Advertisement
Published: December 27th 2008
(SORRY BUT HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE PHOTO UPLOADER SO WE APPOLOGISE FOR THE LACK OF AND REPEAT OF PICS!)
Where do we start? Seems a long time, or at least one hell of a distance ago when all this happened! Here we go...
Leaving our long stay in Surabaya airport we flew over to the South East Indonesian part of Borneo arriving in Balikpapan. Quick collection of our bags then jumped in the taxi off to find a cheap motel. However searching around for places to stay we found nothing of any value. Either cheap but a complete dump (no way after a long couple of days of travelling!) or far far too pricey. So we thought sod it and went off to the local bus depot to catch a 3 hour bus to the next bigger town. After all we had to go in this direction anyway!
Arriving in Samarinda we hunted and hunted around for a place to stay. Cheap did not exist. It was either mid range or top range places. 2 to maybe 3 hours later again we were still searching around. We could not believe how hard it was. One hotel simply turned
us away because we were not Muslim (really strongly believe this!!), one other did not have the room keys on them (how stupid... INDO!!!) and all the rest were very pricey. So after admitting defeat we settled for the cheapest out of the bunch down some back alley near the town centre. Settled in for the night and went out for some grub etc...
Following day went off in hunt for some travel advice. Not really having any setup like other parts of Asia we found it extremely difficult to get any advice let alone book anything. However after jumping in a taxi and trying out best, and we mean our very best, at trying to describe what we were after we managed to some how find a sort of makeshift tourist office. This was half hour of non stop going around the town in the taxi!
So at the tourist office we explained what we were after and they called a local guide who understood English and how we expected things. He came and took us to a place to book tickets. We were hoping to keep the trip a cheap a possible by bus and boat
but when speaking to him he said bus would take 20+ hours and then followed by more bus trips and boat trips. This sounded like hell. ANY other country in the world this would be fine but INDO bus travel had taken in toll on us and we agreed (mainly Gareth) no more! So went for a flight. However this meant back tracking to Balikpapan to fly out. Typical.
Same day we jumped back on the bus to Balikpapan as we were told the flight was the next day, it turned out it wasn't for two days!! So we found a nice hotel for the price and waited out for our flight. We did try to do some touristy Orang-utan stuff the day after but the hotel completely cocked up where we wanted to go and ended up taking us to a monkey sanctuary not the Orang-utan place.
Couple of days later and a short flight we were in Tarakan. No time to stay and in all honesty no reason to stay we headed off to the local port to catch a ferry further North. At this point of the trip we were simply just trying to get
out of Indonesia. First reason our non-renewable visa was about to run out but most of all we had enough of the place. Everything which should have been very simple was ever so hard. EVERYTHING!!
Booked a ferry ticket and headed up to the pier to catch a "ferry"...haha. Total CHAOS is the best way to describe. The ferry is not a ferry. It’s a big speed boat. To top it off you had to climb over two other boats to get to yours and the best bit is the boat was barley big enough to carry 20 people. Some how it ended up with more than double this. CRAZY. We just jumped on the roof top and had the easy life. Far better the cramped seated area below.
Couple of hours later we arrived in Nunukan. Hoping and previously being told we could catch a connecting boat straight to Malaysian Borneo we headed off in search for a ticket... but in true typical luck we were told that next boat was the following day. Nightmare. This was like the wild west, final frontier, and total backwards place. We were so far North of Indo that we were
now a local tourist attraction for the locals. The past 3 towns were like this but this was in a league of its own. Anyway with a little help of the local immigration guys we went off in search for a nice cheap hotel for the night ready for Malaysia the following day.
Following morning jumped on the 9am boat for Malaysia. At 11am we headed off (typical Indo travel!!). Halfway through the boat trip the boat was stopped by police. They came on board and done some random checking... not a lot in all honesty... and then we continued.
Arriving in Tawau, Malaysia (THANK GOD!!) headed off in search for some bus tickets to Sandakan. Had some grub (massive change to the Indo side and yet proving that Malaysia still offers the best food!) and jumped on a 6 hours bust trip to Sandakan. The difference was immediate, the bus left on time, and even better it arrived on time too, in fact 5mins early!!!
Arriving in Sandakan we settled in to a nice cheap hotel in the centre of the town. Following day headed off to see what was available and to book tickets for
the Philippines. Searching around we noticed things were starting to look pricey. Most trips in Sabah (This is what the local region was called) were very expensive. So we went for the cheaper option even though we really wanted to do some scuba in Sipadan (Top 10 destination world dive site) and other more pricey options, but at £110+ per person per day it simply was not justified.
So we headed off to the local ORANGUTAN rehabilitation centre. Nice place just outside the town. It held a small group of Orang-utans. We were unable to get really close as they were all wild and only at the centre for various reasons. However we managed to catch feeding time which was great. Wished we had had a better zoom lens but never the less had a good time. Only bad thing was that they seem to Charge us westerners 7 times more to get in. Bit of a cheek.
So then we thought of heading over to the monkey sanctuary but being told that was twice as expensive again we thought best to head back in to town for some grub and chill time.
Following day we headed
PROBOSCIS MONKEY
CROSSING THE RIVERoff on a jungle boat trip with this old British Welsh couple. Cost quite a bit but it was one of the cheaper options available. So off we went at 9am to the jungle. Heading South for 2 hours we caught a real sight of how bad the Malaysian government has destroyed the rain forest. Thousands of miles if jungle has been cut down for palm plantations. Really sad but that was really all you could see.
Eventually we ended up at a small village on the edge of the Kinabatangan river. Jumped on a small boat and headed upriver to the more dense jungle. We managed to see groups of Borneo's famous Proboscis monkeys ranging from big adults to very small babies, monitor lizards, spiders, crocodiles, green python, Macau long tail monkeys and other smaller creatures. No sight of the elephants which was a shame but in all honesty didn't really think we would be that lucky! So after about 3 hours we headed back to the village ready for the long drive back. Great day but at a cost of £110 we really did not think it was worth the money. This was also one of the
cheapest options.
Following day we packed out bags and headed 6 hours North to Kota Kinabalu to catch a flight to the Philippines or so we thought!
Arriving in KK we checked in to the cheapest hotel we could find - £11 per night, pricey stuff!!! Headed out for grub and settled in for the night as it was quite late. Following morning went in search to book the flights. Now we had researched this and phoned several travel agents and had explained our plans. They all gave cheap prices and all the prices on the web were in the same budget. But we had totally forgotten to factor in bloody Christmas. Indo and Malaysia are mainly Islamic countries and we did not think for one second it was going to be an issue so when we went to book the flights ended up being 3 to 4 times more expensive. GUTTED. After not saving back and not doing a lot in the previous town and missing out scuba hoping to make up for it in the Philippines things felt pretty crap. So the choices were spend the money (£700 just for flights to Philippines and getting around)
or back track. Nightmare. So after a day of thinking (and blaming and arguing!!!) we thought best to cut our losses and save the money for India. So we booked a flight back to KL ready for Christmas.
CONCLUSION
The whole Borneo trip was not the best. It’s very different and far more difficult compared to other parts of Asia and even more backwards than Java and far more expensive than mainland Malaysia. This we didn't think would be the case. We thought by travelling through the country rather than flying from Bali to Jakarta to Sabah would save money. IT DOES NOT. It took us about a week and cost about 3 times more in the end. Yes we seen a lot more and had a few more experiences but in the end we missed out on a few things we wanted to do. However we still think Borneo is a trip in itself and worth visiting. Holiday when you are able to spend money and do every thing without worrying about budget. Definitely a place to revisit on a future trip!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0869s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
