8 days in Samarinda: Day 3

8 days in Samarinda: Day 3
12 April 2009

9:49am.... up and about seting up internet connections and letting them learn to use the laptops...
9:52am... out of house... rainy day~Jalan Adam Malik Samarinda... this "gate" is leads to the main road outside...
Area is Nakhoda... always have to come in and out of this gate travelling to and from the house...
When it rains... parts of the streets flood...
10:26am... @ the kopishop for the morning cuppa...
Ayam Burbur...
I like coming here... food are nice~11:21am... on the road again... streets are still flooded... Drains remained choked and I wondered what the local authorities were doing...They do have games store and bakery (Bread @ Mama) there... we were on our way to meeting someone...12:06pm... @ a supermarket... buying some snacks for a long road trip to Tenggarong...12:11pm... that fella with the whistle behind will help to block the traffic on the road and guide your vehicle to reverse out... for a tip of 1,000 rupiah... these guys are a common sight wherever there are vehicles parked straight in...Pringles... someone apparently played "shake ur bom bom" with it... I opened up and realised the contents were mostly in bits and pieces...
12:17pm... streets still flooded...
Water level was at ankle-deep... some of the roadside stalls took the toll...
Local driving etiquette - drive slow when there are motorbikes around...
Local kids were out on the streets playing with the water... they simply enjoyed standing by the road and letting passing cars splash water on them... =_=
video clip on the flood... kinda fun~

More kids sitting in the waters...Now I understood why most people there wear slippers...Grand Victoria Hotel... dad told me there were times when the streets will flood to as high as a metre on this stretch of road... fun~Matahari shopping mall~ looking good~
Crossing the bridge to the other side...
More flooding on the other side... oh by the way, we were following that motorbike on the left...

1:19pm... Herd of goats by the roadside... there were animals everywhere...
Heading towards Tenggarong...
Wooden houses lined the streets...
Conveyor belt overhead... delivers the coals mined from the hills (left) onto the barge (right).Common sight here... Coal mining is big business there...
Buy any plot of land or hill there... dig down a little, and high chances you might find coal...
Another conveyor belt by a different company...
... and a third one...
the common barge size can hold up to about 8,000 tonnes of coal...arrived at another little town towards Tenggarong...
1:58pm... stopped by roadside for buy more snacks... we've been driving on the bumpy road for over an hour already...
Dun talk about hygiene level here lah... when you haven had lunch by 2pm... anything goes~
More wooden houses lined the streets...
Kinda dangerous when the houses are so close to the road isn't it?Conditions of some of the roads were also very bad... gets worse when it rains...The snacks we bought... mixture of fried stuff... prawn cakes, tempeh~ , tapioca...
The roads getting more bumpy as we head in towards the mountains...

2:09pm... hardly any cars along this road...
Brick making business...
More dirt roads...
even more dirt roads... red soil here... these roads where newly opened... industrial vehicles were called in to clear away the earth and hills...
Going forward, more dirt roads...
2:20pm...
Glanced outside the window and all I could see is a vast stretch of mountainous terrain... valleys to the centre...
We took a longer and safer route...Cuz the shorter road is too narrow for larger vehicles to travel... there were deeper valleys there...
2:26pm... the road stretched forward like there is no end...
More bumpy road videos.... grass looked purplish here due to the tinted windshield...

Padi fields...
These are rice grains.. the white rice is still encapsulated inside...
2:32pm... arrived at more red-soiled roads... these grounds are soft... and we hesitate moving in... sink a tyre in there and we're trapped...
the rain in the morning made driving on such roads very dangerous... becuz the vehicle will skid if you drive too fast... and will sink if you drive too slow...

We drove in the centre of the dirt track as the sides are softer and we might land into a ditch or slip down the valley...This road was newly craved through a hill... you can see the raw edges on both sides... and then I start to wonder... what happens if the exposed soil landslides?... we met one of our workers and his wife... picked them up... from this point where we picked them up.... they have walked like 30 mins from their starting point and they were at least another hour of walking until they reach their motorbike parking outside nearer to the town...
2:42pm... finally arrived at our worker's home... this is their place and where their farm is...
their little wooden cottage down the slope... (the photo doesn't show how far downhill it is...)
Tiny little wooden cottage with no electricity, gas, nor water supply...First time coming to such place... although I also had my experience growing up in a farm in Punggol...I made my way downhill... and took the video...

