WARNING: THIS BLOG POST MAY TURN YOUR EYES SQUARE

Apologies in advance for the length of this next post, but to fully convey our experiences in Kalimantan I didn't want to miss anything out. I advise you print out and read over a cuppa / your commute home, and hopefully it will be worth it!

From what we had heard, Kalimantan looked like it would provide us with some genuine off-the-beaten-track adventure and a chance to see a very different side of Indonesia to what we had seen so far. I was certainly curious, and having never even heard of Kalimantan before this trip, I had no idea that it occupies three quarters of Borneo, and is the less-visited neighbour of Malaysian Borneo. Simon knew a bit more about it from his previous travel through Indonesia - but the initial description of Kalimantan in our guide book was enough to entice us both: "Cut by countless rivers, Borneo's legendary jungle attracts the hardened trekker, the wildlife spotter and the pure adventurer alike." Although not sure about the 'hardened trekker' part, it certainly sounded like the right dose of adventure and exploration for us, so we decided this would be where we would spend the rest of our time in Indonesia.

We started in Balikpapan, described as Kalimantan's only cosmopolitan city and as at once both Asian and Western, with a heavy expat influence supposedly - although the only western faces we seemed to see where the ones in the mirror! Here we spent an afternoon trying to suss out our options for exploring Kalimantan - given its size and how underdeveloped Kalimantan is, and with river travel being as common as road travel, the transport / exploring options seemed slightly confusing and therefore the easiest we thought would be try and find a guide or expedition to link up with. However when we tried to search both the city and online for said tours or expeditions, the options were either very limited or incredibly expensive (eg a few thousand pounds for a week or so) particularly for Indonesia….but then you have to charter most transport on the river yourself hence the expense.

Undeterred, we moved on to a city further north, Samarinda, which is the gateway for travel up the Sungai (river) Mahakam and where we therefore thought might be easier to organise our next steps. The Sungai Mahakam is the second largest river in Indonesia (930km in length), and as the only major river with public transport all the way in to the heart of Borneo, is one of the big draws in Kalimantan by combining its use as a major highway, as well as "a cultural tour and wildlife spotting expedition". As we still hadn't found any suitable tour options to explore this jungle river, we decided that we would try and do it independently anyway, and maybe find some local guides along the way…as it is such a major highway, how hard could it be?

The first step was to head from Samarinda to Kota Bangun, a busy transport hub where upriver journeys generally began. We arrived in Samarinda to discover that there were no more buses leaving for Kota Bangun that day, so ended up spending the night in Samarinda. At the bus station in Samarinda we met Enrico and Licia, an Italian couple who had the same plans as us and were also hoping to head up the Mahakam - we all received the same sales pitch from a local guide hanging around the bus station, but again he seemed to be charging extortionate prices, so we decided to team up and tackle this river journey together. It was while walking through town with Licia and Enrico that the inevitable traveller-meets-traveller questions arose, that led to discovering eachothers' ages - it was encouraging to find out that they thought we were the same age we thought they were (around 25 - hurrah for us!) so we were surprised to discover that they were in fact 18 and 19 respectively, but what does age matter when you're both looking for the same sort of adventure?!

As such it was reassuring to board the bus to Kota Bangun the next day with both of them, knowing that we weren't the only crazy foreigners attempting to go upriver without a guide. Although maybe that initial bus journey was a sign of things to come: we'd made the grave mistake of not asking for seats near the front, so were lumbered with the back row of seats - HUGE mistake on an Indonesian bus, given the mix of dodgy roads and even dodgier bus drivers. In front of our new-found travel buddies I spent most of the 4-hour journey being sick out of the window, now a common theme after not being able to hold in my insides in front of our fellow travellers on the Indonesian boat trip from Lombok to Flores. New friends? Just excuse me while I vomit in front of you…My miserable state was only cheered up by a hilarious local woman sat in front of us who didn't seem quite with it, and who deemed it perfectly normal to stroke Enrico's leg throughout some of the journey, much to all of our amusement.

