BANJARMASIN

Another chance I got was visiting Banjarmasin on August 2012. It's been long long long time ago I didn't see this Banjarmasin city. The main purpose was attending big family re-union. But other purposes forced me to do something else, culinary for sure, since Banjarmasin was well-known for its delicious food, and still exist until now.

The most interesting place to visit was jewelry market in Martapura. But I was very disappointed since I was going there with children and their parents, so the children didn't want to wait longer at the market, they wanna go to the beach: ASAP !

Rrrrrrrgh..... As far as I know, Banjarmasin beach was worst and dirty.... arrrrrgh... but I could do anything to refuse because I was with them, going on their vehicles :((

That was very sad :((

Then we were closed to the beach. We went through a traditional village which had local traditional architecture from its heritage, like this picture below.

A Wooden House Standing on Ulin's Pile

Well.... I admitted that even this wasn't a good one, but quite representative recreation place for family visit. But..... I forgot the name of the beach :D :D :D
You can see the picture of the beach below, many trash spread out along the beach line :((
But it had beautiful blue sky.... pretty !

The Beach

While the children were playing water in the beach, I took many pictures of the scenic, and I captured another traditional wooden house opposite the beach line, but it was place right on top of the soil. The houses located along the beach line were belong to the local inhabitants, and they used the situation to make rented room or rented bathroom for the tourist to wash after swimming on the beach. Clever !

Wooden House Opposite The Beach Line

Okay, on the next day, I had a wish to visit traditional floating market. The floating market was used to be a recreational market then a real market. The price here was quiet high. We were off the river after Shubuh prayer to catch the first boat rented there. God gave me the beautiful view on sunrise in a big and wide river. The river is well known as Barito.

Sunrise at Barito River

We watched the sun up the sky from the boat we rented. As the dark fade away, the boats were coming. They brought many things, vegetables, fruit, and even many floating restaurants. I tried to eat from one of the floating restaurant; I chose Soto Banjar. I had new kind of sensation eating on the boat, hahahahaaaaa..... amazing..! What a valuable experience I got !

Floating Restaurant

Floating Market

Traditional Banjarmasin Culinary:  Soto Banjar

Around 09.00 am, we continued our journey; on the same boat we rented; to the small island full of monkey; Pulau Kembang. You should be careful and suggested not to bring any kind of food, unless you want to gave them some banana or so :))

But I had a bad experience in that island. Those monkey were all around us. Their eyes were looking at us with distrust. So we had to walk among them. But suddenly, a baby monkey climbed up my back and hold my shoulders. I screamed loudly felt its claws :((
Luckily, my uncle was standing behind me, so he took the baby monkey away from my back and ousted it :D
Fiuhhhh.... Alhamdulillah :))

The Monkeys

Oiya, I forgot to tell you that I had s special menu or special culinary that I ate every day, every time. It was red spices yellow rice (nasi kuning bumbu habang). The red spices spread out on the yellow rice made this kind of yellow rice was sooooo special. It had different taste with those red spices in Java. I guessed that it came from special chilli that only exist in Banjarmasin. You can eat the yello rice with boiled eggs, fried chicken, or haruan fish. I preferred eating with haruan or boiled eggs.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm......... yummy !!! :D :D :D

Nasi Kuning Bumbu Habang Iwak Haruan

Okay.... that was my little experience in Banjarmasin. I will come again visit this city and eat another nasi kuning bumbu habang iwak haruan; my very favourite meal ^^

Cheers.... ^^