Banjarmasin

Borneo at last. I don't know why the name has always sounded and felt so exotic to me. Borneo is the world's third-largest island and is shared by three countries. Two Malaysian provinces - Sabah and Sarawak are found here as is Brunei Darussalam, a small constitutional sultanate. Most of Borneo is an Indonesian province called Kalimantan. The name Borneo comes from the word for coconut and it is how the English called the island. Kalimantan is the Indonesian name for the island, used by the Dutch, and it means diamond river.

Banjarmasin, with about 800 000 people, is the capital of South Kalimantan. Traffic flows quickly and wildly and crossing streets seems challenging at first. However, the traffic flows around you like water around a rock in a stream as long as you don't hesitate or stutter-step because then you'll confuse drivers and the million or so motorcycles that zip around you. You have to cross streets with assurance and a careful eye.

You'll also want to keep an eye out for the rats the scurry around underfoot and the cats that slink through the garbage. In some ways Indonesia resembles India for all the trash and litter lying in the streets. This is one eternal fact of life in poor countries: trash collection happens, but the quantity overwhelms the resources. In the past the garbabe would have been almost entirely biodegradable but today's plastic bags and bottles are almost invincible to natural means of deterioration. If all humans disappeared today, in 1 000 years the only traces that would remain of contemporary life would be a few foundations of buildings and plastic bags.

I check into an inexpensive backpacker hotel called Borneo Homestay. It's down a dirt lane, beside the Martapura River. It's a bit shabby, but the owner, Johan (short for Johanshah) is very helpful and speaks excellent English.

When I get there it's late afternoon and I ask him to recommend a restaurant so he suggests Chendrwasih nearby. It's a family-run place for family dining. The owner's daughter, Sofia, greets me and sits me at a long table with her own family. Every day of the year her mother invites one poor person for a free meal. As it's the start of Ramadan a local TV station has decided to report on this. I feel uncomfortable squeezing in like this but Sofia assures me it's okay. The table is covered in small plates each containing a different food: fish, vegetables, chicken, salad, stuff I don't recognize. You pay for each plate that you take but rice is included. I eat well, thank Sofia and her mother for their hospitality.

Two things to do that I didn't get a chance to see are boat rides on the canals and a visit to the floating market. My time here was limited and my reason for coming here was not either of these but to go to the nearby diamond fields at Cempaka.

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