BIG HATS IN BORNEO

I suppose that everyone has a “favorite thing”. My favorite thing has always been hats – the bigger the better. In fact, I’m so crazy about hats that I’ve traveled to six continents in search of them. And I’ve found quite a few:

About six years ago, I ran across a photo of the most remarkable hat that I had ever seen – a type of hat that you will find at only one particular market, in one remote corner of the globe – the Floating Market of Banjarmasin.

For some time, I had been wanting to return to Indonesia, and I thought that with a bit of creativity, I might be able to work Benjarmasin into the itinerary. My wife was not in favor of the idea. She claimed to get over-heated just thinking about Indonesia. And, we had already been to Bali, Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi a number of times – how often does one need to do the “Eat, Pray, Love” routine?

We arrived in Banjarmasin from Java in July of 2014.

Banjarmasin is a large, coastal city in South Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the gigantic, tropical island of Borneo. It’s a huge, sweltering, languid, riverine city – dirty, poverty stricken with very little to recommend it. It is definitely not the tropical Borneo of my dreams. I had previously been to the Kinabatangan River – a wild and remote area in the Malaysian State of Sabah. This actually is the tropical Borneo of my dreams – Proboscis Monkeys in the trees, giant Hornbills flapping around. But, that’s another story.

The taxi driver at the airport seemed happy to see us. At the hotel, we gave him a small tip which, judging from his reaction, was an unusual gesture. We stayed at the Golden Tulip Hotel, part of the Dutch chain. It wasn’t a bad hotel, especially for such a remote location, and was situated right on the Barito River. After resting up a bit, we decided to jump on a couple of bicycle rickshaws to tour the city. Our Bahasa Indonesia (the local language) was not good enough to communicate with the drivers. And, of course, they spoke not a word of English. I just made a hand gesture, and the two little men started to pedal like mad.

There wasn’t much to see around the city. Most of the action was on the Barito River. There was no doubt that this was a very poor and backward place and that Islam obviously held sway. I couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of the little Dayak ladies walking around in occlusive, full length robes and smothering head scarfs.

We arrived back at the hotel and negotiated the fare. We ended up paying our drivers about $10 each – around 5 times the going rate, but not bad for two hours of hard work. We were planning to visit the floating market the following morning. I discussed this with the man at the front desk and he arranged a private boat for us. We were apparently supposed to depart from the hotel jetty at 4:30 AM. This seemed to be a bit early to me, but I assumed that the hotel guy knew what he was doing.

Sure enough, we left on schedule the following morning – in the dark! We didn’t see much on the way to the market. I assumed that the market was either a very long distance from the city or was scheduled to last for several hours. Neither of these assumptions proved to be correct. We arrived at the market in the half-light of dawn, and departed about an hour later. There was never enough light for proper photography. In fact, it was actually difficult to even see the market.

To say that I was disappointed would be a vast understatement. After our return, I went up to the hotel desk again. There was a different guy there this time, and he seemed to be a little quicker on the uptake. Apparently, there were two separate floating markets. The bigger one (the one that we hadn’t attended) began about an hour after sunrise and it was scheduled to take place the next morning. Thank God I had scheduled an extra night in Banjarmasin just in case. I scheduled another private boat, and then set out to explore the city on foot. Joan chose to remain in the air-conditioned hotel and I think she made the right decision. As I mentioned previously, there was very little to see around Banjarmasin. I probably lost about 15 pounds by the end of the day – too bad it was all water.

The second expedition turned out to be much better. The market was big, colorful, and seemed relatively unspoiled. And the boat ride to and from – this time in daylight – was interesting and definitely improved my opinion of the city. Here are a few photos:

Bangkok – eat your heart out!