Where Is Ron?
Indonesia: 30 November 2010 - 15 March 2011
Ron as dragon, Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia, January 2012
Borneo
Afton, Virginia, USA
27 February 2012Dear family and friends,
Our unseasonably warm February continues, with the long-range forecast being for more of the same. I'm told it is the 9th warmest winter since record-keeping began. Today I raked mulch off of the long row in the garden where I am going to plant early things (four kinds of lettuce, and spinach, mustard, and kale) so the ground can dry out a bit. My intent is to plant the seeds at the end of this week (I work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays).
Love to all,
Ellen
Boat trips from Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia to Tawau, Sabah, Malaysia
Tawau, Sabah, Malaysia (on the island of Borneo)
27 February 2012Hello, my dear,
Your weather is unbelievable for a February. What will the rest of the year be like?
I could never get the Nook reader to work on my smart phone because it requires a US IP address to download the app to the phone. I have tried a couple of other readers but they won't work on the Barnes & Noble books so I am still looking for a work-around. So most of my reading is done on my netbook, and only pdfs and public epub books on the phone. Currently I am reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.
Tonight I am taking the night bus to Kiki (Koto Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia). The bus has AC and looks comfortable and modern. Last night I went to the bus area where there must have been more than a dozen buses lined up getting ready to make the overnight trip. There were several different bus companies so I looked over the selection and choose one that looked the best.
The food here in Tawau has been really good, if more expensive. I have a very nice hotel for about $26. The fish market was spectacular. The town center is rather compact, with most of the hotels clustered in one area. I have been able to walk everywhere I needed to go. All the transportation links are also in the same general area. The days have been hot and humid but the evenings are most pleasant.
I can see Sebatik Island across the water from Tawau. The island is half Malaysian and half Indonesian. Finding information about the Island has been rather difficult. This morning at 6:30 I got up and walked to the Batu Jetty to watch the boats go and come to see if I wanted to use one to the island to plan a more adventurous route back. There were lots of small boats carrying a few people and lots of cargo, but there were also two larger passenger boats carrying 50 or more people each. So it looks possible. I was told the fare was 10-15r, which would be $3-5. All my other visits to the Jetty to find information only yielded guys wanting to charter a boat for me at up to $50-75.
The boat trip from Makassar to Nunukan was long. Three days and two nights. The food was ... what can I say. Dried fish, small pieces of chicken, some greens, some things I could not identify which were fried. Let's say I didn't put on any weight on the trip.
I started off in third class with a room with 6 bunks, 4 occupied. Shower and toilet down the hall. A lockable clothes locker. The room was hot. Food as described above. There was a woman who ate with us who had her own similar room. She became my friend (and I became another adopted grandfather figure). She gave me a couple cups of dried noodle soup and a package of bread with chocolate in the center. She was going to visit a sister who was in the hospital in Borneo and at the same time was fleeing from an abusive husband who beat her. Each time he did so, she took off for a couple of weeks before returning. The next morning before she got off in Balikpapan she helped me upgrade to first class for an additional $20 and I splurged. Got my private cabin with shower and toilet, a nice desk, a TV and it felt cooler. The food was somewhat better. But in my cabin I could make hot tea (with my electric coil) with lemon and sugar I had brought with me to go along with my noodle soup. In the first class restaurant there were only two passengers eating. The other person was a single Indonesian woman going to Malaysia who also filled my role of granddaughter, even if she was quite a bit older. She could speak some English and we could talk. Mostly we ate together. When we got to Nunukan, she was met by a relative with his own peti peti and they took me to a hotel and got me settled before she disappeared. She and her driver returned in the evening and took me to a nice fish restaurant overlooking the sea. Of course I paid. The next time I saw her was two days later when she picked me up and took me to the boat dock for Tawau, which I had already checked out and figured out the when, how etc. The second night I returned to the same restaurant and tried ordering the sweet and sour fish (the first night along with the grilled fish, we had sweet and sour shrimp), but could not figure out which of the menu items was sweet and sour - and the waitress could not understand anything I said. So I called my friend on the phone and she gave me the words for sweet and sour.