Once at Kota Bangun and on the Sungai Mahakam, we found a local guy who was willing to take us up river to the next port of call, Muara Pahu. Our transport there was a 'ces' - a motorized, wooden canoe powered by lawnmower engine attached to a propeller. Totally normal apparently. After the horrendous bus journey (for me anyway) I was slightly fearful of spending the next five hours going upriver in essentially a lawnmower-canoe hybrid, but thankfully this next leg of the journey was incident/vomit-free and with our eyes closed in the shade of the boat's awning, you could even imagine you were snoozing the afternoon away in an English summer's day in the garden - whilst the lawn was being mowed, very loudly.

It was actually a very interesting journey upriver, passing lots of riverside villages (consisting of houses on stilts), various tug boats pulling along huge mounds of coal - this being a big coal-mining area - as well as some industrial logging sites, which has sadly decimated a lot of the jungle in this area. We did even spot some wildlife - some cute-looking monkeys on the riverbanks, a crocodile and some beautiful birds (our language skills not being enough to ask or understand from the ces driver what type of birds they were).

We arrived in to Muara Pahu just as the sun was setting, enabling a lovely first visual impression of this little town that lined the side of a big curve on the Mahakam river, with a long boardwalk its main road, connecting one side of the town to another along the water's edge. Luckily the one 'losmen' (guesthouse) in town had its only two rooms available - basically the front rooms of a family home, but comfortable enough to rest after the day's travels. After deciding which of the two local 'restaurants' to have dinner at (family-run eateries whose menu options are chicken with rice or chicken with noodles), it's an early night for all of us, which is very welcome particularly for me as I had started to feel worse: with the start of what I though was a fever, I was beginning to worry that the sickness on the bus earlier was not just travel-related, but the signs of a life-threatening tropical illness, which would be just typical just as we had started a journey hours away from civilization. But I managed to try and will away any worries by putting all my confidence in an echinaccea tablet, a cold flannel on my forehead and Simon's reassurances that I would be just fine in the morning.

Something obviously worked and it was a relief the next day to wake up the next day with no signs of the worst case scenario, and I think it was the lie-in I had been craving (till 9.30am, whoop!) that cured whatever was lurking. We spent that day exploring around Muara Pahu, trying to find a guide, or indeed anyone that spoke English - both hard to come by. We ended up at a government office, hanging out in the reception area with the staff, none of whom seemed particularly busy but a couple did speak a bit of English. There ensued a comical attempt at conversation, with varying degrees of success: we tried to ask them about finding guides, while they tried to talk to the boys about football, as well as trying to chat up Licia, our pretty Italian friend, at the same time - I told myself that after all, she is 18, plus they must have spotted my wedding ring, right? It was all very entertaining, particularly when one of the younger men declared his undying love for Licia, by means of Google translate on his Blackberry.

Eventually we managed to arrange a tour of the local area by means of another 'ces', this one thankfully more comfortable than the last one and better equipped (eg cushions to sit on), and much easier on our travel-sore bottoms. This little expedition turned out to be surprisingly good, and was a huge relief being on the water again as hanging around town in the midday heat was proving to be hot work. We headed upstream, which was much quieter, with less activity and more wildlife. We saw the little grey monkeys and beautiful birds again, and our driver - who turned out to be a more than adequate guide even without any English - spotted a troop of proboscis monkeys hanging out in some trees on the riverbank. This turned out to be the highlight of the day: we sat and watched them quietly for ages, as they foraged and jumped from tree to tree above us, in the blissful silence without the lawnmower engine. Seeing these large, reddish-brown monkeys with their funny-looking faces was a real highlight, especially as they only live on Borneo and considered an endangered species. That and the fact that they are also very comical to watch and look at, particularly when they gave us the occasional flash of their curious-looking faces - which have unusually long, bulbous noses, reminding me of Gonzo from The Muppets - as well as their nether regions, making it easy to spot the males from the females.

We were back on dry land again at sunset, and now after 24 hours in this little village, we felt like local celebrities. Everyone would always call out a cheerful hello to us - or rather, a hearty "Hey Mista!", even to the girls - smiling women would bring out their children to look at and wave at us as we walked past….and of course there were some that just stared but mostly everyone would smile, say hello, and ask where we were from (or at least that's what we thought they were saying). A popular form of communication by the boys and men of the town included them shouting out random English football club names at us ("Man U! Liverpool! Chelsea!" Sadly no Spurs fans Dad…). It felt like time had stopped in Maura Pahu, with kids entertaining themselves with simple means - jumping off boats in to the water, throwing themselves down mud slides, chasing eachother round town….and yes there was the arcade with computer games too. But mostly we were struck by how helpful, happy and smiley everyone was, and we tried to return their efforts by learning some more key phrases in Indonesian Bahasa, which we soon learned became more and more useful the further upriver we went.

