the next hour or two we headed out on the lake. It was a warm sunny afternoon and we felt like kings (but looked like tramps) cruising about on this chauffeur driven boat. The lake looked endless as we cruised across it but got a bit repetitive, so I directed him towards the marshy area at the edge. We went along slowly, spotting a few ibis' and kingfishers. Further into the marsh we could see some fishermen in wood canoes punting their way through, and we stopped for a while whilst they slowly worked towards us. It was a great moment, a very real encounter with a traditional way of life.

Even more remarkable was the next place we reached - Melintang, a town built within the marsh entirely comprised of wooden houses built above the water - a kind of Wild West on stilts and quite magical with it. It was accessible only by boat and so different to anything I'd ever seen before, the sort of thing you see in a David Attenborough documentary - I even questioned whether I was still on this planet (was I ever?!). The pace of life was obviously slow, except for a group of kids who had put a running hose pipe at the top of a wooden ramp and repeatedly slid down into the lake below, or jumped off the adjacent pier full of joy and excitement. I was truly blown away by this place.

Fishermen punting through the reeds

On Lake Melintang

Muara Muntai

The boat then entered a small river maybe five metres wide to connect back to the main one. For half an hour we weaved round bend after bend, and whilst we saw nothing special it was another interesting change of scenery. Arriving at Muara Muntia at sunset, we stopped for the night in an extremely basic wooden guesthouse. 

Muara Muntai, like the previous village was very unique. Remarkably there were no roads, just a wide wooden boardwalk that stretched for a mile and a half, raised a couple of metres from the riverbank below. Everything in sight was made of wood and often colourfully painted, not surprising given that Borneo is mostly covered in trees. There was a remarkable sunset with rayed beams of light that evening, and as we wandered through this town which sees few Westerners people were very friendly to us. Despite being off the road network and a few hours from civilisation, everything you could need was available in then night market, a curious mix of old world and new world.

(Continues in two days time)

Approaching Melintang, some view

One of the most sunique sunsets I've ever seen, Muara Muntai

Only in Indonesia

As you travel longer, it's often said that you stop seeing the differences between your own country and your destination, and instead see similarities. But still, every country has it's quirks that are sometimes subtle, and at others times colossal in their differences. Indonesia has it's ways and here's just a few things I've spotted over the three weeks so far:

Shaving

Now this is a first. I've observed a lot of men not shaving their face, but either cutting the hairs with nail clippers, or literally just sat there plucking the hairs out with tweezers. Suckers for punishment!

Blackberry phones

The phone maker Blackberry may be dying a slow death elsewhere in the world, but in Indonesia they couldn't be more popular - everyone seems to have a Blackberry. And like everywhere else in Asia, mobiles are ubiquitous - I expect more people have a mobile than running water in their homes.

Water

Like most of Asia you can't drink the tap water, but one thing I'm extremely impressed with is these water filtration stations that you find in every town and village. Everybody owns their own 20l water container and a water cooler just like in offices, and goes to a central place to fill up. No dysentery and cholera, and no mountains of plastic bottles behind. I'm very impressed.

Football

Like Malaysia, the nation is obsessed with football. They have their own 'Indonesia Super League' (after the premiership collapsed after just a year) which even attracts one or two internationals, stadiums in all the big cities and pitches in most towns and villages. The standard is relatively low, but they enjoy it nonetheless.

What they really love though is European football - English, Spanish, Italian and German league. So many people wear replica kits on no daily basis (fake no doubt), and people gather under communal shelters in villages to watch the game together. Even in a small village accessible only by a three hundred miles boat journey up a river, kids were running round with Juventus, Real Madrid and Manchester United shirts on. 

Cars and scooters

I've been impressed with how new all the cars and scooters are, with no bangers in sight. I'm guessing the reason is that ten years ago there simply weren't the cars on the road at all, and with a growing economy comes increased ownership. Most of them are Japanese made with the odd Korean or Malaysian car. People carriers are particularly popular, and they're big into modifying them boy racer style. For once in Asia people almost universally wear helmets on motorbikes.

Smoking

The trend for smoking may be declining in the developed world, but smoking has never been so popular in Indonesia. It's very much a male-only habit, I can't say I've seen any women at it, and unlike even India where indoor smoking is frowned upon, the Indonesians smoke everywhere. Even lying in bed trying to sleep on a ferry recently, I had smelly grey clouds of puff blowing my way. Cough cough.

