Travelling through East Kalimantan to experience Balikpapan and Samarinda

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The morning traffic in Balikpapan city.

TRAVELLING to Kalimantan for the first time earlier this month had been a little daunting for me. I had never been there before despite living most of my life on the same island where this Indonesian province is situated.

A trishaw operator taking a break in Pontianak city.

For the trip on Sept 8, I was joined by Utusan Borneo journalist Saibi Gi and Utusan Borneo Sabah editor-in-chief Lichong Angkui on board a 40-minute flight from Kuching to Supadio in Pontianak.

The sky was rather hazy when we arrived and my first thought was, like it or not, I would be spending the next six days in Kalimantan, a place I had hitherto heard so little about.

As the passengers exited the arrival hall, I grabbed my backpack, and together with Saibi and Lichong, headed to the immigration counter and the luggage carousel.

All international passengers must go through customs despite having nothing to declare. I thought the process would be a breeze but I was wrong. We lined up for about 20 minutes before my luggage was x-rayed and a young officer behind the screen started squinting his eyes and gave me an odd look.

He hand-signalled to his colleague that my luggage needed checking. I lifted my bag off the conveyor belt and pushed it towards a table with a metal top. Right beside the table was an elderly woman whose opened luggage revealed three loaves of bread and an array of everyday clothes.

“What’s the matter,” I asked one of the officers who cracked a smile and told me to unlock my luggage in Bahasa Indonesia. I complied, feeling rather amused.

The governor’s office in Samarinda.

The officer politely asked to go through my belongings and I nodded.

East Kalimanatan governor Isran Noor.

He paused momentarily on seeing a souvenir for the East Kalimantan governor Isran Noor whom we were going to meet on Sept 10 in Samarinda.

The Samarinda Islamic Centre Mosque.

The keepsake was a hand-woven Penan basket placed inside a fragile transparent plastic case almost like a small aquarium. I kept a spare shoe under the case to cushion any impact or knocks in case the baggage handlers pitched and flipped over my luggage during clearance.

The customs officer quickly pulled out the plastic bag and flashed a smile. Why the smile, I asked, and he told me his colleague thought I was smuggling a live fish into Kalimantan! An honest mistake I presumed. He apologised and we ended with a brief conversation and a mutual “thank you” as I made my way out of the arrival hall.

Outside, I was greeted with concerned looks from my two colleagues who thought I was getting into a pickle with the customs officers. They burst out laughing when I told them what happened.

We took a cab to a hotel in town, passing through the main streets en route for a first glimpse of Pontianak City. Shophouses could be seen selling everyday necessities — and occasionally bottled RON95 fuel.

Some 30 minutes later, after much honking and zig-zagging through hundreds of motorcycles, the taxi reached the hotel, only for us to be told by the front desk lady our rooms were not ready.

She explained guests at the wedding party on the night before had decided to extend their noon checkout time. I looked at my wristwatch – it was 3 pm (Malaysian time) whereas the clock above the front desk showed 2 pm (local time).

“Just great,” I thought.

There was a time difference but I didn’t know how to change the settings of my digital watch.

Leaving our luggage at the front desk and after using the hotel’s free Wi-Fi, we went to a nearby shop to buy a local SIM card for Internet data.

We entered a typical phone shop and bought seven gigabytes for a week’s coverage at only IDR40,000 (RM12). It was fortunate we decided to walk further down the street, looking for the best deals, as earlier on, another shop had wanted to charge us IDR70,000 (RM21) for the same SIM card.

A map showing the distance between Balikpapan and Samarinda.

About an hour later, we returned to the hotel and went to our rooms to freshen up before booking a Grab car to Khatulistiwa Park. The 9.8km trip took over an hour due to the heavy traffic and poor road conditions and we were charged IDR65,000 (RM20). I was told by the driver it would normally take about 30 minutes.

The seafood restaurant in Balikpapan.

Visiting the Park on a Sunday, as we did, turned out to be quite disappointing. The office building with the information counter was closed and people just loitered in front of the office steps while many posed for photos close by.

With my new Indosat SIM card, I decided to check out its 4G speed by downloading a GPS tracker app. Within seconds, the download was completed and I was able to determine my geo-location in the Park. The only problem was my phone’s battery was running very low.

After walking around Park’s square and to a new globe structure, which I assumed to be the Earth’s new Equator Line, the best I could do with the app was getting a latitude of 0 degrees and 0.0480 minutes and a longitude of 109 degrees and 19.3230 minutes. So there I was, standing very near the Equator Line.

In the distance, I could hear the Muslim call to prayer at 5.30pm (local time) and I quickly took more shots of the Park and the nearby waterfront before it got too dark. We then headed to one of the cafes in the Park and ordered our first ever dinner on the Equator Line. Around 7pm, we booked another Grab car back to the hotel.

Along the way, I asked Riyan, the driver, why there were so many people going to Khatulistiwa Park and between the Park and the city centre.

“Since it’s a Sunday, the locals are normally out and about the area,” he replied.

