Explore Borneo Project 2: Bukit Jamur

The second trip leaving Pontianak city, this journey is even far compared to the previous ones. It takes around 6 hours to Bengkayang and another hour or so to this hill, Bukit Jamur. The village here we called it the local Dayaknese, they have beautiful figure especially their eyebrows and big eyes. Here's my first picture of them, he's so cute.

After greeting with the locals, up we climb the hill. The hiking take around 1 - 2 hours depends on your speed. Heard that the local can climb to the top in less than 30 minutes. We took quite a long time to hike, many stuff to carry including tent to sleep at night, stove and food for dinner and breakfast, mat to sit on and etc. Some of them lost their way too. You are advise to climb before the sunset. There's two ways to hike up the mountain and we took the easier ones. Half way of the hike, there's mountain water so so fresh you can consume it directly.

Some part of the forest is burned :(

The view you get half way of the hill. So beautiful with colour mixture of green, blue and orange. Took lots of candid photo of the people here. Wanting to remember as much as I can when I look back at the path I took.

Here's a group of some, our first stop resting on a stone while waiting for the others. Pau, the ones who turn his head and smile. Gary, the guy that is with his phone (not sure what is he looking at, this place don't have signal). Riri, the yawning lady.

Fay, Pontianak model. She's like an angel, sweet and beautiful. She is open minded and can be very funny sometimes. How can such perfect people exist >.<

Dwiki, guy with long hair. Oh, I envy his hair a lot, the natural curl look smooth. His back look simply like a pretty woman.

Erwin, handsome with his big eyes. But besides that, I thanks him for driving us from morning till night and morning again. We reached home at around 3am the other day and it's been a very long journey for him. I forced myself not to sleep but I still dose off for few minutes. Thank you very much for that drive, I understand that's not easy to stay awake when everyone in the car is sleeping.

The size of insects on top of the hill is enormous. And there's a lot of other different wild plant.

The view of that night. Very beautiful at the mean time very cold as well with that strong wind blowing. Change into long pants and put on jacket to warm myself but still you feel the cold. We set up fire and grill some food. Setting the tent at night too with the help of few torchlight. Sky is full of stars, lie down and enjoy the nature. Spot the gold yellow star too. We played killer game at night and ends the night with laughter.

The view I woke up to the other day, so so beautiful (I'm lacking of description). Having insomnia actually that night, I think I slept for less than 1 hour. It's too cold to sleep and I don't feel comfortable with the tent. But the view in the morning worth all the sacrifice. Might consider hiking early morning before sunrise and hike down after the sunrise (sleeping on top is really not my kind of choice). Even your photography skill is bad, you can get this beautiful view. It's too pretty to turn ugly XD

Anjas, was handsome two years ago, now fat and chubby wanted to be in camera. How does he looks here? I make him look so thin and beautiful here, how can this view be so nice.

A photo of me, I don't care if I look ugly. I don't want to miss this beautiful view.

Loy, China guy (Red's friend) spent our extra time hiking on another trail. Full with grass height of 150 cm and die straight if you slip down. It's an edge, don't dare to take photo there as our leg hanging on the sky, body frozen.

Some of the committees from AIESEC happily chit chatting having their breakfast. Ate lots of Indomie (Pop Mie) in this trip.

Saying bye to the beautiful view around 8.30am and off to our next journey. Nah, we went back to Rio house for bath. Below is the Nepenthes or some call it the monkey cups served with rice. It's a Dayak local food where they brush and wash the plant, stuffed the rice together with nuts. add in coconut milk (santan) and steamed it at most 1 hour. This taste good! Thanks ibu :)

I love this place a lot. The scenery so beautiful; the air so fresh; the people so friendly (I speak a lot of Malay here although I might not understand half of their sentences but I try my very best to catch the words). I know I'm going to miss this a lot when I go back (I'm actually missing it now even though I'm still in Pontianak).

Explore Borneo Project 1: Mempawah

Mempawah city is proximately 90 minutes journey from Pontianak city. They are joint by a one-way road not so smooth. You find no highway here. The provinces are all connected by the same road.

The first stop of this tour is to the mangrove conservation park. It is said to prevent abrasion and to expand the land. It is fun where we get a chance to step into the mud and plant mangrove tree. They named this as a heroic action. The officer said to plant a mangrove tree is perhaps a simple action but you won't know you actually lent a hand for the next generation. We received an Indonesian ribbon and a badge, on the other hand, we were given the mangrove sticker too by the Hello team (UNTAN environment organisation).

