Thursday, October 3, 2019

going off the grid (part 3 of 3)

i've been lazy long enough... more than two months but who's counting?! :))

so where did i leave you last.. right, the day when i have to go home.

So, this was the day that I’m supposed to head home.  My plan is to be home before 10 PM so I can still see the kids hopefully, and back tucking them at night again.  In the upper stream of Mahakam, as I learned in the past couple of days, your schedule doesn’t really mean crap.

Well, I began the journey with a little confidence.  Pak Camat (the head of regency) had secured me a seat to Samarinda in a Susi Air Flight.  Since I am a government officials, therefore I was on the priority list to go to Samarinda.  As we find out when we get to Datah Dawai Airport, there were two flights on that day, one to Melak in the morning and to Samarinda in the afternoon.

I learned the fact that I had or thought I had a secured seat on the plane on Monday before I left for Long Pahangai.  So I already booked a flight to Jakarta on Friday from Samarinda in the afternoon.  But Pak Camat did warned me, even though I have the letter of recommendation from him, but I still had a chance to be bumped off the flight if there was a patient that needed transport that day.

Postive note!

So to ge to Datah Dawai, we have to take another boat ride, about 90 minutes upstream to Long Lunuk.  Again, when I said boat, don’t think of it as a fancy boat like you’ve seen on a music videos, it is this boat:





Now this was a legit adventure, at least for me.  The boat is chartered, there is no public boat operating upstream.  Partly is because the river is to shallow for large boat to pass.  So 90 minutes of a boat ride, with limited movement.  And let me tell you in a little secret, I can’t swim.  So, this boat, it has no lifejacket. Ow yay!

But the view upstream was breathtaking!  With the morning midst adding the mystery of the land, I wish I could take pictures as I blinked.  Even then I don’t think it will do them justice.  As we get deeper into the woods and the Mahakam River is getting narrower, the wildlife began to appear.  Saw a few monkeys, a legit eagle, and lush of land that I thought only existed in prints.

Telkomsel Bakti (which i found out later it's an abbreviation for something i can't even remember now :)))




Every time I had the chance to venture out to the offbeat path, in the back of my mind I always think of my kids.  What will their reaction when they see all of this?  I wanted to share it with them, maybe one day I could save up enough money and gather up enough patience (this is most important, you can't buy this with any amount of money) to take them wondering in these forests.  Because I know it will change their life for the better.

As I going upstream I passed few boats going downstream with kids going to school.  Since Long Pahangai is the central village for the kecamatan, so all the public facilities are in Long Pahangai.  So the school is only located in Long Pahangai.  These kids, have to take this route every day, with the limited diesel that they have just to get an education.  So you thought you got it rough.




One more thing about the wilderness of Mahakam, if you travel here, you have to bring machete.  It is a must, because sometimes your path will be covered by trees that wasn’t there before, so you can also say that these kids are always packing when they go to school.  My cousin will fit right in (maybe I’ll let you in on the inside joke in another day).

So after what seems like forever for me not moving (which one of my colleagues told me, she had to endured this for three hours going up to Tiong Ohang which was a village in Long Apari, another outermost district in Kalimantan Timur) we finally got into Long Lunuk.

Long Lunuk was similar to Long Pahangai, the narrow streets, the people who know each other by name.  But since Long Lunuk has an airport, therefore it was a little bit more crowded than Long Pahangai.  We stuck like a sore thumb there with our luggage going to the airport.

By the way, I’ve been to small airports, but this one was in another league of small airports.  We have to pass through the village to go up to the airport.  Susi Air is the only airline operating in the airport.  The ticket was still handwritten, like the ticket I had for my first flight to Manado in 1994.  Damn, that would be 25 years ago right?




So, with confidence I go up to the ticketing lady and present myself with Pak Camat’s letter of recommendation.  Then my worst fear came true.  They had to cancel their flight on Wednesday due to technical reasons, ergo, the patients that was supposed to be on the flight on Wednesday, is piled up in this flight.  This flight mind you, only have 12 seats, guess who’s not important now.

Yep yours truly.

Like I said I found out there was another flight to Melak on Friday.  BUT… I found out on TUESDAY that the flight out from Melak to Balikpapan OR Samarinda are full booked.

Again, my adventure is far from over.

I tried to reason, I tried to negotiate.  But I am slapped with the harsh truth, that I am nobody, and nobody cares about you (thanks Mr. Minhaj by telling your son that, so it’s the attitude I carry with me nowadays too).  So defeated I took the ticket to Melak.  Hoping I could get a go-show tickets from people missing their flight so I still can go home on Friday before 10 PM to tuck my kids to sleep.

