Marek The hotel
The hotel where we booked accommodation in Banjarmasin is luxurious, or at least it was in the distant past. Since we are the only Europeans here for several months, we are greeted at the reception by the director himself. He leads us to a hotel room, where I give the director a tip out of habit. A small faux pas. I don‘t know if he was happy, he certainly made big eyes. I guess he was also not convinced of what he should do with the banknote in his hand. Well, yes, I treated the director like a bellhop.
The hotel building seems crooked. You know that feeling, hard to identify, that something is wrong? It accompanies me all the time from the moment I enter the building. On the verge of consciousness, the thought crystallizes that the floor is not perfectly horizontal and the walls are not perfectly vertical. Knowing that probably the labyrinth played a trick on me is tiring, but until I visit the patio with the pool. The water line is not parallel to the tiled shore line. So, for unexplained reasons, the building is collapsed on one side, which creates an unpleasant impression. Oddly enough, after discovering the causes, the tilt stops bothering me and I stop staggering for good.
The town
Life in Banjarmasin revolves around the river that flows through the city. Here you can get from one end of the city to the other the fastest with the help of regularly sailing boats. Their size, and especially the height of the cabin, is adapted to the short stature of the locals. If you suffer from claustrophobia, don‘t even look closely at boats.
Along the banks of the river, in the city center, there are also slums. Crumbling wooden huts. Without bathrooms (everything is done in the river), they look as if a stronger wind would be able to blow them into the river. Downstream, the quality of the buildings improves considerably. Some of the buildings, with a certain amount of good will, could be described as residences.
If you ever visit Banjarmasin, be sure to go to the river market at dawn. Simply rent a boat with a skipper, or buy a trip from one of the local travel agencies. The guide may not speak English, but you can do without it. Just make sure that one of the attractions is a visit to the island with macaques. Buy a lot of (unsalted) peanuts and don‘t keep anything in your pockets. If you don‘t want to watch the monkey call your closer and more distant family, put your mobile phone in a lockable backpack. Remember that the local macaques can extort. If you don‘t give a peanut, you will see an open mouth bristling with huge teeth in front of your face.
If you got here, click on the heart and share the post on socials. And come back tomorrow, we‘re going to the diamond mines. And you can see all the photos here.
