Oh, the joy of it!

Banjarmasin, Kalimantan, Indonesia - canal tour

Banjarmasin - Venice of the East

After leaving Bali and Gili Trawangan, we went to Banjarmasin.  This would be an easy town to miss.  It's in Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo).  We stopped there on our way to Tanjung Puting National Park to do the jungle cruise.  Banjarmasin is sometimes described as the Venice of the East since it's a city of canals.  The Lonely Planet mentions getting a guide named Tailah to take you on a canal tour and a floating market tour.  While walking around on our first morning in town looking for breakfast and a cup of coffee with our LP in hand, a man came up to us and said he was Tailah, the guy in the book.  Though I didn't trust it, I figured we'd just see what happens so we let him take us around to find a better hotel.  Turns out it actually was Tailah.  Tourism has been a bit low so he was starting on his rounds to the hotels to drum up business.  He had slept late that day, which is why he was where he was instead of at the hotels, where we wouldn't have met him.  Lucky us.  We made plans for a canal tour that afternoon and the floating market the following morning.  

The canal tour was a trip and a half.  For at least an hour we put-putted through the canals like alleys behind houses.  The kids, and there were many of them, came running out on the docks to yell, wave, smile and sometimes swim at us.  They were so beautiful and happy.  My face hurt from smiling so much.  The joy was delicious.  

The river is where the people wash their clothes, go to the bathroom in little outhouses, brush their teeth, swim, wash themselves.  It was humbling, a little bit sad, a whole lot startling.  I wanted to take a Purell bath and thanked modern medicine for typhoid vaccines.  Despite that, the tour was a highlight of our Indonesian adventure.

Happy, beautiful children waving at the bules.

Kids flashed all sorts of hand signs.

Kid swimming out to meet the boat.
Notice the outhouse right behind them.

One of many mosques along the canals

Life is Preasant

My new shirt (from Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok) says it all.  I have no idea if it is supposed to be "Life is pleasant" or "Life is a present" or just "Life is present" but it doesn't matter.  All are true enough.  

This is our final night in Bangkok after being here for a week.  Off to Chiang Mai tomorrow.  We've been out of the country for 2 months and out of the TESOL program for one month.  Seemed like as good a time to start the blog as any.

Christian and I went to see the movie Monsters tonight.  Took the sky train to The Emporium Mall.  While I was standing on the train, a woman started nudging her husband to get up and let me sit down.  I thanked her and said that we were off to a movie so I would be sitting soon enough.  We started chatting a bit, I asked where they're from.  "Iraq."  They asked me where we're from.  "America."  Uncomfortable pause...  But we kept talking.  I apologized for George Bush.  They were very gracious.  

Bangkok is a very interesting city.