Road Trip

Monday I make my first foray from Jakarta out to the "sites". The project team is going to Balikpapan, East Kalimantan to solicit feedback on the software from Project Engineers and cost accountants (yes, accounting can be an adventure!) working the drilling rigs on the island of Borneo.

Let me quote to you from the Lonely Planet guide to Indonesia: "Balikpapan (population 440,000) is an air-con, oil boomtown with little to recommend it to the average traveller. Accommodation is expensive, and there is not much to do around town...Balikpapan has an air of easy, yet oddly artifical, affluence that you won't find elsewhere in Kalimantan...Balikpapan is an R&R center for oil workers and other ex-pats working in mining and logging camps upriver. Consequently, there's a large number of bars and discos in town."

Sounds like California, circa 1849.