argghh...still here

7-31 Well, the tour guide wasn't ready to go this morning and hadn't arranged the necessary permits and travel arrangements, so we were stuck another day in this god-forsaken city. I did nothing all day really other than take a bemo to the bridge for a view of the city and watch free willy and knocked up on very edited hbo in the lobby of the hotel.
Last night was a bit of a frustration. When I had checked into the hotel there was no running water on my floor, the top floor. I told them I had no water in my best bahasa indonesia and they gave me the thumbs up that they would fix it. Well after going out with Hugo and then internetting, I got back to my hotel a bit after midnight. In places like these I really like to have a shower before bed b/c I obviously sweat a lot, but more b/c all the pollution and smoke and dirt stick to you so much and I prefer not to get my little sleeping liner filthy. After a day walking around in the city my legs from the knees down are usually noticeably dirty and my feet even brownish. Even with running water, there was no shower, just the asian bucket and pail method; however, it looked like the water in the bucket in my room had been stagnant for quite some time and it looked quite gross so I wanted to replace it with clean water. Well, when I got to the hotel after midnight, there was no water. So I asked them and they said they'd fix it. 30 minutes later, still no water. They indicated with sign language that it would take a while for the pressure to reach the top floor. But how long? I didn't want to be up all night. Finally I gave up and lied down. But then they came and knocked on the door to see if there was water. Nope. Then they indicated that they wanted me to switch rooms down to the first floor. I tried to explain that I didn't want to do that, just wanted to go to bed. At 2am, I didn't really feel like packing up all my junk and then heading downstairs to a new room, which was actually even nastier than the one I had. But they just couldn't figure out what I was saying and were trying to pick up my bag and take it down. Eventually I was able to show them that I would just take the shower downstairs and still sleep upstairs. They were both very nice, but it was just one of those frustrating language barrier things, and also of course as a westerner, even one used to how asia works, you hope that if you tell someone at midday that you have no running water, something will be done about it by midnight.

Today brought about some more travel frustrations. Hugo's guidebook (he has the full indo lonely planet and I just have the shoestring right now) said that you can fly from here to the town near tanjung puting national park which will be my 2nd and last deistination in kalimantan. I decided I would do that instead of the 14 hour bus ride to benjarmarsin and then the 21 hour bus ride to that town...and those are most likely best case scenarios times. I went to a couple travel agencies today to look into flights, but with lack of english and such had little luck until one person said that the airline DAS flies the route (indonesia has at least 20 domestic airlines which makes things tricky and only 2 can you book online with) and that I had to buy tickets at the airport. So I took a bemo to the airport and found out that DAS no longer flies, so the only way to do it was by other airlines and connect through a couple of cities (with connection times not working out) which always makes things more expensive. So i think maybe i'll do the bus to benjarmarsin and then fly from there. We'll see, still haven't really found out how to book the tickets anywhere besides going to the airport which can be difficult as airports aren't always that close to the city.

The people here do seem to be very friendly though. I just can't interact with them like in other places. They all like to shout out, "hey mr", but that's about all the english they know.
There are lots of beggers in indonesia so far, which can be quite frustrating and annoying, which sounds terrible of me I know.. I'd like to help everyone out, but you just can't b/c there are too many and they get pretty annoying, always grabbing at you and following while walking and while eating they just sit there and look at you and grab your clothes. And as lucas and sari and I found out in the philippines, if you give them food, they usually just drop it on the floor b/c the kids are often working for some boss person that requires money or just want money to buy cigarettes or candy. I'll give food or money to the very physically handicapped people just sitting on the sidewalk, but the kids always tugging at your sleeves just seems useless. There are just too many and it just encourages them to beg. It's like the old addage of give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for life.

Well, hopefully tomorrow we'll finally be off to go up the river.