This grandfather role is not bad but I really don't like admitting I am that old. There have been several guys who have also been friendly, could speak a little English, and have been helpful. Remember I met Nasrul [the gold miner] on a boat to Medan. But generally the guys speak less English and don't stick around like the women. Also some couples have been friendly but they don't include me as much in their circle. And there have been no other travelers on the boat.
I wandered around the ship talking to people and seeing what was available. On the top deck there was a cafe with loud videos on a TV screen, there was a theater with rather racy movies in the evenings, some live music with singers in the restaurant in the evenings, a spectacular sunset the first night which just spread and spread across the sky (not so the second night). The lower decks were the economy class, rows and rows of platform bunks next to each other with families, couples, singles, children all together in the open spaces. It was hot and humid. I considered how different it was from my accommodations, especially the second night, and felt guilty. I suspect many of the people in economy class had no idea what first class was really like. Perhaps I am showing and feeling my age more as I spurge for more comfort and privacy.
The boat trip gave me a chance to catch up on my sleep, reading, and email, even if I could only connect to the Internet when we were in or near ports. The days went quickly and I was well rested. The boat trip from Nunukan to Tawau was easy and quick, passing through Malaysia customs very quickly and then having to wait on my Indonesian friend and guide for quite a long while.
Now I am ready to hit the road again and plan on traveling fast and far, and then more slowly work my way back. Years ago I would have also liked going on treks through the jungle and climbing mountains and volcanoes ... but now I just enjoy hearing others talk about their adventures.
Last night I had dinner with a Canadian couple I met in my hotel lobby where there is wi-fi access. We went to dinner at an open air seafood restaurant towards the sea, ending up in the same restaurant I had dinner in the night before because it was the busiest, best lit, and best looking display of live fish, shrimp, crabs, lobster, and several other forms of seafood. Not cheap but excellent service, presentation and wonderfully prepared fish, shrimp and fiddleheads (greens similar to our fiddle-head ferns). The first night I had a large sweet and sour red snapper with rice that was delicious - but three times as expensive as the one I had in Nunukan.
My new friends, Duane and Silvia, are preparing for a week long trek into the pristine rain forest jungles of Borneo. I envy their sense of adventure but don't mind not joining them. They are carrying their own dried food supply and will still be paying a bundle for the trek including their guides, arrangements, permits etc. I look forward to hearing their stories and will post a link when I get their report. You can check out their web page at nomadicvisions.com We spent some more time today over iced lemon tea, hot coffee, and lemon water telling stories. I am now sitting in the hotel lobby where they have wi-fi and will send this before I leave to have dinner before catching the overnight bus to Kiki.
I read on the Internet about how to go from Kiki to Brunei in a day and realize I could top that with how to go from Tawau to Brunei in a night and a day but don't think I will do it. Certainly returning from Brunei I will be traveling at a slower pace looking for adventure - but not trekking.
Love and miss you,
Ron
Afton, Virginia, USA
5 March 2012Dear Family and Friends,
Ron suggested I wait until he got to Tarakan Island in the Indonesian part of Borneo to send this, which I did - but when he sent it to me again from Tarakan (saying he wasn't sure if it had been sent or not) I decided to go ahead and send it to the list. I'd thought he might be going to add something from Tarakan, but I guess that will be a separate message. He's talking about possibly coming home earlier than the planned 30 March, but I'm not counting on it really happening.
No one really believed the weather forecast of snow for this morning (after all, the temperatures have been unseasonably warm), but sure enough, we had 3-4 inches (8-10 cms) between 6 and 11 a.m.this morning. It isn't going to last long, however - the sky has cleared, the temperature is in the low 40s F (6-7C) and, at about 2 p.m., there has already been significant melting. And tomorrow it is supposed to be 50F (10C).
