This was the route that I took through China and Southeast Asia, starting in Shanghai and ending on Bali. [View Full Entry]

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At Sipadan Island just off the northeast coast of Borneo the question is not if you will see sea turtles but how many and, secondly, will you eventually get bored of seeing so many. But before you get blasé about it you get to experience the marvel of seeing them for the first time. I'm staying on Mabul Island, near Sipadan, at a hotel on stilts that have to do partly with tides and partly with waves. It's just cheap wooden construction, but we're not here for luxury digs. We're here to dive. Sipadan is about 15 minutes across the water [View Full Entry]

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Although not down at the eighth or ninth level, this one's a couple of levels lower in hell than the bus trip on Flores. We leave Kandangan in the dark, heading for Balikpapan on the eastern coast of Borneo. No banana bags stacked in the aisle or conspiracy theorist babblers, but worse...a driver who seems to think he's an F1 racer. He aims the bus full speed down the middle of the road, smoking clove-scented cigarettes constantly, eating junk food and sometimes talking on his cell phone as we hurtle past every other vehicle. For the next 10 hours only two [View Full Entry]

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I catch a bus from Banjarmasin to Kandangan, check into the Loksado Hotel and arrange for a guide to meet me later in the evening. I go out for a quick meal and a stroll though town. It's not a big place but they have a large mosque here, recently rebuilt and painted in colours of cream and soft green. Ramadan continues so from this main mosque they broadcast not just the call to prayer but the "sermon" itself. It goes on and on and the imam's voice is gentle, conversational. No thundering from the pulpit or televangelism here. Just easy, [View Full Entry]

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I go to a travel agent to buy a plane ticket and there I meet a very helpful person, Sugiato Sumas. He's from Banjarmasin but lives in Jakarta, working for the government. He helps to arrange my ticket, although he's just a client and doesn't work for the travel agency, then drives me to the bus station and offers to help with my ticket there. I thank him but don't want to detain him any longer. His behaviour stands in such contrast to that of the touts and other vultures that hang around bus and train stations in Asia. It is [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Probolinggo is a government town - a provincial capital. I don't know if there's anything to see and the guidebook doesn't think so. Anyway, I'm not hanging around. Ramadan's started and people are fasting during the day. Work goes on, of course. Not as if every shop and office are closed, although many will close early during this period so people can go home and grab spoons, waiting for the signal. I'm here to In the morning I take a bemo to the bus station. The driver tells me I should catch another bemo up to Cemoro Lawang not a private [View Full Entry]

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I'm in Rantepao (pronounced RANCH-eh-poh) on the island of Sulawesi. It's a small town in an area called Tana Toraja, the local people known as Torajans. I'm here to see a funeral, accompanied by my guide, Arun. He's 25, smiling and cheerful and he feeds me a tremendous amount of information. Can't remember it all, but here are the basics. Someone has died and his spirit wanders the earth. Torajans sacrifice animals so these spirits can accompany the person's soul to the afterlife. Human souls can't go without animal souls to accompany them. Buffalo, pigs and deer are sacrificed for this, [View Full Entry]

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Every backpacker has a ''bus from hell'' story and this one's mine. In relative terms, it probably only ranks around the first or second level, not one of the deeper levels of hell. Anna and I shared a room with Toby last night and we wake at 05h00 to get a bus across Flores. It comes around 06h00. No air-conditioning but at least the windows open so cool morning air comes in. However, when you travel by bus in Indonesia you get to bring everything with you that is necessary for your trip and in this case someone is transporting ten [View Full Entry]

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I catch an early ferry from Gili T to Lombok. Idris, Amin and Mahmoud are leaving as well. They'd been sleeping at the mosque because they can't afford a room, but overall they find it too expensive here and are going home. At the quay on Lombok porters try to grab my bag. You have to say No quickly because they look like people just helping you but they'll ask for money, like porters at airports. Drivers say Yes please this way, trying to lead us to horsecart taxis, but I'm following someone who leads us several hundred metres along a [View Full Entry]

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