The journey to Tanjung Puting continues.

We arrive on the klotok around dusk as we motor on down the river on the sides of the banks the palms were decorated with fire flies they even flew onto our boat where Kyle held one glowing in his hand. Saw fireflies on the edges of the river. We sleep on the deck of the boat after dinner on our carpet –Indonesian style, under a mosquito net. The sounds of the put-put of the boat is exchanged for the sound of the jungle. It is almost full moon it was warm when we go to bed and as the night goes on we are cold. I wish I’d brought a blanket! Tomorrow night I’ll wear my jeans and long sleeve top to bed!!

Banana pancakes, eggs, mango, banana, and water melon breakfast yum.

Now to see the orangutans – we stop at two sites for the feeding all the klotoks are bunched up together at the landing area. You need to walk across boats to get to the landing or people are walking across yours.

Camp Leakey is the most comprehensive of the the feeding stations as it has an information centre, a variety of animals near the rangers quarters – wild pigs a gibbon cats and oranghutans who don’t want to be bothered with the feeding platform about ¾ kilometre away.

The orangutans are used to this daily ritual of feeding at the platform, the rangers and guides call to let them know that bananas and milk is a happening thing on the deck. It is amazing seeing orangutans so close they move from tree to tree – it sounds like crashing in the treetops.

One tetchy orangutan played scare the tourist. Had our group worried it then divided our group and then chased me Sharon and Kyle for a short way into the jungle. Both Sharon and I tripped over. This orangutan Siswi came with a reputation, bitten five tourists in one year!! I was thinking I would be tourist number six!!! With help we got onto main track but it was an adrenaline rush as well as being downright scary.

On the way back Thomas spots a crocodile – no one swims in the river because of them and they are unusual to see.

Going to Suryabaya

We leave ‘pagi-pagi’ from Denpasar airport and arrive in Surabaya – big city in East Java. It is a huge port we take a charter taxi into the city. First to Kalimas a river port where most of the large wooden cargo boats that go between Sulawesi, Kalimantan and some of the other eastern islands depart from. Then it is to the Samporna cigarette factory. It is a tourist attraction in Suryabaya. It is a huge city but it is not known as a major tourist city. There is a beautiful display of all memorabilia about cigarettes as well as the history of the building and family. Upstairs is a shop and viewing platform of the factory. Mainly women are seated in red and yellow uniforms hand rolling cigarettes, trimming them and packaging. The speed is incredible. How does one relax after rolling 325 cigarettes an hour after an eight hour day!!!! So with over three hundred people working in this particular factory one of many making that many cigarettes an hour how many cigarettes are being smoked!!!

Then it is off to have lunch. We go to a local hot spot for ‘Lontong Balap’ a vegetarian soup with sprouts and tofu as well as solid cooked rice with young coconut. You know a place is good when you see a busy place.

A famous mosque in Surabaya is Sunan Ampel it is situated in the Arab section of the town and that was out last destination on our whirlwind tour the city. There are tiny lanes leading to the mosque all filled with small shops selling toys, Arabic and mosque clothes, henna, perfumes in shiny bottles cakes and dates many from the middle east. We were not wearing clothes appropriate for the mosque so we did not enter. Kelsey needed to go to the toilet so Sharon her mother asked if she may use the toilet in the information booth. Sharon came out wearing a sarong and head scarf to accompany Kelsey to the toilet. They both went into the area where women and girls prepare for the mosque. The mosque is a beautiful a large colonial building with huge wooden shutters, many doors and a beautiful polished floor. I would recommend bringing/buying some clothes that would allow you to enter.

Back to the airport and to Kalimantan Pangalabun and meet Bu Arfa and her family. A quick taxi ride from the airport and we are on a ‘Klotok’ (Kapal air- wooden boat).

29 July

Bedugul one of the food bowl areas of Bali, on a round about there is this huge cement sweetcorn husk with all the – about 2 meters tall resplendent in yellow and green. There is lots of food grown around here, broccoli, strawberries, as well flowers – orchids. At the Botanical Gardens in Bedugul there is a tourist attraction called Tree top adventures. A Flying fox through the trees sounded like fun. That sounded good until you realise you have to put a harness on with clips etc.  Everyone looks as if they are wearing a nappy!! When you are high up on platforms and walking on steel cables you are very grateful of ‘the nappy’. I had to face my fears of heights and my lack of co-ordination was exposed.

It cost US$21 and in rupiah it was 199,500. That was Rosie and Leah on the black course - too extreme for me.

On the way to Bedugul we stopped at one of the coffee houses where you can sample Bali Coffee, Civat Cat Coffee - coffee Lubak and chocolate. The next photo is of cacao fruit that is ripe. The taste of the fruit outside the seeds is like a mangostein with a probable chocolate edge. The seeds you cannot eat and need to be fermented/curing before they are used as chocolate. 

The blessing of the cars 

On the 29^th was a busy day for cars. In Bali there is a special ceremony for all things made of metal – that includes cars and motorbikes. All the ‘cuci mobil’ shops for washing cars and motorbikes had lots of business the day before. In the morning the cars are blessed prayed over and decorated. The decorations are made of palm leaf and placed on the front of the car and motorbikes.

Back in Bali

I am back in Indonesia again- very lucky.

it’s warm

Arrived three days ago. It is warm. In a room with a fan on it gets too warm by the morning! It is hard to remember it is cold at home!!!

Walking along the beach – you could walk forever and it seems we did trying to find our way back to the main road. All we could find was a small laneway that went through villas and ricefields. Every year more buildings are covering the rice fields– like Australia our best land for growing things is going to be under concrete or destroyed by other development.