This was the slope I came down from... soft mud and really slippery... its better being barefooted there then wearing shoes... my shoes were a mess already....Living-Bed-Makan room... no furnitures... we sit on the mat.
...eating the snacks we bought... the kitchen is on the other side...Our workers are Dayaks... they're the aboriginals here... this bottle hung on the wall contains the poison darts for their blowpipes...
... and their long spear... and air rifle... (I could hear chicks beneath the floor but couldn't make out where they are....)

A overview of the area... the whole house and the lot of puppies...

Puppy~
Puppies~!
There's their dad~The hens and rooster roam freely~
Brown mountain rice... these are unlike those rice crop in the wet paddy fields...
They plant their own rice... so they wun go hungry... (Black dog's the mum)
The uncle their showed me the poison darts...
the whole bunch of them...
Then he demonstrates his air rifle...
Hit as far as that papaya tree ahead... went to pick up the bullet...
Oh, see those strips hanging above?they used it to make baskets like this...
as well as the roof... attap roof....Floorboard is coarse and I could see to the bottom... could find the chicks though... could hear the chirping sounds...
3:22pm... headed further up to their main farmland...had to balance myself over these logs to avoid the mud...
The farm region is in the mountains... and further beyond the land slopes down towards the valley-bottom...
Video of the way upthe hill...

It was a climb uphill... and I find myself struggling to catch up with them...
Dunno what they planted here...All wooden structures here...
This structure here is where they carry their rice crop up, lay them out, and starts to manually stomp on the crops with their feet... the white rice encapsulated in the hard rice casing with be grained out and be filtered downwards... (or vice versa)...
The tiny storage shed...
Overview of the farm area...

They stored their rice in this shed... abt 500KG of rice...
nursery...
These are the remains of the rice crops...
The shed stores rain water too~ rainwater is their only source of water supply...
They used it for drinking and cooking...
Felt like taking a dip inside...Approximately 500KG of rice... harvested after 4 long months of hard labour... sells for 8,000 rupiah per KG... these mountain-rice will fetch them 4,000,000 rupiah... that's equivalent to S$533 for 4 months of work. How poor are they? Go figure...Found a sack of rice still in their original form...Beautiful isn't it? Now I could better appreciate each and every single grain of rice I eat...Corn~
or if you'd prefer - Jar-Gong~
Long beans...
More Jar-Gong crops...3:36pm... Returning... my turn to take the wheels... time to return...One last photo of myself... calling the ppl in the house to gather and leave...
Ford Everest.... you need this kinda vehicles to travel such roads... conquers any surface~
4:25pm... after like 1 hour of driving out from the mountains... finally reached the town outside... dad took over the driving...4:38pm... Homward bound... going around the coast to that bridge... need to cross it to return to Samarinda...
4:41pm... crossing the bridge...
Highway back to Samarinda... the roads here are better... that black hill ahead is all coal... whoever bought this hill struck lottery... he got one hell of a coal hill to excavate to sell and the bottom is most probably all coal as well...This statues is the symbol of Samarinda...
another view...
5:05pm... still on the highway... the roads here twists and turn and bends and goes uphill and downhill...
5:10pm... finally returned to Samarinda town...
Flood hasn't subside... talk about waterfront-living...
The drains remained choked...
and nobody bothers...
arrived at higher grounds... dry road... Red car plates belong to governmental bodies...
5:22pm... on the way home... was told this place gave the best view of the entire Samarinda town...
I immediately thought of building a hotel here... got to grab hold of this piece of land before someone beats me to it...
The view from up there... notice how massive that mosque is?
Video clip...

5:29pm... stopped by the roadside to buy some fruits...
Murtabak store... smelling so good~
Nope~ these are NOT durians...
More roadside stalls...
I repeat... these are NOT durians...

The locals called it "Lai"... yes they know what a durian is, but they insist this ain't durian... but "Lai"...
Looks like durian to me no matter no I see it... except that its rounder...
Opening up... the contents looked like durian... but are smaller and more yellowish... tasted like durian, but on the weirder side... I can't describe...
6:26pm... car got a good rinse-down...7:07pm... Dinner time~ eating order: We start first... then the workers... then the women in the house...
The Roast Pork and Char Siew we bought in from Singapore...
Microwave oven... funny incident... this appliance apparently drew so much electricity that it tripped the circuit box... blackout... the household had to shutdown every electric appliance and lights in order to run this microwave oven for that good 30secs... tried switching on the TV while the oven is running, and the circuit box tripped again... lol~
10:24pm... Mamak made supper for us... I had like so much instant noodles there...