I hardly slept last night. It wasnt because of my excitement for moving on.It was because i didnt have a bloody alarm so I kept on waking up to take a photo, so I could see what the time was.
The ride to Pontianak was a little more nerve wracking. I kept on thinking about the pickpockets, which doesnt help!
Going through the Malaysian border crossing was a breeze, but the Indonesian crossing was a challenge, $25 for the visa, luckily I had enough money! Then i went to a seperate room, had my photo and prints taken.
they scanned my bags, the big one had to be scanned twice! because the guard thought he saw a powder in it, I dont wanna die in an Indonesian jail, thank you!
Juergin had asked me to check for gas stations along the way. I think I can definately do this trip on his bike.
I got talking to an Indonesian man, sitting beside me and through broken english, we were able to understand each other. he had a wife and kid somewhere south of Jakarta, and now he was returning to them, after working in Bintulu for a while.
They had said that the roads were rough coming here to Pontianak, and for the first half they were wrong! The Malaysian side was almost perfect. But, after half an hour on the Indonesian side, the fun started to happen. It was about 10 minutes of drving, the 5 minutes of potholes, and thats how it was for the 3rd 1/4 of the journey.
I was amazed at all the houses being open. I could see inside and all I saw was nothing, typically dusty wooden floors, maybe a bed or a couch, sometimes a TV, thats it. I saw people washing in streams outside of them.
Closer to Pontianak, the houses were on stilts, I think alot were mostly in stagnant water, as there didnt appear to be too much movement in the waterways.
the gas stations had mostly consisted of a few petrol cans out the front of each little mart. our rest stop was for 30 minutes, but even then i didnt get off the bus for too long as i was too scared to miss it, and my fears were proved true, when the bus stopped to wait for 2 clowns who had fucked around too much at the rest stop.
My first impressions of Pontianak was that it was a dirty city ( hard to believe that 10 years before it had been named Indonesias cleanest city)
Fennie, a nice Indonesian lady, eventually picked me up from the bus stop, and saved me from the hoards of taxi drivers who were gathering around me.
she took me to a hostel on my scooter, then we had KFC, as i hadnt eaten any lunch!
that bus ride had been a long 10 hours!
seeing the people and the traffic was something i had never seen before. sitting behind Fennie on her flash scooter was another thing, hearing that she doesnt know how to drive a car was interesting. there were crowds of scooters on the roads, and all i was saying was "WOW"!!!
I went to Fennies place to meet her kids, she too had a maid, so her family must be rich too!
then we went out for coffee at the mall with her friend Eis, we met in a mall and there were alot of pretty girlees walking past ^^
Later, near days end we had snacks at an outdoor restaurant, and another friend of theirs from their cycling club joined us.
then just before bedtime, they showed me the night markets, i made sure i had my camera on me, and my wallet tight and secure, as i didnt trust anyone walking near me.
i got home around 11, 8 days after the accident, my arm was still giving me alot of grief!
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