Local Transportation

Our next destination out of Mamasa was also out of the island. As usual, travelling from "object wisata" to "object wisata" (tourist attraction to tourist attraction) in Indonesia is no simple task. Although we would have loved to, we did not have the time to hike out of the valley and there is only one major road that winds itself through the ragged mountains to the coast. This just might have be the mother of all hellish rides. We were told that in the 1920s the Dutch used to keep the road in top condition (they also had a telephone line to the valley, something that didn't exist again until a few years ago), but since they left the local governments are not too keen on the upkeep. It didn't help that Lora's tummy decided to go wacko on her so evertime the bus stopped she had to make a run for the nearest toilet. In total the ride took 12 hours, but this was only the beginning of the journey to our next destination: the Island of Borneo

We lucky to find that a boat was leaving that night for Balikpapan City, Borneo. We were told it would leave at 4pm (we arrived at the port at 3pm) and it would be a 12 hour boat ride. "Great!" We thought, "we'll arrive in time to figure out what we're doing next." But soon it became apparent that we would not be leaving so soon. In the end, the boat didn't leave until almost midnight because it had to load up a dozen semi-trucks. The next day, around 10 am we began to look for signs of land because we thought we must surely be docking soon...but strangely no land was to be found. We began speculating that perhaps Borneo (the island nearest to Sulawesi) was not our first destination and thought we may end up first on Java. Soon we couldn't stand it anymore and began asking around. As it turns out it wasn't a 12 hour boat ride but a 18 hour boat ride and we didn't dock until 7pm (after being on the boat for 24 hours).

I forgot to mention the accomodations on the boat. Our tickets were "non-seat" tickets and it didn't take us long to realize what this meant. There were no sleeping berths, as we were used to on Filipino overnight boats (we miss you Superferry!). What there was plenty of was open floor space. We decided to occupy a small spot on the top deck and even splurged the $2 to rent vinyl lined mattresses (exceptionally better than the hard floor).

Now I wouldn't say that this was unusual transport, by any means. And since we are cheap and like to do as the locals do, we have spent a considerable amount of time in situations similiar to the one accounted above. Out of the 2 months we've spent in the country we've about 1.5 weeks in transport...but the destinations are well worth the effort!