After dinner (at the second eatery in town) we waited with our bags packed for a boat due to arrive at Muara Pahu anytime from 9pm, and which would take us three quarters of the way to Long Bagun, the next stage we wanted to stop at up river. This boat, the 'kapal baisa', was a two-deck riverboat, the lower deck housing cargo, the kitchen, and a basic toilet (a hole in the deck) as well as some passengers who did/could not pay the premium of being above in the upper deck, which housed another 'dorm at sea' - a bigger version to the last one we had experienced, with 60+ mattresses lined up side-by-side…and not full of western backpackers this time, but just locals traveling up river too. A kindly member of crew who spoke some English found us some sleeping space, and I tried to immediately forget the massive cockroach I had seen on the steps to the upper deck.

Once we'd claimed some mattresses, the four of us headed outside to sit on the upper deck's balcony, which we soon realized was the best spot on the boat. There were only about half a dozen of us out there, sat on what felt like our own private viewing platform, admiring the night sky and the river, beautifully lit by a full moon. It was beautiful out there, the boat chugging upstream while the night time jungle noises filled the air, just about audible over the noise of the engine. It was so serene and magical, and felt so lucky to be experiencing it. I remember thinking at the time that it was certainly the most remote and rustic travel we had done yet, by ourselves at least, as our time in the other "most remote place', the Gobi desert, was with a guide…that was certainly a place you wouldn't and couldn't tackle by yourselves!

Of course it was not all smooth sailing - the boat was due to arrive in Tering (from where we would then take a speed boat the rest of the way to Long Bagun) at around 7-8am the next day, but due to a problem with the boat's rudder, we had to hang around for around 5 hours for it to be fixed. As we saw other passengers 'jumping ship' into smaller boats, we thought that maybe they knew something we didn't, however eventually whatever problem there was was fixed and we arrived in Tering in the afternoon. The next transport leg to Long Bagun was by speedboat, as the water at that time of year was too shallow for larger boats. This was a fun 4-hour ride up river, the scenery and vegetation changing quickly as we zipped past, the trees higher, taller and the forest more dense, with fewer inhabitants and villages. We even spotted a baby crocodile, and then when night fell it was again a beautiful, starry night, and made the last hour, in the dark, even more thrilling - can the driver see where he is going? Do we really want to know? Some questions are best left unanswered…

Once again there seemed to be one simple homestay in town, this one even more basic than the last (they don't seem to really do mattresses in this part of the world) and for some reason the owners not quite as welcoming as our previous hosts. While in search of dinner - nasi goreng maybe, for a change - we were forced to vary from our usual meal as it seemed Long Bagun has run out of rice, how very dare they!

The next day we took in what Long Bagun had in store for us - which as it turned out, was not much. It took us a while to take to this place, which had a very different feel to it to Muara Pahu which charmed us easily and quickly. Bigger than Muara Pahu, but still not consisting of much (two main / little streets instead of one), Long Bagun was not as well kept as MP, nor the inhabitants as smiley and friendly, and it was full of shops selling camping gear and rifles, the sort of items you didn't want to ask why they would sell them here. We spent the day once again wandering around, tentatively asking (again) for the elusive guides we thought would be around in these places, our search becoming more and more fruitless but sort of fun nonetheless...particularly when one such request was met with: "What are you doing here without a guide?" Good question.

We had noticed on our stroll that there were lots of cockerels tied up outside people's houses and shops, and see a few of the men picking up a few cockerels and holding them just within pecking distance of eachother, occasionally thrusting them into each other's line of fire - we soon worked out there was a cockfight the following Sunday, and that they are baiting the c*** (ahem) ahead of the fight - all of which added to my initial distaste for Long Bagun. However there were incidents - or rather people - that softened us towards this slightly odd place in the end….the kindly English teacher at the local school who showed us her home; the entourage of little children who followed us around the village, grabbing our hands; the cute daughters at the family homestay who seemed fascinated by my tapping on the laptop while I tried to catch up with blog writing; and then on saying goodbye, the grumpy (but also sadly very ill-looking) man of the house and homestay who, having barely given us a cursory glance during our stay, gave me a surprisingly affectionate squeeze on the arm and vigorous shake of the hand as we left. Or maybe he was just pleased to see the back of us!

