Q's Mind: 8 days in Samarinda: Day 1

8 days in Samarinda: Day 1
10 April 2009

Dad has been asking me to follow him into Indonesia over the past years and my work and studies have been putting the trip on hold... now that I've graduated, I finally went for it...
11:46am @ Changi Airport Terminal 2...
My flight is at 1:50pm and I apparently checked in too early...Free Internet! First thing to do is to visit my blog... keke...12:02pm
Realised the flight gates only opens at 12:50pm... so I headed over to the video games and media entertainment lounge... PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 booths were installed there... so I just helped myself to the games...Customized this car myself...3:46pm on board SilkAir MI 284
Got a window seat... loved the clouds outside...I couldn't decide which photo is nicer - the portrait or landscape... - so I just uploaded both. ^^Rainbow spotted afar...
Closer... two rainbows! There's a fainter one to the right side... the higher resolution photo I had showed the 2nd rainbow more clearly...4:13pm
Approaching Balikpapan... meandering river below... one hell of a river from this height...
No idea what's below.... I initially thought it was the air field... but the plane flew past it, across the waters ahead... and finally began to descent.4:18pm... touchdown at Balikpapan International Airport...There's a waiting bus right beside the plane that takes us to the arrival hall...
(30 secs drive =_=) I snapped this photo after I boarded the bus...At the immigrations checkpoint, heeded my dad's advice to sandwich 2pcs x 50,000 rupiah alongside my arrival card in between my passport... I got a "Terima Kesik" and my passport was stamped and returned to me~ another Singaporean fella beside my counter got questioned alot; he was there before me, and was still there after I left my counter. Mysteriously, the 100,000 rupiah inside my passport disappeared... I wonder where it went...

Dad was at the airport to fetch me... paying the carpark fees at the airport gates...Balikpapan is a major city on the east of Kalimantan (Borneo), while Samarinda is a major port. International flights only arrive in Balikpapan, so I have to travel to Samarinda by road... One thing I like here is the presence of mega sized billboards~Distance from Balikpapan to Samarinda is about 120KM...that will take about 2 hours of driving along this 2-way dual lane road... Dad was familiar with the road... so he drove very fast...Overtaking is common there... but was made difficult because it was a 2 way traffic... and its freaking dangerous...

Road there ain't the typical PIE where we can drive in a relaxed manner... Landslides were a common sight there... takes out half the road...

6:20pm... Sun was setting... so phototaking while on the move is gonna get blurry...

Another landslide...

Road has no street lamps and dad was still driving so fast I was pretty tensed up in the passenger seat...

Road there has lotsa bends, up hill and down hill, and even more bends... occassional landslides and potholes... one wrong move and you might find yourself heading down the valley... some 50 feet below? And dad was cutting those bends so fast I could hear the tyres screech... >_<

6:55pm... Crossing this final bridge and I arrived in Samarinda... dad's tired and so am I... been out of house since 11am and I finally reached my destination at almost 7pm...