Greetings everyone! It is Sunday night and we are in our new location. It is just down the road, past one of the entrances to the beach and around a couple of corners. It will take us an extra 5 minutes to travel by bike to the clinic tomorrow morning and it may require a poncho if the heavens open up again. But right now we are sitting in comfortable chairs with the fan on, music from the IPAD and actually connected to the internet. All of this a coup. The only downside is that we basically have no water. Which will have to be rectified tomorrow.
As Jim as let you know, we have moved to Kinari's house as she left this AM for Bali and will be gone until after we leave. This is a great gift to us as this house is much nicer. The only challenge appears to be the source of water for washing etc. (We do have bottled drinking water but that is actually low too. Tomorrow will be a big day!) Because this house is on a hill the water has to be pumped up into a holding tank higher up and then it flows by gravity into the collection spot for our bath as well as for flushing. Well, the pump appears not to be working right now. Ecka, the young man who is the newly hired repair person was here but no magic yet.
We left this AM at 6 AM to take Neaga, the conservation guy who is leaving and Kinari to the airport in Ketapang about 55 miles away but really a two hour drive if all goes well. It was an interesting ride...bone jarring sometimes, but interesting. Lots of houses along the roads in various states. The poverty is ever present and apparent. Many times they are gray wooden houses on stilts surrounded basically by marsh with a narrow wood walk way from the road. The houses/shops line the road and are very close together. Kinari said there is no separation between public and private life here.
We had plenty of time at the airport and this visit gave us an opportunity to learn the ropes for our flight to the National Forest later this month as well as when we leave for Bali. Security was a snap although I am sure that we will pay for extra weight, but we were told to ask if they could help us out...we might get alittle taken off!
We then visited a fairly big grocery store and loaded up on comfort food as well as some OJ of a questionable color and Blue pepsi. Ever heard of it???? Us neither! Then there was lunch and a wait until we were able to pay the ticket agent who had arranged two flights for us...one was from Singapore to Pontianak months ago. Turns out she is Chinese and today is the Chinese New Year so most of the shops in the town were both closed and decorated with red paper lanterns. Her "office" was in her home and our visit there turned out to be an opportunity to be a part of her family's celebration. More on this later! Hotlin just arrived to check on our water....and now we are headed off for the town's New Year's celebration.
Back soon.
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