Down the east coast of Borneo

Breakfast at the Lucky Hotel was simple with soup, fried small fish and rice.  It’s not very often I get a smiley fish for breakfast with chilli.  It was actually delicious and I had two, almost went for a third.

As I relaxed in my room offered to take me out for coffee, to which I declined (I later learned she runs a cafe with karaoke).  We agreed on an 1115 pickup which became 1145.  She wrote my boat ticket for Nunukan to Tarakan as she dropped me at Liem Hie Djung ferry station and declined payment for both the transfers.

I can’t work out how she can make enough commission from the ticket with the transfers and waiting for me yesterday.  Unless, I suppose, her family owns the boat company and she’s not an agent.

I left the station for a quick simple lunch before returning to wait for the boarding at the terminal.  We boarded about 1245 for the 1300 scheduled departure.  The Malindo Tri Putra Express is a smaller boat than yesterday with 2+2 seating rather than 4+3.  Large baggage was kept on the roof.  Like yesterday, the boat wasn’t very full.

We left 15 mins late, passing some water villages, Tunon Taka ferry terminal and then hugged the coast of Borneo on the Celebes Sea.  The journey took 2h30 before we passed what looked like a longhouse and more water villages, then arrived in Tarakan.

The Tengkayu port was a mess with the construction of the a new concrete pier.  We used the partially constructed pier regardless.  It was a long way to walk to the road so I accepted an over-priced ride from an ojek at IDR25K knowing that the Grab ojek price was IDR8K and car IDR23K.

Little did I know that the ojek driver would take me on board the free bus (running along the pier) to get to the road and parking area for his bike!

I rested briefly at the Gajah Mada Hotel before heading out for dinner.  Food choices were limited here.   As it was a city, I guess one needed to know where to go … where in Nunukan everything was in the town square.  Some places looked pretty dead, perhaps being more lunch places.  Others had too much deep-fried.

After a long walk, I settled on Ayam Geprek with sambal.  This was, of course, deep fried.  I should have gone for the Ayam Penyet which is fried without batter.  Ah well, once in a while won’t kill me.