Saturday 5 October Pangkalan Bun celebrations

Boy! It's hot and humid here. Not surprising considering we are just less than 3° south of the equator, in a wind less river and surrounded by rain forest.

The local tourist board have invited all cruisers who are available to join in their celebrations for the 54^th anniversary of their capital, Pangkalan Bun, 6 miles inland from Kumai. There are seven of us today; Gary & Jackie (Inspiration Lady), Ken & Katrina (Watusi), Sandy (Southern Wing) and us two. We met at the dinghy dock to be courteously offered two air conditioned people carriers to take us in to the town. The air conditioning is a delight in itself; we could have happily been driven around all day to enjoy this luxury!

yellow themed parade

Pangkalan Bun was busy with traffic. We were dropped off in the centre and handed over to three lovely ladies who were to be our guides for the day. The had commemorative yellow polo shirts for us to wear, cold water and savoury buns for snacks. Then we learnt we were going to watch and then take part in the carnival, a parade by the whole town, for the whole town passing in front of the state Regent. It didn't sound like a lot of fun, but how wrong I was proved. It was a joyous, noisy, yellow occasion. Yellow is the colour of the region; our shirts were canary yellow, every one else was wearing yellow, the decorations were yellow, the carnival floats were yellow, the rice and egg offerings carried by the participants were yellow and we stood in front of the Yellow Palace to watch it go by. We were supposed to wait to the end of the line to join in but after an hour and a half and still no sign of the end we were allowed to squeeze in and make our 'pass by the dignitaries marquee.

As in all the other places we've been as foreigners everyone wants to say hello, or have their picture taken with you or just to shake hands. I know have an idea of how it feels to be a celebrity; you wave, you smile, no autographs, cameras everywhere, cheering and hulloing. When we reached the dignitaries tent the commentator beckoned us over for an interview and how we felt to be there, of course we were honoured to be invited to take part in the celebrations. He translated and the Regent came down to shake all our hands and welcome us personally.

meeting the Regent

up the river on local boat

A little further to parade and wave to the crowds and we were finished. Ushered down a quiet side road to the river we reached our next event, a trip up the river in a traditional river boat. They're long and thin and you sit very close to some very dirty water (you just know the sewer system runs into here). We kept a close cover over our mouths to avoid drinking any of it.

After the river trip we were dropped off to walk through the market back to the centre of town to have lunch at a local restaurant. This is all as guests of the tourist office – a slap up lunch of barbecued prawns, fish, squid, more fish and rice all to be eaten with our right hands.

Earlier in the day we'd been standing in front of the Yellow Palace and asked if it were possible to see inside. To do this we had to get special permission and one of the official guides to open it for us. We were in luck and they said yes so once more our air conditioned cars whisked us off to the palace. First question was 'what is this palace?'. It's the visiting house for the Sultan of Kalimantan, where he and his family come to gaze on the river and for functions. It's also a small museum and a place where dance groups practise their traditional dancing. The original burnt down in '86 and the current is a replica.

market shopping

the brown coloured Yellow palace

Yachties and hosts

Prince 'blessing' our leader, Gary

David tells the Prince a joke

The reigning (and very old) Sultan lives in Solo in Java but his younger brother, the prince lives next door and had kindly invited us all to visit after we'd been to his family palace. His is a most modest house with cannons on the lawn, over stuffed sofas in the reception room and two official cars in the car port . Kesultanan Kutaringin Bukit Indra Kencana (which part is his name and which the title we didn't discover) must be close to 80. A small, powerfully built man with huge knuckle duster rings, shiny gold watch, long finger nails and fuzzy eyebrows he courteously entertained us with Coca Cola (Kalimantan is strictly y Muslim and a 'dry' country). His brother has no children making him next in line for the title of Sultan.

He gave our leader, Gary, an official blessing and welcome using a ceremonial kriss, or dagger, and blessed us with strength and good fortune in the form of throwing yellow rice over us. While this was going on his elderly sisters arrived and wanted to join in group photos. Feeling under dressed in his jeans and red polo shirt the Prince excused himself to put on his formal yellow day suit for more photos. We took our leave and the Prince pressed his personal calling card into our hand. Jackie asked if this was like a 'get out of jail free' card if we were to be stopped by the police.

Another ride in our cool cars brought us to the brand new Hypermarket. There were positive oohs and ahhs from all; modern supermarket shopping! However this is Indonesia. Would you ever expect to see a whole section of self service dedicated to dried fish, shrimps, squid and other unidentified sea things like the fruit and nuts in Tescos? Hard as it I passed by without making any selections. While I was scanning the shelves David was being pursued by school girls all eager have their photograph taken with him. Is it his winning smile, blue eyes or boyish good looks? They got me!

David and his young fans

And then it was back to Kumai, our dinghies and a wonderful day had been had by all. One last thing remained which was to close the deal on our orang utan trip. We'd had another, better quote for another agent, but the original man, Yosi really wanted our business. It's end of the season and not too many more boats to come, perhaps he liked David's smile too, but he took us to see the boat he was offering which we really liked and then we shook hands which made all parties happy