The long road trip

Today we have a very long road trip by truffle from Pontianak to Pangkalan Bun, instead of two easy flights or a bus, both of which were cancelled.  With the truffle, we had an 0900 departure which allowed a leisurely buffet breakfast at Ibis.

According to Google Maps, the road trip should take about 12h but the bus had an estimated journey time of 16h.  In reality, we did it in 14h10 with two meal stops and several short rest breaks.  That would make an average speed while travelling of just over 50km/h.

As we left Pontianak, we passed through many homes built on swampy soil with lots of black water surrounding them.  These are peat swamps.  Another thing I had noticed before were the signs “Siram Kulat” which I had tried to get an understanding of.  The driver explained that “kulat” (mushroom or fungus) refers to the hemispherical rubber from the collection cups which are being transported to factories.  To increase the weight and yield, there are places that offer to “siram” or dowse them with water.

About 2h after we broke for lunch at Rumah Makan Tiga Putri in Simpang Ampar.  The toilets there weren’t very nice.  While the meal was simple, the tempeh was just gorgeous.  Soon after that, we crossed the Kapuas River at Tayan Bridge.  A few years ago, that crossing would have needed a ferry.

The scenery along the way was a mix of Malay settlements, Dayak settlements, swift houses (for collecting their nests), and oil palm plantations.  I was surprised how far inland Malays are found in Kalimantan whereas in Sarawak, the population is quite distinctly Dayak away from the coast and rivers.

We stopped again at Indomaret Balai Berkuak where I needed to “go” again.  It was a very overcast day and relatively cool and that combined with the air-con probably brought that on.

About half-way through the journey at around 1600 we changed cars at Sandae, from a Toyota Fortuner to an Avanza.  There was one less seat in the middle row, being a two individual seats rather than a bench seat.  This was more comfortable for me.  But the music changed from regular dangdut played at low volume to techno dangdut on speed!  The genre is referred to as Breakbeat Indonesia.  While it wasn’t loud, it was quite frenetic and probably useful for keeping the driver awake.

Fast-forwarding the day, we broke for dinner in the dark just before crossing the border between West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan.

The roads became more potholed as we crossed into Central Kalimantan.  They weren’t bad bad, just good with a few potholes here and there probably from heavy loads carried by oil-palm trucks.  In fact the roads seem to be better built than in Sarawak where there appears to be a lot of subsidence.

After dinner, I kept nodding off despite the Breakbeat.  While I didn’t think I had actually slept, I lost nearly 2h of the journey as I kept monitoring the car clock.  Not a bad thing really.

We arrived at the Alibaba Hotel in Pangkalan Bun after 2300 rather exhausted.  Natalia had the front seat for the entire journey due to her back issues.  She had been more apprehensive about the long journey and I was glad we both coped with the journey well.