On departure that day from Long Bagun it was also time to say 'ciao' to Enrico and Licia, as with another two weeks left in Indonesia they were carrying on upriver, to carry on their attempt to find a guide to take them trekking - but being both time and cash-poor (no ATMs around here) Simon and I knew that our Kalimantan trekking adventure had to come to an end, less trekking and more adventure than we first thought! This area is also where the famous 'Cross Borneo Trek' takes place. So we had completed the first third of the trek by boat and then the middle section would be to trek over the Muller Mountain range, to then end the final river section to the far west of Kalimantan. We may have to return one day to complete what we started…

The motorboat ride back to Tering was 3 hours this time, and in daylight we were able to further appreciate the passing riverside scenery. We'd been told that the kapal baisa downriver (all the way back to Samarinda) left from Tering at 11am, so we'd got an early speed boat around 8am to get there in time. You'd think we had learnt by now that 'the boat leaves at 11am' could mean anything, but we didn't envisage the 7-hour way wait until 6pm, mostly sat on a wooden bench on the side of the river, agonizingly boring and hot, with most of the locals finding everything we did (drink, read, talk) highly amusing. There were a few bits of excitement and diversion: we risked a quick lunch up in the nearby village, and then at one point a huge fish was caught, but that was literally it, for 7 hours, sitting waiting for a boat which we really, really hoped would turn up eventually…and of course everyone giving different estimations as to when they thought it would arrive. There is nothing like travelling in Indonesia to teach one the true values of patience and a sense of humour! Oh and one other plus: we did see a woman who looked like she was a Dayak - these are the native jungle people of Borneo, who originally populated Kalimantan, and whose culture - now fast-diappearing - included headhunting, extensive tattooing, stretched earlobes, blow guns and living in longhouses (horizontal apartment buildings big enough to house an entire village). With elements of their traditional culture in fast decline, visiting a traditional Dayak settlement seemed to be a main selling point for these elusive tours upriver, so seeing this woman with her huge stretched earlobes (the only sign we could discern she was Dayak, as there was no tattoo, blow gun, longhouse or scalp visible on her person) was interesting yet also satisfying in the 'we don't need a guide do we…' line of thought.

It was with huge relief that we finally boarded the boat, laid claim to two mattresses and then a spot out on the outer deck, much cooler than inside the 'dorm'. It was almost a 20-hour journey back to Samarinda, so this time we decided to try the dinner on board the boat, served in a tiny kitchen on the lower deck - chicken and rice again of course - but actually very tasty. We were sat right next to the massive engine of the boat, so any conversation attempts were drowned out but to be honest our chat - after 7 hours waiting for this boat on the side of a tiny dock - was probably not up to much anyway. We were obviously getting in to this boat travel malarkey as I also braved a shower the next day (got to love a bucket shower in your bikini in the 'toilet') and then the rest of the journey back to Samarinda was spent sat out on deck, watching the riverside become more populated and built up as we neared Samarinda.

By this point we were pretty desperate to get back to Balikpapan and check in to a decent hotel, so there was no fannying around with buses and we got a rare taxi back to Balikpapan, where we checked straight into the best budget-luxury option in town, which felt like a 5-star hotel to us after the last week.

Over dinner that night (NOT chicken and rice) we agreed that it had actually been a great week spent exploring the Sungai Mahakam, probably because it felt so adventurous, with foreigners obviously being rare and the feeling that most people would not tackle that sort of expedition independently. The friendly welcome we received from most of the local inhabitants was lovely to see, and it was very interesting also to see how they live in these remote, riverside villages on stilts. They are mostly surrounded by some beautiful scenery, but also sadly, huge amounts of rubbish, which doesn't seem to bother them. You couldn't also ignore the many coal barges and logging operations we saw, and with the knowledge that palm-oil plantations are forcing the Bornean jungle to recede, we were glad we'd had the chance to see what we had.

That is all for now....I think that is enough ;) Thank you readers, for getting this far….I promise the next post will not be so long!