News – March 2007 (Bima/Sumbawa / Indonesia, March 30, 2007)
- Website statistics: In February, we were able to welcome on our website 34'358 visitors who did 1'233'758 (= record) hits.
- (January = 34'745 visitors – ??? countries* – 765'296 hits)
- Record days since 12/17/1998 - the birthday of our website: 2/19/2007, 2'518 visitors and 293'778 hits
- (*= the country counter, which stopped working March 23, 2006, has still not been repaired by the
- ISP Goldnet - frustrating! - usually there were monthly between 100 and 118 different countries!)
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- Again we are a little bit late with the news – this time because we are "back on the road" and also because in this
- part of the world Internet isn't introduced everywhere or doesn't work properly. The more East we drive in
- Indonesia, the more difficult the communication gets (no English anymore, only Bahasa). That a westerner shows up
- here, particularly with an own car, seems to be a miracle, as we are greeted everywhere by a big crowd yelling
- "Hello Mister! – where are you going?"
- While the island of Lombok – about 90 minutes by ferry from East Bali – still attracts some tourists, the following
- Easterly island of Sumbawa, another 4½ hours by ferry, usually is flown over or transited non-stop. Now we are
- approaching the next island, Flores, about a further
- the "Dragon Islands" of Komodo and Rinca, sandwiched between Sumbawa and Flores.
- A new island means always a "new ferry" what means a new risk. After another Indonesian ferry vessel sank about a
- month ago – this time burning out – it doesn't look like the common safety conditions at sea, land or in the air already
- improved. We had the luck to board between Lombok and Sumbawa a relatively "new" vessel. It is a river ferry,
- most probably outmoded
- But not everything is negative: The weather seems to improve – the rainy season is fading away. The Indonesian
- people are still extremely nice (the only problem remains the communication). Fortunately we didn't (yet) experience
- the famous corruption; the landscape is diverse – sometimes volcanically looking mountains and hills, sometimes lush
- green rice paddies, sometimes palm fringed coasts and beaches.
- The border of Timor-Leste - the previous Portuguese East-Timor - continues to be closed due to the local unrest.
- Most probably it will remain like that until after the elections of April 9th. But we are still hoping to be able to do a
- "visa-run" to Dili to renew our third Indonesian visa extension, which expires on April 16th, thus avoiding a forced
- two-week bureaucracy stay in a bigger city – that's exactly the time needed for the procedure to get the permit for
- another one-month's stay!
- Therefore, please check from time to time the progress of our "Indonesia-Trip, Part 3" on our pictured site!
New Reports/Pictures
- SOUTHEASTASIA: mouse over picture shows comments
- click a picture to see details
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| + our Indonesia Trip, 3rd part | Lombok, Sumabawa, Flores – April 2007 |
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| + our Indonesia Trip, 2nd part | Bali – Jan.-March 2007 |
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| + our Indonesia Trip, 1st part | Sumatra, Java – Dec. 2006 |
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| + our Borneo Trip | Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah, Kalimantan – Sept.-Nov. 2006 |
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| + our LandCruiser on a "Rejuvenation Cure" | in Miri/Sarawak - the East Malaysian province on Borneo June-Aug. 2006 |
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| + added from a earlier visit to the USA: | Las Vegas (Millennium change) |
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| + added from our Arabian Peninsula round trip: | Pictures from Yemen (May-June 1996) |
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| + Flashbacks of our Worldrecordtour: | Pictures from "all the continents" (Oct. 1984 - April 1997) |
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