Days 153 – 154: Samarinda

Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060553&l=0bdd6&id=1101094

I caught a mid-morning flight from Jakarta to Balikpapan, a large port city in East Kalimantan. For those of you who haven’t a clue where East Kalimantan is, it’s the eastern part of the Indonesian side of Borneo, the world’s fourth largest island. Kalimantan makes up well more than half of Borneo, and East Kalimantan is the biggest province on the island. Balikpapan is the oil capital of the island; flying in, I was greeted by oil rigs anchored offshore and an oil refinery dominating the city’s skyline. Balikpapan is also an unattractive metropolis dedicated almost solely to the oil industry, so I caught a minibus from the airport to the bus station and caught a bus to Samarinda, effectively bypassing the city.

The bus to Samarinda was particularly uncomfortable; it was packed full of people and I had to carry my backpack on my lap, and halfway through the three hour ride the curvy roads induced vomiting in the child sitting next to me. I held my feet a few inches above the ground for the remainder of the trip to keep from stepping in semi-digested nasi goreng.

I arrived at the Samarinda bus terminal and caught an ojek (motorbike) into the center of the city, where I found a cheap guesthouse and dropped my pack. A man who worked at my guesthouse was also a tour guide, and he began trying to sell me on a trip up the Mahakam River. I did want to venture up the river, but I was considering trying to do it on my own because the guided trips were quite expensive, especially considering I was traveling on my own. But I’d heard that it was tough to see much without a guide, so I listened to the guy’s spiel and told him I’d think about it and get back to him in the morning.

I walked down to the river to catch the day’s last rays of sunlight and observed the strange mix of logging ships, barges carrying shipping crates, and local fisherman sitting on the docks with their lines in the water. Samarinda, a town of 600,000 and the center of Borneo’s timber industry, seems to be caught between its traditional role as a fishing town and its future as a major port and logging capital. Luckily the latter hasn’t yet completely pushed out the former.

I walked past the town’s main mosque, Mesjid Raya Darussalam, which is quickly being overshadowed by the construction of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque just a few kilometers down the riverbank. I passed the new mosque on the way into town, and it certainly is grand. I guess taxes from the timber industry are paying for it.

That night I ate dinner at a local Indonesian restaurant, and I must admit that I’m running out of Indonesian dishes to try. Aside from variations on the standard nasi goreng (fried rice), mie goreng (fried noodles), gado gado (vegetables and peanut sauce), and chicken sate (chicken on a skewer in peanut sauce), there really aren’t a whole lot of Indonesian foods available at these basic restaurants that I frequent. I am, however, looking forward to the giant orange freshwater shrimp that live in the Mahakam River. I’m hoping to try them on my trek upstream.

The following morning I explored the city a bit, but there wasn’t a whole lot to see beyond the bustling riverfront and the main mosque. I stopped by a shopping mall for a bit, and I was surprised at how upscale all the products were. Apparently the timber industry has created a good deal of wealth in this city, because the mall was packed with people buying goods that I wouldn’t have expected the average Indonesian to be able to afford.

That afternoon I called another tour guide who was listed in my book, and as luck would have it he was taking a British father and son up the river the following morning and said I could join the tour. That would make the trip far cheaper for me, and hopefully a lot more fun, too.

By about noon the weather was intolerably hot (after all, Borneo does straddle the equator), and I retreated to my room for some reading and writing. A shower was out of the question, though, mostly because for the most part Indonesians don’t have showers. Instead, they have mandis, and that’s what my guesthouse room was equipped with. A mandi is essentially a large container of stagnant water that is dumped over the body with a ladle. It’s surprisingly refreshing, especially when it’s flaming hot outside, but one doesn’t get the feeling that he’s getting particularly clean. I’m not sure when my next real shower will be, but you can rest assured that it will be a very long one.

That evening I met my tour guide, Suryadi, and my two fellow travelers, and we planned to set off at eight the next morning. And that night I got to sample the giant freshwater shrimp a little early, at a restaurant in town that I stumbled upon. Called udang galah, the shrimp are prepared in a number of ways, but I had them in a spicy red sauce. The only trouble that was the shrimp were still in their shells, so I had to stick my hands in the hot sauce to peel the shells off, which left my hands both burned from the heat and covered in sauce. It crossed my mind that maybe I was supposed to eat the shrimp with the shell still on, but unfortunately there were no locals eating the same dish as me so I couldn’t figure out the proper etiquette. I’d have to ask Suryadi the next morning.

One more thing about this place: I’m once again a spectacle. I get stares from passing cars and motorbikes, “Hey Misters” from kids, and curious glances from their parents. Clearly, tourists here are rare; the Brits I’m traveling with starting tomorrow said they’ve been in town for a week and hadn’t seen another Westerner until they met me. They were especially shocked to be meeting an American. “We figured Americans didn’t even know where this place was!” they said. Have I mentioned the great sense of pride one gets from being an American in Southeast Asia?