Above: Itinerant fresh food vendor on motorcycle on our drive near Pemangkat.
Our driver Jie To messaged me yesterday asking if we could “prepone” our departure to Kuching from 0700 to 0400, as he expected long queues at the border.
We consulted the others and the response ranged from “No problem” to “No”. Other people may have the same idea and the success of such a strategy may be limited. So, we agreed on a 0600 departure, to which Jie To said, 0530 from Hotel Singkawang and soon after from Hotel Verisha.
We also had a change of driver, Eko Gunawan. He picked us up at 0620, which was getting on to our preferred time of 0700 rather than Jie To’s final time of 0530. But this gave all of us plenty of time to answer the call of nature before the ride which would have very questionable toilets en route.
The ride today was a bit longer, with a detour through Pemangkat. There were many lion dance troupes on the road and some of them ended up in Pemangkat for performances.
Rice fields near Pemangkat.
We had plenty of interesting conversations along the way amongst ourselves and with Eko. For example:
- Habibah was told by her Mum that if she ever got lost in the jungle, just turn her dress inside out and she should find her way back.
- Eko said that during the Year of the Pig, local Muslims do not take issue with many pig statues around the town. They take pride in being a tolerant society.
Around 0940, which is about 3h20 after departure, we arrived at the same eatery where we had stopped on our first day. It was a short drive afterwards to the border, getting to the Indonesian checkpoint at 1020.
Again, the Indonesians checked my vaccination before allowing me to go through immigration where I was asked once again to confirm my name.
We go to the Malaysian side at 1045 West Indonesian Time or 1145 Malaysian time where things took a slower turn. There was a long queue, comprised of mainly Indonesians. Us four Malaysians managed to get ourselves fast-tracked by popping our passports into the window. This assistance resulted in a request for coffee money (not persistent) by the queue comber, rather than immigration.
Unfortunately, we still had to sit patiently and wait for the Brit and American in our group. Even though we were done at 1155, we waited till 1325 for them to be cleared.
We arrived at Siang Siang Corner at 1520, about 2h after we cleared immigration completely. We had tried to get the driver to deliver us to our apartment but it was a 45 min detour and being his first driving duty to Kuching, he was reluctant.
I ordered a vehicle for Tim, Elena, Richard and Habibah to go back to the apartment by Grab as they’re older and less familiar with such apps. A vehicle turned up immediately.
I ordered myself one on Maxim (as concurrent rides are not possible on Grab), which was usually cheaper, and it turned out a little costlier and required a 20+ min wait! Sometimes doing things for people comes at a price and inconvenience.
With such a long wait, I sat down and ordered a coffee and snacks that I hoped would fix my brewing neckache which I sometimes get when I get hangry. My driver ended up to be great conversation but he didn’t believe that I was local since I sounded so Indonesian.
He was very impressed that I speak the Malay language reasonably well. I think I did a favour to race relations today by impressing him. I eventually got dropped off at my apartment at 1620.
[Edit: I ended up having a bad neckache on the right side of my neck that lasted a whole week.]