After having lunch behind Masjid Jami, we are here to visit the Keraton Amantubillah. The king named Daeng Menambon, the first person who introduce Islam and spread Islam at Mempawah.

The king graveyard next. You need to climb up the hill which consist of 260 steps for this view. It is said that a lot of mysterious things happens here which couldn't be explained. And they believe the myth is true.

The road to reach the graveyard takes around 30 minutes from the main road. The road is bumpy, it changes from sandy road to yellow, brown, semen and along the journey your jacket might turn yellowish. We go back accompanying by this beautiful scenery. It was another new experience to go for a trip on a motorcycle with a lot of few others.

This trip continues to going to Lemukutan Island the next day.

Explore Borneo Project 1: Lemukutan Island

This island is pretty! Clean water, beautiful scenery, blue sky, etc. but everything has its pros and cons. I hate that we need to take 2 hours of boat just to reach the island using tiny boat with no shelter under hot sun, it's suffering and worst if you have sea sick, very dizzy with the big wave and boat shaking all the time. I think I got tanned (for better description: skin got darker) so much even by applying sunblock.

Photo so beautiful I have so much to share. Will later talk more about suggestion and recommendation. A lot to improve to make it a tourist spot. As this island have very less tourist, it's more of those local peoples, heard that they said there's another more famous island in this province but this island is worth visiting for snorkelling.

There're so many animals there such as chicken, duck, goat and etc. which are free to walk everywhere. Young kids are all around too, they are free to run and play around the village, independent kid that are brave to try.

Campfire at night, not the real ones though. We later grill sausage and fresh fish we bought from the village that came back from the sea. The fish is delicious even without any sauce. They play guitar, sing song and we chat till night. The sky is beautiful, you can see rising red moon from bottom to bright white on top the sky and also sky full of stars. So windy at the seashore but definitely not in the villa.

Oh ya, there's no phone signal on the island, it's like isle without people. But I guess this is the signal stuff for each home television or radio station? Not really sure about these but most of the big houses have these.

The activity of village here is more of fishing life. They fish in the evening and midnight while in the morning they are fixing their net and boat. Very hardworking indeed. Oh, did I mentioned that they are super friendly people. I were walking around this island alone in the morning and were greeted by so many people. This woman below is of one that speaks to me :) The island is big, I been walking for an hour and I couldn't manage to finish walking it. 

This is a beautiful island with very less tourist or maybe no tourist at all but only people from Mempawah (60 - 90mins journey) for one-day camping? I and my team come up with a few suggestion and recommendation to boost up the economy here, the potential to make it a tourist place is high.

1. Wind turbine can be built here to generate some electricity. As this island, the whole island doesn't have electricity until 6pm. The electricity here is not only limited to the light but all electric devices which are actually tough nowadays as the world is getting more advance. For example, rice cooker, phone charging, computer usage, etc.

2. Seafood! and Coconut! The foods selling at the stores (they called it warung) are all selling instant noodles, the fried ones or the steam ones. Or drinks which are in the powder form where you dilute it in the water. They can actually highlight seafood and coconut here making it the speciality. It's weird when you see coconut tree here but no one is selling coconut. It's even weird when their incomes are coming from fishing but they don't sell seafood here. The fish here is so so fresh, and I believe that it's going to be delicious as for other seafood too. They can earn a buck!

3. Ship schedule and safety. They should come out with a ship schedule and people get to planned their trip there, maybe online or social media which have a greater influence nowadays. And to provide life jacket act as a safety precaution. Touch wood what if the boat sink or capsize by the big wave?

4. More water activity! Not only snorkelling but maybe diving or banana boat. Diving for a greater view to see a clearer version of those beautiful corals with different colour and shape not to forget the fish that is swimming in the sea (some of them found Nemo). As for banana boat, it's teenagers best activity now!

5. Lastly local souvenir! This is what the tourist finding every time they visit a new place. Even I am finding for souvenir actually either in food form, keychain or postcard. In my opinion, postcard might be a better choice as there's no expired date for paper products and the view here is so beautiful, you can simply snap photos here and nothing turn out ugly (I had difficulty on choosing photos for this article). And sending postcard is a trend now, why not?

Ah, that's the little boat we sat for 2 hours journey to this island, the experience wasn't good, maybe some improvement on that too? But as the saying says nothing beautiful comes easy.

Bye Lemukutan Island!

I experienced lots of my first here, snorkelling, swimming in the ocean watching coral without life jacket (with coach for the first time), campfire with barbeque, chat under dark sky at the seashore, wooden plain room, drinking fresh coconut from coconut tree (they can climb like a monkey), walking alone in a village, etc.