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Borneo’s international sea crossing

Kuching to Tawau by flight I left home by Grab car at 0830.  The driver took an unusually long route directed by Google Maps getting me to the airport around 15min later than I had expected at 0915.  I had breakfast at the lounge before settling in to do some last minute work on the […]

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Hazy experience

It had been kinda depressing being with aunt.  Few years ago, she was still swimming 20 laps in an Olympic-sized pool but now she is barely walking.  I try to put it into perspective with the fact that she is 90 years old. Fortunately, my uncle (and aunt) from Christchurch dropped in and we went […]

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Dutch Old Town

I woke early today, kinda as a result from previous days’ sleep pattern.  I tried to skip a big breakfast and made do with a coffee and a bun before Grab’ing to Tawang station for my exploration of its Dutch Old Town around 0800. In general Indonesia doesn’t revere its colonial heritage, including architecture. And […]

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Onwards to Java

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 […]

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Ethnic cleansing in Borneo

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 […]

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Day 3 of Klotok Trip

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 […]

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Day 2 of Klotok Trip

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 […]

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Day 1 of Klotok Trip

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 […]

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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 […]

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Fixing plans gone bad

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 […]

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