East Kalimantan aka Kalimantan Timur (KalTim)
Hotel Melati Indah +6255623453
Comfortable and clean double room, including a light breakfast, for IDR 120,000.- or US$ 14.- per night. Agricultural wifi from nearby Narman’s hotspot: 11 [no typo] hours for INR 20,000.- or US$ 2.35. Friendly staff, limited English.
Exploring the rather nondescript and low-key (especially during the holy but dehydrating fasting month of Ramadan when hard-core Muslims can't even swallow their saliva let alone drink water or even the precious Bintang beer during daylight, unless they are travelling and/or menstruating, are diabetic, sick and/or pregnant) air-con town of Nunukan (regular minibuses between Tunon Taka Port and the town centre for IDR 4,000.- or US$ 0.45 per person, one way), coping with frequent power cuts and enjoying tremendously many cordial encounters with open-minded and friendly locals in East Kalimantan’s very remote north-east corner.
Booking an overnight sea passage in economy class for a reasonable IDR 235,000.- or US$ 27.35 per passenger (including full-board with three meals and some unspecified compulsory insurance) from our friend Gita’s reliable and professionally managed travel agency Tanjung Arief +6281322950001 gita_9t4@yahoo.com and embarking on the proud but incredibly run-down 145-m long Pelni passenger ferry KM “Tidar” (once upon a time made in Germany by Meyer Werft) which calls now and then into Nunukan on her Tarakan-Pantoloan-Parepare-Makassar-Surabaya run along the dangerous Strait of Makassar.
Reading in Alfred Russel Wallace’s classic 1860 CE study The Malay Archipelago about the Wallace Line (between Kalimantan and Sulawesi), which divides the Asian and the Australian flora and fauna, “... I have arrived at the conclusion that we can draw a line among the islands which shall so divide them that one-half shall truly belong to Asia, while the other shall no less certainly be allied to Australia. I term these respectively the Indo-Malayan, and the Austro-Malayan divisions of the Archipelago...”; and keeping a sharp lookout for it.
Click below for a summary of this year's travels
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| Facing Borneo © Konni & Matt |
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