Music

Indian Hindi music is popular despite the language differences, and people seem to love these awful, cheesy dance remixes of western songs, butchered like stray dogs into something that should never be consumed. What's most prominent of all however is cheesy ballad music, not just listened to but sung as karaoke. Every home no matter how rich or poor seemingly has a huge sound system, and they're not afraid to use it, nor endlessly repeat the same song. Respect for eardrums is not on the agenda here.

Bathrooms

Asian bathrooms often lack the amenities I'm used to at home but indonesia steps it up another gear. Hot water is never found (except expensive hotels), toilets are often of the squat variety rather than Western (which in reality are actually more hygienic), toilet paper is entirely absent (you carry your own, if you can actually buy it), but most prominent is the lack of sinks and showers. You're often presented with just a huge container of cold water, and a pail to pour it over yourself, which you never get used to now matter how many times you use it. But craziest of all is the lack of sinks. I mean everyone needs a sink, right? I've never been to a country without them, but here a tap and a spit on the floor is as good as it gets.

Caterpillars on dashboard

These long fabric and foam things which look like draught excluders are quite common sat on car dashboards. I have no idea why!

Car fans

Indonesian cars are the first I've seen that have dials which simply give you the option of cold, or very cold. Errrr, I'll take very cold please.

Adverts on TV 

Advertising on TV is in all our lives these days, you simply can't get away from it. It's often of the reasonably subtle variety, but in Indonesia it's a different story. Every panel show, quiz, or pop contest is so highly sponsored that sometimes the camera is sometimes focused on the advert whilst that host is talking, the same adverts pop up more times than a meerkat, and at all times the sponsors logo is in sight somewhere. I'm straight down the shop for noodles ever time.

Eating out

Buying a meal in a Warung - a cheap local cafe is so cheap you could never cook for yourself for that sort of money. It's spicier and more varied than Malaysia which I welcome, and at times spicer than even Indian food. Eating just rice and noodle based dishes is a little repetitive but after six months of Asian food I'm fairly used to that, but the dishes are tasty and often served with a lime, soup, aubergine, cucumber, tomato.

Unfortunately despite having learnt some of the Indonesian names it's often guesswork picking any meals beyond the basics which has resulted in all sorts of surprises, mostly good. However for some strange reason menus never have prices printed on them. If you can even get a menu that is - you sometimes have to walk outside and pick a dish from the banner above the shop!

Drinks in a bag

Everywhere you go you see people drinking through plastic straws from clear plastic bags, a novel sight. Cheaper than cups and less waste I guess, a winner!

Superstars

As you may have guessed from my other writings, I am famous in Indonesia. Well I'm not, I've done nothing at all but been born with white skin, but it feels like it. Borneo island, or Kalimantan as they call it in particular doesn't see a lots of foreign faces, and everywhere Rene and I go we're accosted with friendly shouts from across the street and people starting conversations. Common lines are:

'Hello mister'

'How are you?'

'Where you come from?'

'What u think of Indonesia?'

'Where you going?'

As well as this are the amount of people asking for photos. It's fun and only occasionally irritating or overwhelming, and I know now how it feels to be Brad Pitt. Well, sort of.

The Road To Hell is Paved With Nothing

Samarinda, Borneo island, Indonesia (map)

In this blog: the journey from hell, to hell / eating chicken steak in a post office car park / famous for being white / and the mad chicken lady

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The Derawan islands had been difficult to reach, and that meant one thing - they were difficult to leave and not because they were so supremely relaxing. More the fact we had to take a three hundred mile onwards journey down a route the Lonely Planet travel guide describe as being something akin to a Top Gear challenge, and for once how right they were.

Leaving Derawan island itself we took yet another exciting speedboat ride back to the mainland before spotting the young taxi driver who'd brought us to the port a few days before, who smoothly whipped us the two and a half hour journey to the nondescript coal town of Berau. Having managed to forget to withdraw extra money before going to the islands, with basically just loose change remaining in our pockets and a sense of relief at having just got away with what we had, Rene and I dragged our sorry selves to the ATM to get us some rupiahs for the long and bumpy road ahead. 