The arrival hall of Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport in Balikpapan.

“Isn’t tomorrow Monday, a working day,” I queried and he reacted with apparent pride that there is no such thing as “Monday Blues” in Pontianak.

September 9

A “Welcome to Balikpapan” signage.

We took a flight to Balikpapan where we stayed the night before proceeding to interview the governor. We landed at Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport in Samarinda at 4.50pm the next day after a one-hour-45-minute flight.

A poster with the picture of a Dayak woman adorns the wall of the airport to welcome visitors.

My first impression, as we walked towards the exit point, was that the airport used a lot of Dayak motifs and posters of Dayak women in traditional costumes along the corridors to welcome visitors.

An airport staff checking the damaged luggage zip at the Lost and Found office.

My awe of the splendid displays was jolted when we found out that a colleague’s luggage had opened up due to a damaged zip. Had anything gone missing? The airport staff were quick to assist by escorting us to the ‘Lost and Found’ office.

After agreeing to the IDR100,000 (RM30) compensation for the damaged zip, we headed for the exit and were met by Major Fadzlin Mohd Nasir, a Malaysian Army public relations officer based in Balikpapan, and his staff corporal Aidal Ramli.

Plaza Balikpapan, a premier shopping mall in the city.

After exchanging pleasantries, Aidal took us to our hotel across the street from Plaza Balikpapan which houses the famous Matahari Department Store. I took the opportunity to buy a new pair of working shoes for IDR199,000 (RM60) since the one which the customs officer had mistaken for a ‘fish’ had outlived its days.

A street scene in Balikpapan city.

A dinner at one of the seafood restaurants and listening to the stories of Balikpapan and Samarinda from Major Fadzlin wrapped up an eventful day. We turned in early to prepare for the long journey to Samarinda at first light.

September 10

Corporal Aidal was already waiting for us at 6am in the hotel lobby. We then made our way out of the city to Samarinda, some 114.8km away.

About an hour into the journey, we had driven past, among others, a cluster of traditional wooden houses along Jalan Soekarno-Hatta. I was told by Aidal each structure was a temporary mausoleum for the families of royalty. And each mausoleum was purposely built to face west as a symbol of sunset and death – an ancient custom of the Toraja community.

Other than the mausoleums, the scene on the route was of village homes and farms situated on government land alongside the main road. I was told the inhabitants were not squatters but holders of a special pass to stay on and cultivate the land.

We reached Samarinda before 10am, earlier than expected, and proceeded to the Malaysian Army Samarinda branch office where we were introduced to Captain Kamarul Ariffin Ajhman and his staff, Corporal Saham Yak and Corporal Esron Laidin.

At 11am, we headed to the governor’s office for the interview on the relocation of the Indonesian capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan.

Throughout the interview, the governor was decorous, forthcoming and humorous. He is an experienced and knowledgeable administrator, and loved to crack jokes while fielding our questions.

The interview went smoothly and ended about 45 minutes later. After that, we checked into a hotel in Samarinda and took a quick break before going for dinner at a cafe on top of a hill. We enjoyed the menu with a bird’s eye view of Samarinda’s night landscape to boot.

September 11

After a good night’s rest, we travelled back to Balikpapan, stopping only at KM46 along the Samarinda-Balikpapan toll highway around 1pm. As the highway is still under construction, we managed to gain entry with the help of the governor’s office which asked the concession company to let us in with an escort.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his entourage visited KM46 on May 7 this year before he announced East Kalimantan would be the new capital of Indonesia.

The 99km Samarinda-Balikpapan highway is nearing completion and scheduled to be launched by Joko at the end of the year. With the highway, the three-hour journey from Balikpapan to Samarinda will be cut to about one and a half hours.

Joining us on the visit was Samsul Arifin from East Kalimantan Province Community Relations Bureau Secretariat who revealed that KM46 is about 15km from the nearest beach.

He also pointed to a distant hill where the Province’s Istana will be built. After taking videos and photos, we drove off, stopping for lunch at a humble roadside coffee shop before returning to Balikpapan.

September 12

On this day, we were to meet a Sarawakian from Kapit named Teddy Amau at the Malaysian Army branch office.

Six-footer Teddy comes from a long line of Temenggongs in Kapit, including Temenggong Koh, the first Paramount Chief of the Dayaks in 1924.

Married to an Indonesian, Teddy has been working as an operations manager for an American company at Balikpapan since 2004. He had previously worked and lived in 26 different countries.

After chatting with Teddy for about an hour, we lunched at a nasi padang shop where plates with an assortment of food were arranged in a straight row on a table about three metres long.

Teddy told us about his life adventures from insurgent attacks to cute animals over a sumptuous lunch – spicy but acceptable to the palates of most Asians.

We wrapped up the day with a stroll along the streets of Balikpapan where we met and talked to the locals to get their views on the new capital. Those we spoke to responded positively albeit concerned that living costs will rise in tandem with the development of the new capital.

The next day, we took a flight back to Pontianak where we spent one more night before heading home to Kuching on Sept 14.