I haven't yet planted the seeds I'd hoped to get in at the end of last week. It rained last Wednesday and again on Saturday and the ground is too wet. Maybe at the end of this week!
The company providing our internet (broad band over the power line) had notified us 4 days before Ron left that they were going out of business. They said the signal would be available through the end of January - but, much to everyone's surprise, it stayed active until 29 February. Now, however, I have only dial-up, which is very, very slow: it took me 25 minutes to check my bank account to make sure a deposit had been posted! First order of business when Ron gets home will be to figure out the best option for a new ISP.
Love to all,
Ellen
Brunei and Labuan
2 March 2012Hello, my dear -
I must admit I am bored and tired and ready to come home. Maybe I will come early. And this report will not be very interesting for anyone to read. I suggest you skip it, and wait till I get to Tarakan.
Now I am on my way out of Malaysia and on my way back to Indonesia and will make my next travel plans after reaching Tarakan Island.
I am back on Labuan (Malaysia) after returning from Brunei, which I would not rate as a great destination unless you are interested in the native rain forest (but then I only allowed a couple of days so how can I say I have really seen anything) and will try to catch a ferry back to Kota Kitabalu and then a bus back to Tawau to catch a ferry direct to Tarakan.
Travel is like a card game, with a lot of chance involved. And so far the cards dealt this time have not been spectacular. The travelers I meet continue to be fascinating, and far more traveled than I.
Arriving in Brunei by ferry from Labuan Island, which was a very easy, comfortable and uneventful trip by ferry from Kota Kitabalu, I walked out of the ferry port, put my jacket away which I had to use because of the strong air conditioning, ignored the taxi touts, and continued walking along what appeared as the main way out. Before arriving at a secondary road I saw a bus pass and guessed it might be a while until another one arrived, so I continued walking, and following the signs to Bandar Seri Begawan until I reached a main road. I got picked up by a friendly guy who spoke English. He stopped at a resort for me to see it, and then at a museum to show me a model he made for the museum of the ancient Brunei game called Basang before dropping me at the hostel. His partner is making a computerized version of the game for hand phones.
The hostel was not very crowded and I had a room to myself for 10 Singapore Dollars. The Brunei currency and the Singapore currency are inter-changeable on a one to one basis.
Met an Italian at the hostel and we went to explore the city. Heading for the water and seeing a couple of large mosques in the distance, we continued to follow the water's edge until we noticed someone leaving the road and crossing a small wooden bridge in the direction of the mosque we wanted to see. So we took the little wooden bridge path, which connected to others and continued for what felt like a couple of miles. We had discovered the floating village I had read about. The pleasant surprise to me was the large number of potted plants in front of many of the houses, including orchids, many kinds of cacti, and other flowering plants. I found the cacti in a floating city over water to make an interesting contrast. In the evening we found a restaurant cooking Indian bread on a grill, we bought some and then went down the road to where a young lady was grilling chicken satay on sticks over coals. It rained in the evening so we headed back to the hostel where there were maybe a dozen other travelers.
Labuan Island (Malaysia) is a free port city and draws a lot of international traffic, easy to get around, with lots of excellent seafood restaurants. Cool in the evenings with lots of nightlife but hot and humid during the day. It made for a very easy trip to Brunei.
Now I am headed back to Tawau to catch a ferry to Tarakan Island, still on my search for a beach paradise where I can just sit and read for a few days.
As I have been writing this message I have had to quit to catch the ferry to Kota Kinabalu and am now in a restaurant near the ferry terminal at Point Jesselton in Kota Kinabalu and must rush to catch an overnight bus back to Tawau.
So good bye until I reach Tarakan. My usb modem has not worked in Malaysia and I am using wifi hot spots as I go along and will now send some of the messages I have been holding.
Love and miss you. And who knows, I may come home early.
Ron
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Last updated: 22 May 2012