This 'road' to our destination of Samarinda turned out to be so bad that buses no longer travel it, so a share taxi was the only option bar an expensive flight. The going was rocky from the start - upon walking to the taxi area a driver ran across the road and hurriedly persuaded us to use his services which we took up then promptly drove us to his home, where we waited a few minutes before puzzlingly going back to exactly that same spot. We were then quickly ushered into another people carrier and before I knew it we were off. After contemplating the blur that had just occurred it all felt wrong - the people carrier had a spotty oik texting-and-driving at the wheel, a big noisy exhaust, a racing steering wheel literally from a go-kart (no kidding, who wants and airbag anyway) and no seat belts. There was no way I was spending the fourteen hour journey like this, so half a mile down the road I made him turn back which he did after a little persuasion. After another hour of waiting and watching the group of idle taxi drivers play cards, it was third time lucky with a comfortable 'Kijang' people carrier at the ready and a driver who at least appeared half decent and we took off. But within five minutes we stopped at a small shop where the owner of this car lived, and were ushered out for twenty minutes whilst it drove off before reappearing again without explanation. We wondered if we'd ever actually leave, but finally the six of us on our way. It was a bad start, and only got worse.

The good bit

Go-kart racing steering wheel on a people carrier! Oh man.

This huge Butterfly landed on me at a food 

stop whilst passing through the jungle 

The first couple of hours passed quickly on decent roads thanks to the many coal mines which had obviously pumped money into the area, but once the coal had gone so did the tarmac. Now I've been down a few rough farm tracks in my time, but never one that lasts two hundred miles like this. Despite being the main and only road along the south-east of Borneo, somehow the government had left it to rack and ruin with most of the tarmac weathered away leaving a mixture of broken surface, gravel and potholes for mile after mile. Very occasionally there was relief from a short section of fresh road, before the tease was over and it was back to hell. To top it off the driver insisted on treating the rough bits like a rally stage and the smooth like a Formula 1 track. Just what you want.

The night drew in and the miles slowly passed by. Some unidentified insect flew in the window and after bouncing off every surface inside the car decided to bite my arm. I have no idea what it was, but it hurt worse than any bee sting I've ever had and I still felt it the following morning. Passing through a logging community the driver slowed to a crawl whilst passing a number of brothels seemingly in the middle of the forest, upon which point him and another old male passenger ogled and sniggered between themselves, whilst the one-eyed lady in the front seat gazed into space without a word. I felt embarrassed for her. 

After a rest stop for food, the driver then drove through the night for six hours solid whilst all of us dreamed of sleeping without actually accomplishing it. To keep himself awake he insisted not on rest stops, coffee or red bull, but an apparently effective mixture of rolling his shoulders and playing very loud, cheesy hard house music non-stop including at a couple of points the same song ten times in a row, before I kindly suggested maybe he could change it (it was still in my head the next evening!). At 3am we pulled in for a break and he fell asleep in the corner for the next two hours, before a couple of us nudged him to get on and get this ordeal over and done with. At 6am now back on good roads at last, we passed over the equator officially into the Southern Hemisphere, not that any of us noticed in our state of sleep-deprivation, and finally, at last, thank the stars, we arrived in our destination of Samarinda. The hotel we were dropped at was terrible but neither of us cared and we passed out until lunchtime.

Samarinda

This city thirty miles inland from the coast wasn't exactly on the must-see list for Rene or myself and in truth we could have passed it by without regret, but with things to catch up on and stuff to plan for an imminent adventure ahead, we stopped off for three days. Despite the exotic-sounding name it was a pretty characterless city, unless you count grotty concrete buildings, rats roaming around, brothels disguised as karaoke bars, and rubbish lined streets as character, at which point you'd be stretching the truth somewhat but it wasn't as unpleasant as it might sound - easily tolerable is a pretty good description. Given that the local economy is fueled almost entirely (90% some say) by coal money from the many nearby mines, we naturally expected it to be a bit nicer but it seems most of the big money goes straight to big conglomerates abroad as sadly often happens. The locals just deal with the aftermath - http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/oct/30/coal-mining-uk-profits-indonesia

As you might expect then, the city didn't really say 'come explore me', and after nearly a week without internet on Derawan island we probably spent more time inside the hotel than out for once. But when we did get out it was interesting nonetheless.

