Balikpapan to Pare Pare, Sulawesi
Anna's entry:
The only reason for coming to Balikpapan was to catch a big boat for crossing straight East from Indonesian Borneo to Sulawesi. Balikpapan is a wealthy town due to the discovered oil reserves, which comes with an attached price accommodation tag; there isn't actually that much to see there. We chose to stay away from the center to avoid tourists and get a better hotel rate. The hotel we found was actually pretty decent - old colonial building with inner court yard, balconies, and tables covered in table cloth! When we saw it from outside, we thought it would be pricey, but there were economy rooms available for around 10USD and that even included a better than usual breakfast (sticky rice in coconut curry gravy with vegetables). In the evening we ventured to get some food, there were lots of street stalls frying and cooking up quick eats. We lined up to try some deep fried breads and donut-like pastries. For some reason, the stall owner disregarded us at first, and he was quickly scalded by a local lady who told him to serve us up. Yes - that's a big difference between Indonesia and Vietnam - locals do stick up for you here. Anyway, the stall owner felt apologetic, and added an extra pasty for free. We also tried saute (presumably chicken) BBQ's pieces along with a peanut sauce, it was OK, but not that great.... And, for dessert we got martubak - a large thick fried pancake filled with chocolate sprinkles (Dutch influence) and sweet condensed milk. The latter was nice and feeling, for around .50 cents.
The next morning we headed out to the harbor to board the large Pelni boat for the overnight crossing to Sulawesi. The trip was supposed to be around 14 hours, however, the ship was delayed by about 4 hours, and over all the trip took about 20 hours. The Pelni ship experience deserves a special entry, and not a favorable one. The boat was grossly oversold by at least 300 passengers (profit justifies the danger); the life jackets were locked up (and there weren't enough of them any way); our assigned beds were taken by other passengers; the smoke veil was covering all decks; people were laying on the floor, on the stairs, on the deck - it looked like a sight after the war, or an over-booked Titanic. We tried to get our assigned seats back, but no one cared or helped. Eventually, I tracked down some officer in charge, and he motioned us to follow him. He brought is to the "Crew Only Area" - behind the closed doors there was an AC area, and we could sleep on the floor. That seemed like the best option at a time and we took it. We locked us backpackers to the rail, and settled for the night. The included in the ticket price food was horrible - plain rice with stinky fish head, or some other unknown part of the body. But at least, we did not have any smoke in our area. The bathrooms were far away - many did not have the actual toilet (not even the squat one), and I had to pee into the whole in the floor - a shower area. A lady helped me to figure some things out by pouring water into a plastic scoop and motioned me into a toilet stall. Luckily, I found a shower that was not broken, and I was able to wash away the pouring sweat off. When heading to a so called bathroom, I had to walk around people's bodies covering all the floor space, stepping over their heads, hands, legs; most of the stair cases were also covered in sleeping bodies. Shame on you Pelni company for over-selling the vessel by that many people, and potentially jeopardizing the lives! Only recently, the ferry between Malaysia and Indonesia sunk, and hundreds of oversold passenger drowned - no additional boats or life jackets. The greed for profit is disgusting, and the attitude is a demonstration of the 3rd world politics of ignorance and indifference. Shame on you, Pelni!
We were able to meet a very nice family when sleeping in crew quarters though, the kids really liked us, and kept visiting us. The lady of the family also was very sweet, and she even invited us to her brother's wedding. That softened our over-all experience.
We also had a very strange night visit. Around mid-night, a door to the crew quarters opened up, and a lady followed by a man walked in and sat down next to Rob sleeping on the floor. She began holding Rob's hands, hugging him, and calling him her father. I was more awake, and had to come to Rob's rescue. The woman eventually left, and we wandered if she was a prostitute, thieve, tried to plant something into Rob's pockets, or just crazy. Luckily, she was the latter, and we found out that she was disturbing everyone all night, by banging and shouting at people's cabins. In Indonesia there aren't apparently that many mental institutions, and the mental illness is in the care of the family. In this woman's case, her brother, who could only apologize for the actions of his mentally disturbed sister, and by just following her around the ship from deck to deck, from cabin to cabin...
Eventually the night was over, we reached the port of Pare Pare, and disembarked. After another couple of hours of waiting, we finally boarded a bus towards Tana Toraja - the unique area of Sulawesi known for its elaborate funeral and burial ceremonies... The details will be posted soon.
Waiting for a long delayed Pelni boat....
posted by Rob and Anna @ 11:16 PM
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