Kumai

Kumai is a small town a few miles up the Sekonyer river. The road that runs along the river is really the only major road and there are no traffic lights. We even had to take a 20 minute bemo ride to the nearby larger town to find an ATM! We spent some time wandering around Kumai and it didn't take too long to see most of it. The main road is lined with small shops and restaurants as well as with food carts and food stalls selling traditional Indonesian food.

There is a large population of Muslims on Kalimantan and it seems like there is a beautiful and brightly colored mosque on every block. During prayer hours the mosques call to prayer from loudspeakers on tall towers. The sound is kind of pleasant from a distance but when you're close to the buildings its hard to hear anything else!

Kumai isn't a popular tourist destination and only a few of the locals speak a small amount of English even though lots of tourists come to the island of Borneo to see its ecology. Because of this we usually create quite a scene just when walking down the street. Everybody greets us with a 'Hey mister!' as we walk by, whether from their store, house, or as they whiz by on a motorbike. Children are especially enthusiastic about saying hello and waving to us. Going for a walk around town can feel more like walking in a parade!

One interesting thing about this town is that it has a booming swallow industry. There are giant bird houses that look like small hotels scattered around, and many more under construction. They are made of cement, unpainted, and have small holes in the walls for ventilation. When the houses are finished being constructed they cool the building with air conditioners to attract swallows to build communities there. During dawn and dusk the swallows swarm around their homes by the hundreds feeding on insects, chirping and screeching loudly. It's actually kind of eerie to look up and see them swarming above you. The swallow houses are built so that their nests can be collected and sold to places like China where they are made into a soup which is considered a delicacy. One bowl of swallow-nest soup can cost $40-$100 US dollars!

The river is wide here where we are anchored and there is a lot of activity on the water. Canoes paddle by, tiny speedboats zoom past, larger canoes with loud motors slowly pass by, houseboats taking tourists into the orangutan park slowly cross the river, large ferries transport people and vehicles, and larger barges and fishing vessel make the trip between the town and the ocean. Meanwhile the river current is constantly changing with the tides.

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My Time in Kuta

I beat the William T. Piquette and its crew to Bali, Indonesia by about eight days so I waited at a homestay on Poppies Lane 1 in the busy city of Kuta. Kuta is right on the beach on the south-western end of Bali and is probably Indonesia’s number one tourist destination. The city never sleeps and motorbikes race through the streets at all hours. The homestay that I wandered into was run by two Balinese locals and had a very laid-back atmosphere. The didn’t even ask me to pay when I first checked in. They just handed me the key to my room and told me to stay as long as I liked!

The types of people who wandered into that homestay all seemed to have similar stories and to be going in similar directions. Most were recent college graduates who wanted to travel before starting their career or seasonal workers who traveled during their off-season. At any rate, everybody had something in common with everybody else, regardless of nationality, if only for the simple reason that they have traveled to the same locations in Southeast Asia or eventually were going to.

It is easy to make friends in the homestay, especially with other solo travelers. While waiting for the crew to arrive I spent most of my time wandering around the maze of tourists stalls, reading or walking along the beach, eating at inexpensive restaurants, and chatting with other travelers. Staying in Kuta is exhausting. Just walking down a street takes a lot of effort since you have to dodge motorbikes who squeeze by you with inches to spare and you have to resist the temptation to stop in every shop to see what the shopkeeper is selling so enthusiastically. It’s a non-stop party city and from the beach you can see airplanes arriving to the nearby airport one after another. It’s a popular tourist destination for Australians and it was common to see whole families zooming past on their motorbikes wearing matching t-shirts they had just bought at a tourist shop, the youngest ones with braided hair.

Evenings were usually spent hanging out on the beach watching the sunset. Both locals and tourists crowded the beach at this time to see the always beautiful sunset. Many of the Indonesian and Asian tourists would come to me and my new friends from the homestay and ask to take their pictures with us. I guess it isn’t common for them to see Westerners where they come from. One Saturday the beach was full of Indonesian students who came to Kuta to practice their English with Westerners. They would come up to us in groups of three or as many as eight, introduce themselves and then ask us our names, how old we were, where we were from, and other questions like that. They would always want pictures with us so they could prove to their teachers back home that they were practicing English with foreigners. It was flattering at first but soon became kind of annoying and I eventually got tired of smiling!

One day I was determined to explore an area outside of Bali. Since I don’t have an International Driver’s License and good public transportation doesn’t really exist I decided to rent a mountain bike and travel North up the coast to Tannah Lot, one of Bali’s most famous temples. After biking about an hour up the coast it turned too rocky and I had to turn off and follow the roads. I hadn’t been able to find a map but getting to Tannah Lot was pretty easy since there aren’t many roads to begin with and whenever I did come across an intersection I would just ask somebody nearby to point me in the right direction. After 2.5 hours I finally arrived to Tannah Lot! It’s a beautiful temple near cliffs on the south-west coast of Bali and its only accessible during high-tide. I knew that I wanted to stay until sunset so I thoroughly explored the area visiting smaller shrines nearby, wandering through yet another maze of tourists shops, and scrambling along the tidal pools along the base of the cliffs. It was a beautifully sunny day and the water surrounding the temple was a brilliant turquoise color. Just like on Kuta beach, a lot of Asian tourists were very interested in my story and wanted to take their pictures with me!

After an extraordinary sunset I started the long bike ride back to my homestay in Kuta. The ride home was dark since there were no streetlights other than the traffic that was whizzing by me. Balinese people don’t seem to be bound by street lanes and will comfortably ride down the road on whichever lane they prefer. They didn’t seem to mind racing past my on my bicycle at all! The ride home was pretty terrifying and I mostly just tried to stay to the side of the road and hope nobody would get too close. Other than that, it actually was pretty pleasant to go for a long bike ride past rice terraces and cow pastures in the cool night air. When I finally made it back to Kuta the peacefulness of Tannah Lot was just a memory and I was back to the hustle and bustle of Kuta.

A few days later I returned home after doing some errands and there were Adam and Amanda waiting for me at my homestay! After we reunited I joined the rest of the crew aboard the William T. Piquette and officially moved aboard on the fourth. I’m excited to be heading off to our next destination soon but am sad to be leaving Kuta, just as I was starting to feel at home there and could walk around without getting lost!

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