It is not my life if it is not with adventure.

As we took off from Datah Dawai, my head filled with thoughts.  One of them is that I have no choice but going by land, to catch the only morning flight available from Samarinda on 7.30 AM the next day.  So I asked one of my colleague how long was the ride from Melak to Samarinda.

It’s 8 hours.

8 hours ride to another wilderness!!!  Yep another one for the book. 

But for the time being, I was enjoying the flight on a PropJet.  I took a flight on a Double Otter once, but this one is different, the seats are much more comfy and they do not separate the pilot’s chamber and the passengers.  What I like about small planes rides are you can still see outside clearly, and on most of the part you’re flying under the clouds, so less turbulence than large planes.




When we landed in Melak, I immediately went to the ticketing office to see whether anyone was being stupid and missing their flight that day.  They told me I just missed the check in for the flight to Balikpapan by five minutes!  Five minutes!  My dumb luck.

Ow well, is there a next flight I asked, they said there will be flight available to Samarinda, but for the time being it is full booked, so if I want, I could just wait to see if anyone cancelled or miss their flight.  I’m not the one to gamble.  I always took the safe course.  But this time I was desperate, what the hell I said, I’ll wait for an hour and thirty minutes, no rush.  It’s not like I can catch my scheduled plane by land.

As I waited for the chance that anyone will screw up that day, I sat there reflecting, I always got this adventure trips.  My first one was when I went to Bangkok and there was a sit in on the airport and I ended up weaving my way down to Jakarta via train to Penang to catch a flight to KL and finally to Jakarta.  And then it was that first Morotai trip, when my carefully planned business trip suddenly coincide with the president’s trip.  That one was intense too.

My life was an adventure after all.

Anyway, after a long wait, and me going back and forth asking whether I was lucky that day.  I was not.  Therefore I had to endure the 8 hour long road trip.

Okay, here’s how stars is always aligned my way.  As I was asking the airport guy whether they have a number for a chartered car to Samarinda (I’m too tired to share a ride with strangers for 8 hours) the guy who was standing next to me said he does.

He’s a guy in his twenties, handsome built, with charming smile.  I had bad experience with guys like that, so I put my guard up (a little).  Anyway, he gave me a number, but it wasn’t a go.  Then he made some calls.  I was still guarded, is this a scam?  Am I being conned?

Turns out Dimas, that was his name, was just being nice.  I’m not used to pretty boys being nice.  They’re usually a jerk.  So Dimas, I’m sorry that I judged you harshly.  It’s just bad experiences and then I stereotype people.

So after I waited for a while, Wawan, the driver that’s going to be my new best friend for the next 8 hours came.  Off we go to a wilderness, but not without me getting some normal lunch.  Fried chicken FTW!  Hey dude, chicken was a luxury two days ago for me.  So this was a feast.

Eight hours drive kind of make you have to know each other.  Wawan was a bright young man with great principles.  He’s from Palopo and expecting his firstborn, a son.  The mention of Palopo, again, made me reminisce.  It made me think of Abbas, a friend from Palopo that I lost a few years back.  This trip proved that it is more than just a business trip!

The ride with Wawan made me realize how old I was!  He was 10 years my junior, and sometimes I spilled out some advice like I know stuff….  That’s what old people do right?

After a long ride, I arrived safely in Samarinda.  I said my goodbyes to Wawan and off to my room.  And I took my first decent shower since Tuesday.  My adventure deep into the Mahakam River really did changed me.  Well not like born again religious or I become this self-righteous holier-than-thou person no.  It just made me think on all the privileges I have, and how I took them for granted all this time.  Tap water, 24-hour electricity, speedy internet connection, a paved road!

Now a simple thing like opening my fridge, I can’t help but think of the people of Long Pahangai, they do not have a fridge, because…yes the electricity is not for 24 hours, so they can’t run a fridge.  So here it is, my three-part entries.  I hope you learn something from my words.  I hope it awakens you in a way, or at least you enjoyed reading this very long essay.  If it does at least one of those thing, then at least I did the first part of my job, to get the word out.


Thank you for reading, and thank you for caring.


have to leave you with this receipts, or it didn't happen :p

ps: all the pictures in the entries (except the memes) are mine, should you want to use it, please contact me, i'm just an email away or a comment away :)

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