The mad chicken lady

Rested and fresh after the 'epic journey', Rene and I went out for a wander. We exchanged pleasantries with locals on the pier by the Mahakam river and watched huge coal barges pass every few minutes. We passed the main city mosque, and briefly watched some local teenagers play a football match - football is extremely popular in Indonesia. On one of the crowded main streets a small van pulled up, the back half full of live chickens tightly packed into cages. A local woman in her sixties ran across the road smiling, laughing and shouting in Indonesian at us. She was either completely barking mad or very drunk, and upon seeing our cameras pulled all sorts of stupid poses before pointing to the chickens and repeatedly shouting AAYYYYAAAMMM (meaning chicken in Indonesian). It was hilarious, and this story has now taken on legendary status between Rene and I. AAYYYYAAAMMM!!!!

We started walking off before I remembered seeing a doorway into a market, a meat market in fact, so we turned back for a look. Inside it was the stuff of horror movies, a dark dingy room where a handful of locals were mopping up from a hard days of butchering. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling like clouds on a stormy day, many live chickens were tightly packed into wooden cages against the wall awaiting their fate, the tiled work tops gleaned, and worst of all huge rats ran around everywhere. At least the locals were friendly to us, and we got some snaps of them carrying in more of these chickens which were in terrible condition. 

The mad chicken lady

Inside the market

Famous for nothing

The city sees so few foreign tourists that we only spotted two foreign faces the whole time we were there, and after the market we had a look around a mall to try and get a few things. Now in India (and China in the past) as a white face I was a novelty, but in Indonesia it's taken on another scale altogether. The mall was fairly quiet and I kid you not almost every shop worker we passed, both male and female, smiled at us and said 'hello mister'. The sound echoed from every angle, it was overwhelming. Some people asked for a photo with us, others tried to have a basic conversation, but all were extremely friendly.

Not what I was after

The following afternoon I headed out for a quick walk with two simple things in mind - to buy a camera cable and find an Internet cafe. Four hours later I managed neither but did have a wedding card, pair of earplugs and a map of Borneo!

On the way I found a street with twenty computer shops, none of which let you use the computers nor sold cables (handy). I went to top up my phone which took an hour of confused looks and note passing, and finally involved speaking to the teacher of the shopowners' daughter who kindly said I could phone her any time afterwards if I needed help translating, which I thought was very kind. I went to a mall where I still found nothing I needed, but was accosted by four friendly young women who had a stall selling footspas and kettles and wanted to chat. 'Are you Christian or Muslim?' they asked almost straight away, an important point in this very religious, Muslim dominated country, and was followed up straight after with 'are you married? we are all single!'. Nothing like getting to the point eh!

Without the ladies in tow I needed to post a letter that night, so went to the post office to find there was no letterbox outside. A guy pointed me round the side and I ended up going right into the sorting room to hand it over! Young men slouched idly, chatting amongst each other and were surprised to see my face. Outside in the Post Office car park some enterprising youngsters had set up a cafe for the night, so Rene and I took the opportunity and ate barbecued chicken steak and drank avocado and chocolate juice, whilst watching Spanish football on a projector screen. Random or what?

Big Mosque

It rained heavily every afternoon whilst we sat tapping away inside the hotel, and I mean real heavy prolonged showers that flooded the roads and one day even took out the power. On the last afternoon in town, after the downpour we headed to have a look at the Samarinda Islamic Centre - a huge new mosque that had been built a couple of miles away by the waterfront and truly dominated it. It was an impressive complex, and Muslim tourists stood outside having their photos taken with each other, some chatting to us inquisitively. Unlike some modern religious buildings in Asia which I find distinctly tacky, this was an impressive piece of architecture - beautifully cut brown stone, with beige and green hues inside, and some beautiful carved wood screens. The main hall was one of the biggest clearspan rooms I've ever been in, and was dominated by the beautifully tiled dome above. It was interesting to note that men pray in the main mosque, whilst as tradition dictates women pray separately in a smaller mosque downstairs.

We took a bus back into town, which immediately did a U-turn in the opposite direction. With time on our hands we decided to roll with it and see where we ended up. Unfortunately it was just another shopping complex though there was a group of people waiting for their supermarket shift to start, one of whom had to dress up as a bumblebee for a promotion. We amusingly posed with him for a pic and I even tried on his sweaty headmask. This was unfortunately pretty much the only buzz about town in Samarinda, and with plans made and our internet fix complete, it was time to move on the next day on a week long adventure up the mighty Mahakan river.

The Samarinda waterfront, a kalidescope of brightly coloured boats 

Cockerels for sale on the roadside

Mall friends!