Blogs from Kalimantan, Indonesia, Asia - page 6

Borneo has proven to be just as exotic as it sounds. We have spent the last week seeing floating markets, diamond and gold mines, and a jungle full of orangutans, proboscis monkeys and gibbons. It has been a wild ride. We started in Banjarmasin, a city that relies heavily on the river system for all aspects of life. I was laying low trying to recover from some stomach problems when the Sams found a guide, Tyla waiting for them at our hotel. "I have been waiting long time for you here" ..."Oh...um. Sorry?" Apparently Tyla had heard tourists had arrived and was waiting to see if he could take us around the city. We recognized his name and told him he was mentioned in Lonely Planet as the best guide in the city. He laughed and ... read more

The bus ride to Bontang was officially our scariest yet.. yes we know we do go on our about transport a lot but it plays such a huge role in travelling it's hard not to! The bus driver really did seem to want to scare the bejesus out of us and literally flew round corners virtually on 2 wheels, this was bad enough in daylight but a million times worse when it was pitch black and he was flying down the equivalent of narrow country roads back in the UK with a constant flow of oncoming traffic. We always use the locals on the bus with us to judge how bad a journey is.. if they don't bad an eyelid then you can assume it's normal, but on this occasion even they were closing their eyes ... read more

Surabaya In Surabaya gaan we nog even op zoek naar overblijfselen van de Nederlandse architectuur uit het koloniale tijdperk. De Opa van Eva heeft hier gedurende een periode van drie jaar gewerkt in een ziekenhuis, en we hebben geprobeerd te achterhalen waar dit ziekenhuis heeft gestaan. Helaas, helaas; bijna alle gebouwen uit die tijd zijn gesloopt en vervangen door betonnen blokkendozen. De panden die nog wel overeind staan zijn niet onderhouden en zien er triest uit en er is geen westerling meer te zien. We bekijken wat moskeeen en een oude Chinese tempel waar Eva meteen naar binnen werd gesleurd voor een of ander ritueel. Voor we het wisten stonden we met stokjes te gooien, olie te gieten, kaarsen aan te steken en andere vage handelingen uit te voeren. Eva deed het blijkbaar telkens verkeerd want ... read more

June 24th It's done! We've moved our flight back to South Africa to the 7th of October. Robbie at STA Travel in Hatfield made the change in the blink of an eye. The best service we got in all of our travels comes from South Africa. Makes you think... Today's the day we leave Malaysia. We're heading to Tarakan in Indonesian Borneo, the province also known as Kalimantan. Though we had enjoyed Malaysia a great deal, we feel ready for something new. After breakfast we walked around, looking for take-away lunch we can enjoy on the boat. We saw an electronics store. All thought of food ceased. We went in. We liked what we found. We walked out with a new Sony W290 compact digital camera. Okay. Y'all probably think we're shopping crazy, but we're not... ... read more

To look into the eyes of ‘Princess’ - a rescued and rehabilitated Orang Utan in her home environment was a spine tingling, magical experience. She is one of over 200 Orang Utans that have been returned to their natural habitat by rangers working at Camp Leakey deep in the rain forest of Borneo. Truth be told ‘Princess’ has not been fully rehabilitated - she had too much contact with humans in her early days of rehabilitation and now tends to hang around the camp. She was once part of an experiment to see how much language Orang Utans can master - she has a vocabulary of over 140 words in signing. She is mother to a baby of 6 months, which still clings to her, and a juvenile of 6 years who still stays with her ... read more