Calypso's Journal: Tarakan, North Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia

Children on cart selling durian fruit

03° 017' 094N
117° 35' 098E

For the time being, we have bid a fond farewell to Malaysia as we crossed over the Sabah border into North Kalimantan, Indonesia where we immediately noticed the difference again. Indonesia is definitely the poor cousin with regards to the infrastructure and general standards of living.

What makes this rather surprising when looking into the history of Tarakan, our first stop, is that Tarakan is one of the major cities in northern Borneo and was once a major oil producing region during the colonial period. When one compares the almost obscene wealth of Brunei on the same Island, the poverty here comes as a bit of a shock.

Early in the 1900s, oil was discovered which eventually produced of over 5 million barrels a year. Unfortunately, this made Tarakan an obvious target for the Japanese during WWII along with its strategic position from which to launch further attacks. The Tarakan inhabitants suffered greatly under Japan's occupation until Allied forces, centred around the Australian Brigade, made it less attractive by destroying the island's oil production and storage facilities and ousting the aggressors.

We visited one of the many bunker and gun sites overlooking the harbour area as well the Australian War Monument and a round house used by the Australian forces, now a small museum housing war relics. Several of the Aussie cruisers had relatives who had fought in the two major battles of Tarakan so this had great meaning for them.

Our city tour also took us to a mangrove reserve where we saw a troop of proboscis monkeys high in the trees. Sadly, they also had caged fish eagles which wasn't so nice. There are just so many of these eagles around which makes us wonder about their thinking behind caging some.

Most of our time in Tarakan was centred around paperwork. Indonesia is, by far, the worst and most complicated country to enter with a boat. Last year we paid through the nose for an agent to apply for and process reams of documents to allow us into the country and even then it was somewhat of a nightmare. This year we were invited to join a rally where the prime document, the CAIT, was offered free, sponsored by the rally organisers, a great boon to all of us but we still had all the formalities to endure. It's definitely a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. They could take a big leaf out of Malaysia's book; short, sweet and absolutely free! Fortunately, this hasn't cost us anything this year apart from the visa which is the only reason we've returned.

Don't get me wrong, we loved our time in Indonesia last year and look forward to visiting some new locations this time around. Sometimes the poverty can be a bit overwhelming but the people are always such a delight which makes it a wonderful country to visit.

We were hosted to a dinner after the tour and each given a delightful stuffed and furry toy, the town's mascot, a proboscis monkey. Too cute! They will now join our other stuffed souvenirs e.g. the koala from Oz and toucan from Panama.

Our next stop (we're off tonight) is to a group of islands about 85nm south of here where we live in hopes of getting in some decent snorkelling and maybe even a dive or two.

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