There is no more the green revolution it is the concrete and steel revolution.

Nasi Campur (rice with a mix)  10k (Rp10,000) for lunch check out the picture the exchange rate is about Rp9,400 to one dollar. How much was my meal?

Our meals aren’t all that price but you could survive well on $20 a day if you were not travelling much and eating local food.

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Banjarmasin - our entry point to Kalimantan

It is 24 km from the airport to the centre of Banjarmasin it is interesting your first impressions on the trip from the airport. There are lots of trucks, on the back of minibuses, the only ads I have seen are for chain saws, at the petrol stations there are huge queues.

As we look for accommodation we hear this constant electronic sound of birds and as we look skyward we see lots of razor wire around the tops of buildings. We find out it is the sound of swallows ( the swallow nests are used for a special chinese delicacy –bird nest soup) so houses for swallows at the tops of buidings are built and their nests are harvested regularly.

Mosques – they are everywhere. There are many things about Islam that is interesting such as Ramadan where people use this month to reflect on and give money to the poor, the trip to Mecca – The Haj where everyone wears the same clothes and walks the same trail rich/poor alike.

But what is it with the singing that is everywhere on loud speakers at many times of the day?

Why are the women so covered up – it is just so hot!!! 

There are just some things that I find difficult to undersand.

The only other whiteys we have seen were a couple in the airport. Most of the hotels we try are full – it is high season so there are many domestic tourists. There must be a spotting fee for tour guides as it doesn’t take long before Tailah finds us– a guide mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide book. We organise a floating market tour, short trip to the Loksodo area for some walking, staying in a long house and a bamboo raft trip. We seem to be spending a lot of money in Kalimantan – plane trips, guides trips etc. because they are comparatively expensive

Transport in Kalimantan in days gone by was predominantly water based – up and down rivers and then to the sea. Mining (coal, diamonds, gold), palm-oil plantations, forestry, transmigration, and in general exploiting the natural environment (as we do in Australia) has resulted in opening up Kalimantan to land based transport.

When going on a trip to the floating markets it is interesting to see all the houses that are built on the river. There is a land frontage and the back section is built on ironwood supports with usually a boat tied up to landing platform. People are washing themselves, their clothes or just getting moving early in the morning. The trip gave me an emotional understanding of how people from Kalimantan’s lives are bound to the rivers.

Even in the smaller rives the water is brown. It has come a long way and there is lots of activity upstream. When we are on the main river that enters to the sea we see large sea-going vessels, coal is floating down the river on huge barges, there are huge stockpiles of wood and timber machine factories on either side of the aprox 200m wide river and in amongst all of this there is a floating fruit and vegetable market.

We buy rambutans and think about breakfast (we got up at 5am) and then a little tea and coffee shop floats by!!!! Sweet tea and cakes selected with a long piece of wood with a nail.

Islam,  floating markets.  river transport,

Four ferries three buses two days one night

Tannah air –Indonesia -the country of land and water

To Indonesians tannah air means Indonesia, there are national songs that are written about it.

We realise we need to get moving if we want to get to Kalimantan – and we do. High season difficult to get a flight we miss one ‘stand by’ by 10 minutes. So…… there is always the bus, ferry, mini-bus, night bus, ferry, bus, ferry, bus and to finish this off sweetly a  taxi air conditioned gentle music that will get us back to Kuta. I may have mentioned the bus was executive class (looked long and hard for the executives – I think they caught the plane). This is the way most people travel. Sleep when you can, wherever, make sure you get down to your bus before it leaves the ferry, hope your bus starts and the drivers are awake for the night trip. We all know Indonesia has many islands but it doesn’t become real until you need to get between them.

In many of the ports there are ferries waiting to be filled just docked and leaving they have phrases such as ‘We Bridge the nation’ ‘ We serve the nation’ painted on the side with the Indonesian flag flying.

On many of the buses they have ‘Pulang di kampung’ which means go home to the village – the bus is full of people who have settled on a different island from their home. It is now holiday home so this group is going home to their village on Java. This gives a human face to Transmigrasi. The government in the past have moved people from areas of dense population to areas that are less populated. There are issues as I am sure you can imagine.

Things that are interesting about the bus/ferry trip

Speaking Indonesian – people in Indonesia seem more friendly than in Australia. It is between all people that they chat ask each other about where they come from and where they are going etc and if you speak a little Indonesian you can be part of this. This is more common on buses and ferries than on planes.

Food in the middle of the night 3.30 – Why!!!

Each island a different language/languages and different cultures. You think you have a handle on a few key local words then it changes even within one island there may be several languages. The architecture is different, the main religion, the food the traditional clothes. There are so many different ethnic groups in one nation.

In Bali we stay in the midst of the ‘land of the young’ – Kuta/Legian.for two nights. There is always a motorbike passing, the circle K convenience stores are open 24 hours and whatever you want you can buy. It is fun to pick the nationality of the tourist by just their appearance.

You here the term oleh-oleh throughout Indonesia and there are shops devoted to it, stalls near the exit from the town, airport whatever.it means something you bring back from your holiday that you give to those who didn’t come. It is a big thing. Pity those with a big family. Usually they are small things that are special from the place you have been. It is not so unusual really but what we don’t expect is people asking for an oleh-oleh – that’s usual in Indonesia. It is difficult  to know who to give what to, so I sometimes get a bag or box of something and give it to someone to share(a lot of some’s).