Where is Rune?

I am now sitting in Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta waiting for a flight to Manila. The flight was supposed to depart at 00:50, but is delayed until 03:50. Earlier this evening I flew from Balikpapan to Jakarta.

Time is killed by playing internet poker.

I had a really bad experience in the passport control. I had previously taken some old visa stickers out of my passport to save pages, and this made the immigration officers mad. They harassed me, and they said they would blacklist me from ever entering Indonesia again… I am scared. After a long while they finally stamped my passport.

Today me and a bunch of other people went to the nearby jungle outside Balikpapan, a place called Bangkerai.

Pictures:

1. At first the road was OK.
2. But after a while the road got smaller.
3. This is the final stretch of the road. As can be seen, the road conditions were not the best. The car in front of us almost got stuck in the mud.
4. Finally we arrived. A dense, beautiful forest.
5. Canopy bridge. This was the main attraction so to say.
6. Canopy bridge.
7. Mushroom observed in the rainforest.
8. Strange insect observed in the forest.

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GPS track log.

I was in Jakarta again from 18-27 March, staying first in Cibubur, then from 23 March in a side street of Jl Jaksa (the usual place: Asri homestay).

“Standing since 1968”. One of my favourite restaurants in Jakarta.

My birthday was on 21 March.

This poor fellow, observed on the kitchen floor, did not make it:

Later in the evening, we went to Pizza Hut. This is Astrid and Caecil:

This is Made:

And this is my choice of pizza:

In Jakarta I stayed one night in the usual place in Jl Jaksa (Asri Homestay), and one night in Cibubur. On Sunday morning, 24 February, I flew from Jakarta to Phnom Penh via Kuala Lumpur on two AirAsia flights. “Superman” flew in from Bangkok around the same time, but I arrived first and waited an hour in the airport for him to arrive.

We then took a taxi to the city (together with a very talkative, possibly drunk, German) and checked into a lousy hotel which the German had pre-booked, at the riverside. Paid $15 for the room. Next morning “Superman” searched for a better (and also a cheaper) hotel while I went to the Indonesian embassy to apply for another social visa valid for 2 months. The other hotel was much better and we paid $10 for each room.

I picked up the visa on Wednesday.

Places visited in/near Phnom Penh: Central Market, Russian Market, and the so called Killing Fields. One evening we went to the infamous “Heart of Darkness” nightclub, maybe not exactly the safest place in town (it was temporarily closed down after a person was shot to death).

On Thursday we took a bus for $6 to Sihanoukville, a beach town in the South. Clean sea, but trash everywhere in the streets. We rented two motorbikes for $5 each on Friday. In the evening we ate in a so-called “Happy Herb Pizza” restaurant and ordered the “happy” pizza version… hehe.

On Sunday 2 March we took a bus, first to Phnom Penh, then straight on to Siem Reap in the North, the town near the Angkor temples.

Next day we hired a tuk-tuk driver for the whole day to take us around to the different temples, of which Angkor Wat is the biggest and most famous. We paid $12 to the driver.

And next morning I took a JetStar flight from Siem Reap to Singapore for $92, while “Superman” continued his Cambodian adventure. Well arrived in Singapore, I started searching for a cheap hostel. After two failed attempts, first near Orchard Rd, and then in Beach Rd, I finally found one in North Bridge Rd. Price was SGD 12 for a mattress on the top floor. Yes, I know I am a cheap bastard, hehe!

My only purpose to visit Singapore was to buy a new laptop, and after checking in at the hostel I immediately went to the nearby Funan IT Mall and ordered a Lenovo ThinkPad X61s, which I happily picked up the next day. I paid SGD 3200 for the laptop with my Norwegian credit card. My card was charged NOK 12.000.

Immediately after picking up my new laptop, I went back to the hostel and checked out. I then took the MRT to HarbourFront Centre and from there the first ferry to the Indonesian island Batam one hour away. The price level in Batam is considerably lower than in Singapore, so I granted myself a hotel room with A/C and bathroom for Rp 135.000 (which equals SGD 20). In the past I used to stay in Hotel Hallo Batam in downtown Nagoya, and this was also the case now.

I catched an AirAsia flight to Jakarta on Friday 7 March and stayed in the residence in Cibubur until Sunday, when I catched an Adam Air flight to Balikpapan, where I am now!

GPS track log of our movements in Cambodia, and to Singapore.

Phnom Penh

"Killing Fields"

"Superman" at Sihanoukville

Bugs for sale

Angkor Wat

Ruin at Angkor