Author archive
17 June 2019
My new flight on Wings Air required an early wake up at 0515 for a 0730 flight to cross the water to Semarang in Java (via Pangkalan Bun). The driver, booked for 0600 was early for the short ride to the airport. I chatted with him and he told me about the Sampit Conflict, which […]
16 June 2019
Escaping the Kiwi winter in 2020 I woke earlier than I needed to. AirAsia had a sale but I hadn’t prepared myself for it. But I had this rough idea of using my free Air New Zealand ticket from Auckland to Seoul, then Buenos Aires to Auckland. The idea was that from Seoul I can […]
15 June 2019
I woke several times through the night and but I cope quite well with little or interrupted sleep. We set off for the our return journey after breakfast. Our itinerary says that we just go straight to port in the morning but Ita said we had a village visit. Not long after we started, we […]
14 June 2019
Feeding at Pondok Tanggui We set off at 0830 after breakfast for the 0900 feeding session at Pondok Tanggui. It took about 45 mins before a mum and a baby orang utan showed up. She was rather shy, taking some food and then retreating up to the branches above. Back on the klotok, we started […]
13 June 2019
All aboard! Last night, en route, I had messaged our boat organiser Dian to delay our pickup from 0900 to 1000. He messaged us to say that he would be at our hotel at 0930 but there would be no rush. We had breakfast at the hotel before readying ourselves for our 3d/2n klotok adventure […]
12 June 2019
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 […]
11 June 2019
Flying to Kalimantan Natalia and I had an 1145 flight from Kuching to Pontianak. The international side of Kuching airport doesn’t have many facilities to hang out in, so there’s no point to get to the airport too early. But with post-Raya congestion a possibility we decided to allow ourselves 2 hours plus plenty of […]
10 June 2019
Leaving Semarang I needed to sleep in today to adjust to Athens time in preparation. But the pre-dawn prayers around 0400 woke me up. Strange I didn’t hear them yesterday. I managed to sleep in till around 0800 with the curtains tightly drawn. I had a light breakfast of fruit and muesli, and did plenty […]
10 June 2019
This morning, I took Natalia to town to continue her walking tour of Kuching Old Town . It was basically the Carpenter Street, Tua Pek Kong and Main Bazaar area. In the afternoon, she continued with a visit to the Brooke Gallery while I had a swim at a nearby public pool. From what I’ve […]
9 June 2019
Because Natalia is part-Indonesian, I thought it would be good for her to get to know Bornean culture. After all, most of Borneo is in Indonesia. So we headed to the Sarawak Cultural Village at Damai. The place was a mess as it was undergoing renovations. There was a temporary entrance and the usual walkways […]