Indonesia after Borneo
So you want to get off the tourist trail & experience life as a local?
I found the perfect solution, just book yourself a “Klasse Economik” ticket on a Pelni ship & there you go. That is what I did to get from Pontianak to Jakarta, a 38 hour trip which cost me a total of 238,000 Rupiah ($26.00 CAD) which included 2 nights accommodation & meals however a mattress was an extra 5000 Ru ($0.56 CAD).
Actually pretty good as the bunk space was elevated a couple feet off the floor & you had about a 5ft x 7ft space with overhead storage (the Korean ferry I was on you had to sleep & sit on the floor in economy). Only about 80 people per cabin + there was a TV but did have to share 2 squat toilets & 2 shower stalls with the adjoining cabin, think the women had a couple extra stalls. Meals were pretty heavy on the rice & cabbage & pretty light on the meat but we got 5 of them so can’t complain for the cost.
Utterly amazing how the Asians manage to stay so clean in the heat & under those conditions, heck if that many westerners were in similar conditions you wouldn’t be able to stand the stink (Asians don’t sweat near as much as we do) in the place but here there was none. Also the kids are a whole lot better behaved than the spoiled brat western version.
Only real annoyance was the load speaker announcement at 4am calling the Muslims to prayer!
Of course being the only white person on the ship I did manage to attract the attention of the only Indonesian on board that could speak enough English to carry on a limited conversation with, so I now have another email address of a new acquaintance in Jakarta. By the time we disembarked there was another half dozen people that new the odd word of English I had exchanged a few words with that shook my hand & wished me well in my travels.
Pretty cool way to enter the capitol city of an island nation, by ship with the good wishes of people I had never seen 38 hrs before. Too bad my time is so limited that I will only have 2 or 3 days (depending on what flight out I can get) in Bali, while the rest will be taken up getting there. Three days lost on the ship as it never got in until 02:00 on the 30th (9 hrs late) instead of the afternoon of the 29th, overnight in Jakarta then 13 hrs on the train to Surabaya (3 hrs late), overnight then a 7 hr train ride (only 45 min late this time) to Banyuwangi where I will catch the ferry in the morning to Bali then a bus to the Lovina Beaches at Kalibuk.
That went pretty well, a 5 min taxi ride from Manyar Garden Hotel, an excellent cheap place to spend the night, followed by about 1/2 hr on the ferry, a 5 min motorcycle taxi ride to the local bus terminal then a 2 1/2 hr bus trip & here I am at the beach in Bali after only 6 days travel from Borneo. Got my plane ticket to Singapore on line for 30% less than the local travel agent wanted for the same flight which leaves at noon, taxi arranged to the airport that morning so I can spend another night here in my 100,000 Rupiah ($11.28 CAD).
Indonesia from the little bit I have seen seems to be a country of contrasts with a few very well off, another few middle class & lots of poor. Some things modern & some old as they use the iron buffalo to till the rice paddies but still cut & thresh it by hand. However while riding the good rail system that at every longer stop they were checking the wheel bearing temps which is a practice I only noticed on the Trans-Siberian but no where else, not even the much touted (though I can’t figure out why) Euro rail system.
Won’t even begin to scratch the surface of the wonders of Indonesia in my limited time here & can only recommend anyone planning a visit here or anywhere else in SE Asia to allow a minimum of a month per country, 2 is better, heck I spent over 2 1/2 mos in Bangkok alone.
Now it’s chill time in Bali until Friday when I leave for a night in Singapore before flying off to OZ!
Tags: Travel
busman7