News – August 2007 (Kuala Belait [Borneo] / Brunei, August 11, 2007)
- Website statistics: In July we were able to welcome on our website 34'295 visitors who did 785'379 hits.
- (June = 39'374 visitors – 835'511 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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- Eight months of Indonesia passed, we are back in the "other" part of Borneo – partly in Kuala Belait in the South of
- Brunei, partly in Miri in the North of Sarawak. In the first place, we are able to do house-sitting for three weeks in
- the home of our friends apart from feeding a rabbit and a cat, and in the second, we have to take care of the gear
- box of our LandCruiser. Its "singing" is getting steadily louder and is becoming conspicuous; it looks very much that
- we have to replace some bearings. And because there are still many LandCruisers like ours circulating in East-
- Malaysia, repairs shouldn't be a big problem, mainly because we return to the same workshop which overhauled the
- engine and the body a year ago to our full satisfaction.
- But leaving Indonesia didn't work out as planned, as the unexpected and extremely heavy downpours caused a
- completely different situation. Although it was possible to reach the Western border of Central Kalimantan on more
- or less paved roads, once the gravel and clay tracks started, we had to give up. Hence we were forced to ship for
- 25 hours on our 14th Indonesian ferry from Sampit to Surabaya on Java and two days later on the 15th from
- Semarang to Pontianak during a further 31 hours journey. Though Indonesia is a relatively cheap country, the fares
- for car transports within the archipelago aren't. Thus, visiting "only" 10 different islands out of the approximate
- 17'000 did cost about US$ 2'000 during our eight month's stay.
- On August 2nd, 2007, the last day of our visa that we didn't extend anymore, we left the "Hello Mister!-country"
- after 237 days and 7'909 driven miles (+ 691 miles/20 days in Timor-Leste) without any problems through the land
- border on the island of Borneo – the same place where we started promisingly on November 18th, 2006. It was a
- beautiful and interesting, even if sometimes also tough time, as the missing privacy – like already experienced
- 1994/95 in India – was sometimes difficult to accept. But also the road traffic, similar also to India, is pretty
- challenging and we are proud to have completed the roundtrip without any accident; luckily we didn't fall sick either.
- What's up now, after our dream to visit the Philippines vanished due to the unbelievable bureaucracy there? As
- already mentioned before, the region has more interesting and less complicated destinations. Thus, we plan to ship in
- October – once the typhoon and rainy season is supposed to be over – to Kaohsiung in Taiwan, wondering how the
- "Islanders of China" will welcome us! At least they don't have
the compulsory
- (vehicle)-requirement to be escorted always by an omnipresent guide like in "Olympia-China" on the mainland.
New Reports/Pictures
- SOUTHEAST ASIA: mouse over picture shows comments
- click a picture to see details
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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 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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