Pontianak… I promised you, pirates! In this case, we are thankful we didn’t meet our pirates, but the act of piracy that occurred went like this…
After an overnight sail from the Karimata Islands, we arrived at Pontianak in a torrential downpour. Pontianak is about 10 miles up the river. Once there, we anchored, had dinner and fell promptly to sleep. We woke the following day to find our newly acquired (and near new) motor had been stolen. The pirates had pinched our little putt putt, and we were not happy! The day didn’t get any better…
We had to organise the payment for the gear we bought in Panebagan, so we waved down a passing boat and got a ride to shore. At the ATM, our debit card was not working. We went to another ATM, and then another, with the same result. After using our credit card to withdraw the money to pay for the purchase of the dingy and the now missing motor, we went to recharge our phone. Once I had phone credit, I rang our bank to find out why the card was not working (it should have been good until October). Long story short… replacement cards somewhere in Australia, and we now only had credit card access to our money… which became problem number two.
Then we went to the police station to report the stolen motor – total waste of time. We mentioned to them that we needed to fly out of Indonesia for a night or two and needed somewhere safe to leave the boat. They took us to the coast guard, and the Coast Guard showed us where we could leave Thorfinn safely.
After moving the boat to the pier, Dwayne went off to organise diesel. He went to the ATM to get some more money from our credit card only to find it was not working. WTF? It had worked that morning! So Dwayne tried several different ATMs before ringing the bank again. He discovered they had cancelled the credit card because we told them we would not be back until Christmas, and they said we had been out of the country too long. Without forewarning us. Seriously, this day was turning into a nightmare! Dwayne managed to sweet-talk the bank… probably with threats of dismemberment, and the cards were once again working.
We booked a flight to Kuching, and 36 hours later, we were waiting for our flight at the airport. When I had to use the ablution, I discovered a hilarious sign indicating the correct way to use a toilet. Check out the bottom two. In case you can’t see it clearly, the one on the left says you are not allowed to use the toilet for fishing, and the one on the right says you cannot cock your leg!
We arrived back in Pontianak from our time in Kuching with a new outboard motor and a couple of bottles of scotch. Later that day, we had a visit from immigration and the harbourmaster. Neither could speak English, so it was hard to determine what they wanted. Essentially, they told us to leave. They asked us why we’d come here (we were asking ourselves the same question by that time)! We told them we came here to purchase fuel and food and that we wanted to visit their city; didn’t they want tourists? The immigration officer said, “no, you go”. Ok, thanks for the hospitality! I think immigration at the airport may have phoned his mate to tell him we had a couple of bottles of duty-free whiskey because, after an hour-long interrogation, he asked for whiskey. There was no way Dwayne was parting with his whiskey, so I gave them each a bottle of bubbly. We finally organised to stay long enough to go shopping the next day before leaving at lunchtime.
Pontianak wasn’t all bad, though I wouldn’t hesitate to say don’t bother going there. There was a good market each night right on the water, very close to where we were, and I had delicious sates for dinner every night. Several other markets sold all sorts of things.
Most people looked at us as though we were in the wrong place, and many asked why we had come to Pontianak. However, we met several people with the usual Indonesian big heart and even bigger smiles. The day we left, we found a new Indonesian flag (ours was totally ripped to pieces). We went to a seamstress to get a minor alteration made. She stopped what she was doing and did our small job for us. It took her about five minutes, and when we asked how much, she said no charge. We made her accept payment and thanked her profusely – for her kindness more than anything else, as we hadn’t been on the receiving end of that for so long! Then Dwayne went to get more fuel. When he returned, he said that a guy had lent him his motorbike, and when Dwayne went to pay him, he didn’t want any money. Dwayne made him take some money and asked if we could use the bike to get some shopping. We did three shopping trips, getting some beer and fresh fruit and veg, and he still didn’t expect payment. Just when we were starting to think the worst about Pontianak, some generous, kind-hearted people gave us back our faith in Pontianakians!
Once the shopping was done and the boat ship-shape, we set sail back down the river. We dropped anchor near the entrance to the river and almost immediately had a visit from the Navy! Oh no, what do they want! It turned out they just wanted to say hello and get some photos.
The following day we pulled up the anchor and gratefully left Pontianak behind! Off to clear water and small villages again as we cross the South China Sea.
Next up – Crossing the South China Sea
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