With kinder garden student
Balikpapan is known as the oil city but as matter of fact Balikpapan is not the only city for oil business but also for tourism. A lot of people say Balikpapan is unique city, its small but you could find a lot of thing here as a bigger city. This city had a lot history, especially during the Dutch colony in Indonesia.
Office Tower, Samboja Lodge
The first oil wells in Balikpapan is managed by a trade partnership named De Bataafsche Petroleum Masatshappij, or often called BPM from Holland. Potential large oil discovered by Jacobus Hubertus Manten (1833-1920). BPM development is funded by investor Sir Marcus Samuel (1853-1927).
Year 2017 is the 120 years of Balikpapan anniversary, and now I am Nila Warti. Work as a tour guide for Kalimantan Tour Guide, today I have a client from Neatherland at this unique moment. We are passing 2 days tour in Balikpapan. The girl is called Jaime, this pretty girl decide to go by herself from Holland. She is doing her trip for 5 weeks in Indonesia. And the background is her father originally from Java island, so definitely she has Indonesian blood.
at Sun Bear Sanctuary
At the beginning I escort her to the famous place in Samboja Lodge, the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. We are enjoying a very good time there, from seeing the cute baby of orangutan from the hand-made island until visit the Sun bear sanctuary. We meet Patrick, the guy from France who donate his time for volunteering at Samboja Lodge.
Patrick also a scientist and he allow us to help him to repair some facility in sun bear sanctuary. Jaime and I are very happy to help him, especially its for sun bear. One of the protected animal in Indonesia also the Balikpapan’s mascot !
Find mangrove fruit
And the rest of the day we visit Mangrove Teritip which facing to the sea and the last place that we are spending the afternoon sunset with taking canoe at Mangrove Center. The place is very extraordinary, Jaime is very exciting. We also found a big fruit of mangrove and see a lot of proboscis monkey.
The second day is exactly Balikpapan anniversary 10 February, I promise to Jaime, we will visit the Merdeka field. Every year our local government always held the ceremony. We see a lot of entertainment from local until modern dance, its performance by students in Balikpapan.
Meet with Mr. Rizal Effendi
One of the sweet moment I could introduce Jaime to our Mayor Mr. Rizal Effendi, it’s definitely the highlight of Balikpapan tour, meet the first man of Balikpapan government .
The rest of the day we visit some interesting area in Balikpapan such as local market at Kebun Sayur which selling a lot of handmade handy craft, another place is Dahor Heritage Balikpapan which show some old picture about Balikpapan, I could tell to Jaime that we had a lot of history background with the dutch people . And we ended the Balikpapan tour with visit Balikpapan Water Village, some local village which build on the water. Jaime is totally enjoy the Balikpapan city tour with me.
Doesn’t it interisting Balikpapan City Tour with Kalimantan Tour Guide team. Come and join us, contact at tour@indosat.net.id
