Makassar - Balikpapan - Kutai National Park - Derawan Island - Banjarmasin

Look at a map of Kalimantan and you can see there are not many roads, which should have given us an inkling. Forget India and Burma, travelling around Kalimantan has been the coup de grace to our wistful, wishful notions that we were now hardened backpackers ready for anything. Ah, hindsight.

We had an inauspicious start - buckled up and ready to take off at Makassar airport in Sulawesi, we were told our flight to Balikpapan had been cancelled. We were switched to another flight, but inevitably our bags weren't. They would 'maybe' arrive the next day, come back then, they said. So, a day in bally Balikpapan, a city that makes its money from oil. Dallas it ain't, but the mall does sell golf clubs and Ralph Lauren. We spend a night feeling miserable in a miserably damp hotel room after a meal of fried chicken and rice and skipped the hotel brekky (fried noodles) and opted for donuts instead.

And so 24 hours later it was back to the airport, and hallelujah, our bags were there. The ground crew were a bit bemused when we jigged for joy and fell upon our rucksacks like long lost relatives Off to the bus station where we squished into seats made for people the size of six-year-olds and sweated the two hours to Samarinda, where we found a hapless, and we would soon realise hopeless, guide to take us further north to Kutai National Park - one of the few places in the world where you can see orangutans in the wild. Not a cuddly photo opportunity at a rehabilitation centre this, rather a chance to see these magnificent creatures in their natural habitat. So a lot of traipsing around in the mud then.

We set off the next morning, ate lunch (fried chicken and rice) in Sangatta, boarded a canoe upriver and by 3 o'clock were on the first of many muddy forays into the park No joy the first day: fears that it would be an repeat of the Kumily elephant-chasing saga, where we spent two whole days with nothing more than the sight of steaming mounds of elephant poo to remember it by. But we kept our spirits high with cards and a couple of bottles of Kalimantan's finest whiskey (bought from a stash behind the counter at a kiosk in Samarinda. Unlike Sulawesi, where there is a sizable Christian population, Kalimantan is largely Muslim and booze is hard to come by), which we washed down with warm coke - a fine way to celebrate a 33rd birthday by the way, and also aids sleep on rock-hard beds.

We were staying at a basic former WWF lodge now used by orangutan researchers from a Japanese university a few months a year. When it's not being used by them, people like us can stay there. The park is all that remains of what once must have been a vast forest that stretched down Kalimantan's east coast. Logging - legal and otherwise - has taken its toll, even inside the park, and vast open cast mines line the roadside for miles around Sangatta. Its incredible how close the park is to the town and the mines, but its apparently home to around 700 orangutans. But then I suppose they have nowhere else to go.

First thing on day two, and we saw two big old boys high up in the branches eating and lounging around and doing whatever orangutans do. We watched them excitedly and they watched us nonchalantly for about 20 minutes. But then it rained and they sloped off to find some shelter and so did we. We went walking three more times that day and another couple of times the next morning but didn't see any more. Time to go, and we set off downriver back to Sangatta and - of course! - spotted a couple of orangutans in the trees, two little faces peering out at us as we speeded past, probably chuckling they were too.

A couple of buses a day pass through Sangatta on their way to Berau in northeast Kalimantan and we were dropped off at around 2 o'clock at a restaurant-cum-bus stop on a dusty corner of town, in time to eat (fried chicken, rice) before the 4pm bus. The bus didn't arrive until 6.30 and made a fleeting stop, enough time for two people to clamber aboard and find somewhere to sit, who knows where as it was packed, arms, legs and bags everywhere, there was no point even trying to get on. So back to waiting. The next bus came at 9pm. It didn't even bother slowing and rumbled past, arms and faces poking from windows. As the dust settled and we considered we'd now been waiting seven hours for a bus, we decided on plan B - a Kijang to Berau with the other hopefuls who'd been waiting. A Kijang is a Toyota people carrier, sort of half way to a 4X4. You can buy a seat or charter the whole car as an alternative to the bus. As always seems to happen whenever you realise need something in this country, one rolled up. We agreed a price and our luggage was loaded and went to eat again (fried chicken, rice...) before the journey.

