Beauty Treatment

One of the most important facilities that I should have is salon! Yes, as a girl I need to remain treated. And Indonesia is the place for reasonable-price beauty treatment. I had suffered enough in Germany where beauty treatment is unbelievably expensive. So no excuse, I have to allocate my money for beauty treatment while I am in Indonesia.

However, the quality of treatment is, of course, different in each area. For example in Jakarta, one can find various beauty treatments in various services and prices. A hairdo like blow dry is very normal to have in Jakarta.

In Bali, spa and massage treatments are the most offered. Hair styling is rarely to find; and one has to be careful in selecting the place for having hairdo. Not every place can serve nice hairdo as offered.

My nightmare came when I was in Makassar. I went to a decent salon to have a creambath. Normally, it would end up in getting a blow dry to make the hair looks nicer. But the service was so bad and the hairdresser even tugged my hair!!! In the end I decided to finish my session before I had more suffer on my hair!!!

So… based on all of my experiences… I was so curious when I came to Berau: what kind of Salons that it has? As I expected it before, the salons here are house-based. They are houses or part of the houses which transformed into salon. They are not buildings which made to become salons.

Of all the salons in Tanjung Redeb, there is one salon that very famous. Well at least its banners are everywhere around the city. The salon is called ‘Olla Manado Salon’. Its marketing strategy apparently very effective, people will refer to them whenever I asked about good salon in Berau. However, nobody that I know has tried it!

I haven’t tried the salon, but by looking at the appearance, I don’t feel interested to try. It looks slum to me :( Fortunately, my coworker showed me another salon called ‘Inne Salon’. Surprisingly, this salon is not a house-based. It is a custom made building; so it’s perfect! It looks perfect from the outside.

Inside, it’s as perfect as it looks outside. It’s clean. All the servers are ladies, no transvestite! It seems that they all living in the back part of the building.

I tried having creambath and foot massage. The massage is good, it covers many body parts and took some times; and the price is reasonable. However, I still uncertain about the hairdo. When I asked to get a blow dry after the creambath, I was served by a lady who used to work there! She doesn’t work there anymore, she just visited the salon at that time! Although she gave me a nice blow dry, but I didn’t know the quality of other servers then. What a gamble… But I’ll keep coming back to have my beauty treatments in Inne Salon.

Hospital

There is one and only hospital in Berau; a public hospital owned by the District Government. In Indonesia it is called RSUD (Rumah Sakit Umum Daerah).

Although I got insurance from my work, however the RSUD was not a partner for the insurance company. The closest partners are in Samarinda and Balikpapan. So if I got sick, I had to fly to be hospitalized! What a journey…

Waste Management

One of the curiosity that I have, when I first came to my place in Berau, was the garbage dumpster. There was no garbage dumpster at the house!

I couldn’t understand at all. How come a house doesn’t have a dumpster? Where all the garbage goes? Are they burnt? Or do I have to throw it somewhere just like in Germany? But where????

And here comes another surprise… I have been told that I have to put all the garbage in a plastic bag. And then the plastic bag has to be hanged on the fence at night. A garbage cleaner will come during night time to collect it, so there will be no more garbage in the morning!

Weird!

Cendana City Park

Near the office of the Head of the Berau District, there is a city park named Cendana.

A water fountain is located in the middle of it, and some animal statues are spreading out around the park.

The park is clean; and unlike other city parks in Indonesia, there are no street vendors inside. I hope this situation will stay forever.

Odong-odong

Just when you thought this ride is only available in Java; surprisingly odong-odong is pretty famous among children in Tanjung Redeb. Children are lining up to play it!

This ride is a mini carousel modified from a bike. The operator has to pedal the bike to make each seat moves up and down.

Odong-odong or mini carousel
Photo courtesy of Candhika Yusuf

Singkuang Café

This is another surprise for me. In the small city of Tanjung Redeb, there is a café with nature-style design.



The entrance


The café is called Singkuang Café. It is made mostly from woods and surrounded with lush garden. The café has two levels, the first one has sofas and chairs while the second one has mats with pillows. In addition, the café has wi-fi facility!

First floor

It’s really a nice place to relax or hang out with friends. For music lovers, there are band instruments for jamming, and karaoke set for singing.










Band instruments and a big screen

Second floor with mat and pillows

What an oasis in a desert!

Praying Houses

Although the city is small but Tanjung Redeb has all the praying houses of acknowledged religions in Indonesia. Mosques, Churches, Pura or Hindu temple, and Vihara or Buddhist temple are present. What a melting pot!

The Grand Mosque

A Protestant Church

Parking

No parking fee in Berau. I hope it’s gonna be forever.

Supermarket

Some supermarkets are present in Tanjung Redeb but all of them are local companies. No national companies like Alfa Mart or Indomaret are present. Of course no hypermart also.

