News – July 2007 (Balikpapan/Kalimantan [Borneo] / Indonesia, July 17, 2007)
- Website statistics: In June we were able to welcome on our website 39'374 visitors who did 835'511 hits.
- (May = 34'590 visitors – 859'868 hits)
- The visitors are coming from about 100 to 118 different countries!
- Record days since 12/17/1998 - the birthday of our website: 2/19/2007, 2'518 visitors and 293'778 hits
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- Our eight months Indonesian roundtrip comes slowly to an end, as two days ago we reached Kalimantan on the
- Island of Borneo, where we started on November 18, 2006. But there are still about 1'250 miles to go – 10% of it
- obviously is still a real 4x4-offroad track. If we look at our recent 13th ferry crossing in Indonesian waters from
- Mamuju in West Sulawesi to Balikpapan in East Kalimantan, the sailing itself was pretty calm, but live on board was
- all but quite. It was not only live music until midnight at its loudest, afterwards the soccer game Indonesia versus
- Saudi Arabia was transmitted by the ship's satellite TV (the Indonesian lost 2:1, according to their mind unjustifiably,
- what the passengers boisterously agreed). Although actually nobody was anymore in the mood to look the following
- Harry Potter movie, the loudspeakers continued to blare, until at 4am the vessel's "muezzin" took over with his
- prayers – not to a lesser level of noise. The ship was pretty full, as were its two dormitories with about 120 sleeping
- places each. Also the trucks, each loaded with about 30 to 40 tons of oranges, filled the hull nearly completely,
- because in Sulawesi one pound costs about 0.5 US-cents, while the price in the shops in Kalimantan rises to
- US$ 0.25. If somebody is blessed with a certain "spirit of enterprise", he might be well able to earn some money,
- because the wages for packing and loading the fruits are below US$ 1.50 a day.
- Tracing now back to Sulawesi, the 10th Indonesian island we have visited with our LandCruiser:
- After Makassar, where we published our last "News June", we headed straight North to Tana Toraja, the famous
- Toraja land. And this region is really a must! Toraja will remain, besides the island of Sumba, always in our
- memories. Exactly at the time we intended to leave for North Sulawesi and hence we had to cross the ill-famed
- province of Central Sulawesi with its problematical cities of Poso, Tentena and Palu, the Australian Government
- issued newly a strong travel advisory for Indonesia. They advised especially also not to visit these three places due
- to an imminent threat of terror attack, including kidnapping of tourists. Remembering this, it is rather an insecure and
- strange feeling indeed to drive completely alone on these lonely, slow and heavily potholed roads, its sudden
- deterioration starting from the moment we crossed the South-Central provincial border checkpoint. The fact that the
- police there took note for the first time in Indonesia of all our passport and car details, adds only more pressure to
- our worries. Because the landscape didn't promise any superlatives to come, we decided at Lake Poso to turn back
- and to ship with the ferry from West Sulawesi to East Kalimantan on the Island of Borneo.
- In the meantime, our "Philippines dream" vanished too. More and more complicated rules for the entry of our car
- popped up, thus deciding us on June 22nd, 2007, to give this country a miss. Although the Secretary of Tourism
- (= Minister of Tourism) assured us on April 5th, 2006, (!) of his support to facilitate the entry procedures, the
- Philippines remain the only of the by now 156 visited countries, making a visit impossible in this way. While we
- cannot understand the circumstances – because tourism in the Philippines is an important issue too – we can't force
- anything either and are very sorry about this unfortunate development.
- How we continue now from East to West Kalimantan, we shall show on our website "Indonesia Trip, part 6"!
New Reports/Pictures
- SOUTHEASTASIA: mouse over picture shows comments
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| + our Indonesia Trip, 6th part | Kalimantan – July 2007 |
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| + our Indonesia Trip, within the 5th part | Tana Toraja (Toraja-Land) – June+July 2007 |
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| + our Indonesia Trip, 5th part | Sulawesi – June+July 2007 |
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| + our Timor-Leste Trip, 2nd part | Mainland with Dili – May 2007 |
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| + our Indonesia Trip, 4th part | Sumba, West Timor – May+June 2007 |
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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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