When we trouped out we realised that the reasonably extortionate price we'd agreed (compared to what the locals would be paying) was for a place on benches in the back of the Kijang (this was a slightly older model and didn't have forward facing seats in the back) while more people than originally planned lounged in relative comfort up front. All day we'd had people sighing and nodding knowingly and being particularly vague when asked how long it would take for us to get to Berau, so we knew this wasn't going to be good. There was no way the four of us were going to spend the next 8+ hours hunkered knee-to-knee in the boot as our heads rattled the roof. At night. No deal. So we unloaded the luggage and traipsed across the road to a hotel on the other side of the dusty corner and resolved to start the whole charade again early the next morning.

By 8.30am we had managed to find someone willing to take us for the equivalent of about sixty-five pounds. Travelling in Kalimantan has not been cheap: there are so few tourists (we've seen maybe 20 other people in a week) that if for whatever reason you don't opt for the public transport option (time constraints, comfort, or the darn bus simply won't stop for you) you have to charter a car and often also a guide to take you and you're pretty much at their mercy in terms of the price. Anyway, we'd managed to knock about forty quid off the price and even if it wasn't quite as robust as a Kijang and was making rattling noises, by this point we were just thrilled to be leaving that dusty corner of town where we'd spent the last however many hours. We stopped to pick up some breakfast (donuts again, you've figured that people really like fried food in Kalimantan) and we were on out way.

And so it began. After around half an hour north of Sangatta we hit the first of dozens of potholes-cum-canyons that lay between us and Berau. What had maybe once been innocent looking holes the size of tennis balls in the tarmac had now become huge rocky crevasses and rivers of mud. In fact, it didn't even look like there'd ever been any road there at all at some places, maybe there hadn't. Looking again at the map in the Lonely Planet we saw that the road from Sangatta to Berau is distinctly dashed. Hmm. We spent most of the day slipping, sliding, scraping and skidding our way to Berau. I lost count of the number of times we had to get out to lighten the load or to push, bare feet in shin-deep mud so you didn't lose a flip flop. We had to be pulled out by a truck on three occasions (no road rage here, people are wonderfully polite and helpful. They have to be). The sun passed overhead. There were times I thought we simply wouldn't make it. The sun set. We spent an hour stuck behind a petrol truck that had wedged itself at 45 degrees in the mud and another couple of hours waiting for two lorries carrying a vast logs to get past each other. At 2am, after seventeen hours, we limped into Berau with the exhaust hanging off and distinctly more clanking coming from under the bonnet than when we'd set off. We did give the driver a very big tip.

Berau sits at confluence of two rivers. It is an old place but like Balikpapan, its wealth these days stems from the minerals under the rich Kalimantan soil: mountains of coal are lugged downriver through the town by fat little tugs. We were there because it's (just!) two and a half hours away (Kijang, speedboat) from the tiny island of Derawan. It's not a secluded island by any stretch - the village stretches round half the island, and out over the sea on stilts - but it's a little paradise in its own way.

Green turtles spend their nights laying their eggs on the quiet side of the island and their days munching sea grass in the shallows around by the village. We had a room on stilts over the sea (board and meals all in for about four pounds each a day, breakfast was homemade donuts, then it was rice and fish all the way. I know barracuda and red snapper sounds like heaven but twice a day, every day?) and could roll out of bed each morning to see eight, ten, sometimes more, turtles munching and mooching around in three feet of water like a little herd of miniature, seaworthy cows.

We spent our days snorkelling - with the bigger turtles you could come so close you could have touched them while they carried on grazing, indifferent, and there was also a nice little reef a short swim away. The diving was OK on the island - we have been spoilt by Bunaken, everything else is just 'OK' now, and it turned out that many of the better dives were an expensive boat trip away. But the snorkelling alone was enough. We made a couple of trips out to Sangalaki island and on our second attempt swam next to two huge Manta rays, not the biggest around at about three metres, but they still seemed pretty huge (the elephant curse had been well and truly lifted - not everybody sees mantas at Sangalaki these days). We also swum in the very surreal Jellyfish Lake on Kakaban Island, and its name pretty much says it all really - a lake full of (harmless) jellyfish, some the size of your little fingernail, the others the size of a honeydew melon, all squilching their way in every whichever direction, so weird to feel them on your skin (and up your shorts).