Although they are local companies but they can provide a wide range of products, similar to what I can find in Jakarta. So far, no complains! :)

The Price

Prices in Kalimantan are more expensive than in Java and Sumatra. This is just normal because most of the populated cities are in the two islands, so the distribution chains are stronger there. However although the prices are above standard, the difference is not so much.

So far the only shocking price that I found is the price of ‘Aqua’ drinking water. The price of a refilled gallon is three times than the one in Jakarta!!! This is somehow odd as the price for one liter of plastic bottle packaging is almost the same like in Jakarta.

The price for gasoline in Berau is no different as in Jakarta. Of course this price is the one sold in an official gas station of Pertamina. The gas station is as standard as the ones in Jakarta. However, the logo used in the Pertamina stations is the old one. Some thing is not updated yet…

Prices for food in food stall are somewhat normal. One meal with home-made drink is averagely cost Rp.13.000,- (less than € 1). Since prices of bottled tea and any other packaged drink are more expensive than in Java, it is better to have a home-made drink like ice tea or orange juice.

Clothing

Tanjung Redeb is a small city yet it has many surprises. For instance: clothing. There are many distros in Tanjung Redeb. Really!

Although most of them sell t-shirts mostly, I guess I still can be fashionable here. And just when I thought it would be difficult to find batik clothes, there is one distro specializing in selling batik from Jogajakarta! Nice!

Accommodation

Accommodation here means a room to rent or a house to rent. Starting from my arrival to today, I am staying at my co-worker’s house. She rent a house and she allows me to stay there. My co-worker is having her annual leave until the New Year holiday ended; so at the moment I live alone in her rented house.







Living room

Central room

TV room

The house is pretty big. I don’t how much the total area exactly, but it has three sleeping rooms, one living room, one kitchen room, one bathroom, and one central room. It’s really big for living alone.

By the end of January, my co-worker will not extending her work contract and she will move out from Berau. So she offers me to continue the rent. It’s a nice offer as the price is reasonable and the house is fully furnished, which means I don’t have to think about buying furniture or even buying any utensils. Beside, I don’t have to search anymore, I just have to change my room. However, as I said, this house is too big for living alone. If I continue to live alone, then I’ll waste two other rooms. And even if I don’t mind about it, still, cleaning the whole house alone will kill me softly. With my standard of cleanliness, I think I need a whole day to clean each room!!! In addition, the house has garden!!!







The kitchen

Sleeping room

Ah well, I don’t have to decide now…

TV Channels

Surprisingly, in Berau it is common to have a parabola antenna. Maybe it is because there are no relay TV stations like in big cities. However, using parabola antenna means having TV channels from abroad as well as from Indonesia. Channels like HBO, Star Movies, ESPN, Arirang, etc. are available.

Almost every household, big and small, has parabola antenna beside the house. Sometimes, one parabola antenna is shared by some houses. For me, this is very special because I don’t have HBO channel in my house in Jakarta. I have cable TV in Jakarta, but to have HBO I have to pay extra. So surprise, surprise… I can watch HBO everyday in a small city!!!

Having parabola antenna is common, like in this decent house.

The only annoying factor is: the electricity is not stable. I hope the electricity won’t go blackout when I were watching something very interesting.

Electricity

In Indonesia, even big cities have problem with electricity…! Having blackout is normal even in Jakarta. I personally don’t understand with this situation; Indonesia is rich with sunlight, winds, waves, and or waters, electricity supply shouldn’t be a problem.

Anyway, so it’s not surprising if small city like Tanjung Redeb always having blackout more than once a week :(

Banks

Major Indonesian banks are present in Tanjung Redeb like Mandiri, BCA, Danamon, BNI, and BRI. So no worries, any bank cards using visa electron, link, alto, or cirrus network can withdraw money in ATM all over the city centre.

Of course there is also a local bank like East Borneo Provincial Development Bank (Indonesian: BPD Kaltim). But probably it is not needed for visitors or immigrants like me.

Mandiri has the most ATM outlets which are three.

Airport

The airport in Berau is called Kalimarau. Today, it has an airstrip for Boeing plane.

Two local flights service and one national flight company are available to provide a route of Tanjung Redeb – Balikpapan. However on weekends, only the national is available. If one searches for a ticket from outside Kalimantan, most likely one will get the national flight company.

According to other people who have been travel to Berau a lot, the national one is often delayed. Nonetheless, the national one is the one with Boeing aircraft; it is easier to get its ticket. The locals are Fokker aircrafts.

The locals are ‘Trigana’ and ‘Kalstar’ while the national one is ‘Batavia’.

The airport building of Kalimarau is very small and decent. It only has one conveyor belt; and people can just go in and out freely. It reminds me of an airport in Labuan Bajo, Flores in eastern of Indonesia.