Stories From Borneo (1)
I’ve just arrived from my journey to Borneo. I got so many experiences and stories, but i’ll keep it as simple as i can =p
Monday, May 8th, 2006, 8:30am WIB, i departed from Juanda Airport, Surabaya with two of the main contractor representatives: my friend Alex as the project site manager, and other one named Mr. Adi as the main manager.
The flight required about 50 - 60 minutes from Surabaya to Banjarmasin, and at approximately (i didn’t wear any watch, and my cellphone was off because of the regulation) 9:30am WIB (10:30am WITA) i arrived at Samsudin Noor Airport, Banjarmasin. Well, there’s a different timezone between Surabaya (WIB time zone) and Banjarmasin (WITA time zone), where’s WITA was 1 hour ahead WIB.
Samsudin Noor Airport, Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan (Click the picture)
From the airport, we continued with a car from a travel agent and went to Tanjung city (Tanjung town if i can say, because it was very small town compared to the towns in Java). But before that, we went to Alex’s house at Banjarmasin.
I met Alex’s wife: Fefe, his niece: Yaya and his mother there. Well, i were surprised that Fefe was already pregnant for 8 months now, and approximately she will give a birth at June 2006. But my bad, i didn’t take any picture of them =(.
After we ate and finished some business, we continued our travel.
We were going through Banjarmasin-Banjarbaru-Martapura-Rantau-Kandangan-Barabai-Amuntai and Tanjung. (See map below)
Map of South Kalimantan (Click the picture)
Actually there’s still another towns, such as: Batulicin, but they’re to small and were not listed in the map. (fyi, the towns length was only +/- 2km each, not to mention the villages =p).
It required about 5 - 6 hours to travel from Banjarmasin to Tanjung, so we arrived there about 6:00pm WITA. There, i lived in a rent house (rumah kontrak), +/- 6km from the Tanjung town and +/- 6km from the project site.
Our rent house (Click the picture)
Most of the houses there still using wood for the structures, the walls and the partitions, some were combined it with ceramics for the facade (included our rent house) and for the roof, they use some materials called "sirap". Only few were use concrete and brick for the wall. +/- 80% of the area was still forests, still nature if i can say.
My duty there was to survey and search the materials, tools, and another equipments required for my work. Well, actually i only need 1 day to do it all, but because one and another reasons, i needed 1 and half days.
At my free time, i rent an "ojek" (you know, it’s a motorcycle that were rented for anyone who want to paid them), it’s the only main public transportation there.
At first, i tought i’ll need many time exploring the town, but, in fact i only needed less than 1 hour exploring all the city =p. But don’t think there’s nothing in this town, you won’t believe me, there’s a digital printing facility, hotel, and the most surprising, there’s a "what-they-called-mall"….wow!!
So if i can say, this is a town with the nuance of village =p.
Hahaha….i didn’t lie, but as you may know, except the digital printing, the others was only a name. The hotel was actually an inn and the what-they-called-mall was a two stories traditional market building, only at the 2nd floor they sell DVDs, VCDs, bags, t-shirts and jeans =). That’s why they named it "mall".
Another fact i got, previously this town was the base of the Pertamina oil and gas mining in Kalimantan, but as the time goes by, one by one of the mines were closed, but there’s still some were operated. There’s also a monument at the municipality (kabupaten) gate at the artery road (the main road that connected between two or more provincies) junction. There’s a text written at the monument: "Kabupaten Tabalong" (fyi, Tabalong was the municipality there) and there’s also a torch on the top of the monument. The torch was connected directly to the gas mine so the torch’s fire will always be burned, and the local people said, if it’s no longer burned that’s mean the gas is already used up. (You know the meaning).
I’ll continue in the next post.