One night we went out with the island's resident turtle guardian to see if we could find a turtle who was laying her eggs. The eggs are considered a delicacy in the region and so the guard waits for the turtles to lay the eggs before digging them up and reburying them in a safe spot where they can hatch. We waited an hour, but we - and the turtle - were thwarted by a troupe of holidaying Indonesians who impatiently tramped all over the beach, torches flashing (turtles can't lay if there's any light), and the poor thing fled back out to sea. Yet another example of the conflict between the environment, tourism and the needs and wants of people in Indonesia.

Like the catches from dynamite and cyanide fishing, a practice which has left dead grey scars all over coral around Derawan and in the Togeans in Sulawesi, some of the turtle eggs are sent to the local markets but others go on to restaurants, mostly in Hong Kong. Dynamite fishing is illegal and destroys coral that has taken thousands of years to grow, but it means quick money for a poor fisherman. We had heard the telltale distant booms on a dive in the Togeans. The turtle guard had tried to convince the tourists not to disturb the turtle but they wouldn't listen; this week Derawan is hosting some events in Indonesia's national equivalent of the Olympics, and with 8,000 people descending on the island, life for the turtles will surely get worse.

Fred and Lucy left Derawan before us - they had arrived in Indonesia earlier than us and had to leave before their visa expired. They are now no doubt gorging on mountains of lamb chops and guzzling gallons of wine in New Zealand. There are a lot of things I will miss about Indonesia - the sky, the natural beauty of the place, and the overwhelming friendliness of the people, which has been a little taster of what it must be like to be famous. Car drivers slow, motorcyclists swerve, people stop dead in the street and turn towards us and chorus: "Hello Mister" or "Mrs!" or "Whereyoufrom?" oh, at least thirty times a day, and anyone who is not moving too quickly usually want to shake hands too.

But the food here is not top of my to-be-missed list. Many of our conversations sound like extended versions of those M&S ads. "Hot bubbly cheese on granary toast, with a bit of brown sauce". "A bacon sandwich". "No, no, bangers - butchers best Lincolnshire with mashed potato and graaavy". "Or: huge fluffy baked potatoes with buuuutter dripping down the sided and cheese and saaaalaaad"... Particularly on Derawan, where our sole vegetable intake was some sad-looking cabbage usually fried up with a little garlic, veggies have been few and far between.

I can safely say that our jaunt in New Zealand will be entirely chicken and rice free. I also won't miss the noise here. Indonesians have a very different relationship with noise than we do. They get up at the crack of dawn and so what if those lazybones are still in bed? And, you see, I'm not actually sitting in an internet cafe right now, I am sitting in a gaming centre that happens to also offer internet access, and there are 20 or so other people in here all playing computer games in separate booths with the volume up nice and high. The result is, well, a hideous mix of some sort of Celine Dion-esque Indonesian tunes combined with thumping house music, various crashes and bangs and the thup thup thup of machine guns.

We are in Banjarmasin. Our journey down from Berau was better than the one up, marginally. We flew down to Balikpapan on a little propeller plane and it took about 30 minutes to fly over ground it had taken 17 hours to cover on the way up. You could see why it was so hard - rivers and hills and trees (or scrubby patches where trees had once been) as far as they eye could see.

From Balikpapan, we had another hellish night bus journey, as the only seats left for the 15-hour slog were at the back, on bolt-upright seats that were roasting on account of being slap bang on the engine. Plus space meant for five was used by six people and we were packed in thigh-to-thigh like sardines in a very large can. Our worst night bus, but our last.

Banjarmasin is a city of canals, and although it's no Venice or Amsterdam, its waterways are in their own way beautiful. They are packed with wooden houses and if you take a boat through just before sunset you'll see everyone out washing themselves, their clothes, just hanging out on their back steps. We dragged ourselves up before dawn yesterday to see the floating market and breakfasted from Banjarmasin's answer to Starbucks - a floating cafe selling tea, coffee and cakes all set out on plates that you chose by using a pole with a hook on the end.

We also went to some diamond mines (where three of the biggest diamonds ever found were discovered, apparently), a place straight out of the Wild West where hundreds of people spend their days panning and digging in the scorching heat the hope of a big find. Tomorrow we fly to Jakarta and then on Sunday we fly to Sydney, where we will spend a whopping 24 hours (not ideal, there were problems with the tickets when we changed our dates to give us more time in Malaysia) and catch up with Fred and Chris's friend John and maybe take in a sight or two, before heading on to Christchurch. And Food Heaven. But right now it's lunchtime, no need to say what that means.