First experiences in Borneo

Hello bloggers!

This is where it all starts. My friends and I will be traveling for about 12 weeks starting today, the 15^th of February in Borneo. During these 12 weeks, we will pass 12 countries until we reach Lithuania. Once or twice a week, we are going to update our blog so you can catch up with our latest adventures. 

Being the third largest island in the world and located north of Australia, Borneo is really worth a visit. The island is divided in three main countries: Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.

We started our first week in Banjarmasin, also known as the capital of South Kalimantan (Indonesia) enduring the tropical rainforest climate. With the Syamsudin Noor Airport located 25 km outside the town and the good transport facilities in the city, we were practically free to leave whenever it fitted us.  After tasting a local dish “Ketupat Kandangan”, a dish with chicken with coconut milk soup, we were ready to start exploring.

Banjarmasin’s main economic sectors are transportation and communication, processing industries, trade and commerce. The city is also served by an important deepwater port called Trisakti Harbour. Rubber, pepper, timber, petroleum, gold and diamonds are the most exported products. The city is home of the “Roman Catholic Diocese of Banjarmasin” with 96% of the population being Muslim.

Because we are all big nature and animal  fans, we decided on visiting the Taman Safari Indonesia park. It is a natural preserve of almost 300 hectares where we saw a lot wild animals like: elephants, lions, tigers, buffalos, rhinoceros and several rare bird species.  The fun thing about this place was that we could take a lot of pictures from nearby.

Visiting Java was also on our to-do list so we took a domestic flight and stayed 2 days in Java’s capital Jakarta before turning back to Banjarmasin. During our first day, we visited the National Museum in Central Jakarta also known as “the elephant building”. The museum is focused on archeological, historical, ethnological and geographical foundlings en researches. Extremely beautiful and instructive.

All of Jakarta area has their own shopping centre icon and characteristic of the shoppers. Of course, we had to visit at least one mall before moving on. From 1985 to 2000 a million square meters of shopping space was built.
Me and my friends visited the luxurious Plaza Senayan shopping mall that’s only a few minutes away from the Jakarta Central Business District.

We certainly enjoyed our first 4 days in Indonesia.
Please keep reading our blog so you can join us in exploring the world!

Written by Lies Descheemaeker

Sources:
http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Jakarta/blog-501107.html
http://www.tamansafari.com/Safari_Trek.html
http://www.plaza-senayan.com/ 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borneo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java
http://jakarta-tourism.go.id/