The City on The Equator "Pontianak" or Kun Tien

They have driven more than 2000 KM by 8th Dec from Miri - Mr and Mrs. Francis Lim from Miri extremely excited and happy - they received a certificate for visiting the Equator. I took this photo in the evening as they came back laden with goodies.

On 8th Dec we reached the Equator and Pontianak or Ponti as the locals call it at almost midnight! On of the vehicles had a slight accident - knocking into a motor cycle - but with our Pontianak friend's help it was smoothly settled. It has been quite a marvellous and safe road journey so far.

Pontianak is the city on the Equator and that's rather romantic to any one interested in geography.

We checked into the Mercure Hotel which is very comfortable by any standard. At long last - a good bed and some hot showers.  Those who did not expect the humidity and did not bring enough clothes were glad that they could at least get to be freshly showered. I was able to have a really good night's sleep by past midnight. We had been roughing it out and like good Girl Guides and Boys Scouts our group had been in good spirits and cheer.

With Christmas coming we were just happy to see the Christmas decorations in the hotel. And furthermore we were extremely happy to be in touch with our families in Sarawak and in Malaysia...

Before we went to sleep we had some fried mi hoon as room service and we checked our emails using the wi fi.....that's splendid!!

Next day we had several objectives: rest and relax....and a bit of shopping for batik and dried and salted fish.

Breakfast was an upscale international buffet. We took it very slowly and leisurely as holiday makers should do. We went to do some batik shopping but missed out the Equator Monument.

And for the record there's a short description of it from Wikipedia.

The Equator monument is one of famous monuments in Indonesia. The equatorial line is marked by the Equator monument, which marks the division between the northern and southern hemispheres. Its location is in Jalan Pontianak, North Pontianak, about 3 kilometers from city center of Pontianak.
[edit] History

* First monument built in 1928 by Netherlands Geographer.
* 1930 completed, in form of bollard radianly and dart.
* 1938 rebuilt with completion by opzicter / architech Silaban. the Original Monument visible in the interior.
* 1990, returning renovated the monument with making a dome to protect original monument and also making of duplicate of monument of the size five times bigger than its original monument. Its grand opening on 1991 September 21.


Note : The equator monument is not on the equator anymore. The equator has moved slightly south and there is a another line outside the monument, that shows the recorded position in 2005. The position of the equator in 2010 is even further south and in the river, as a GPS device can confirm.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Equator_monument"


Three cheers to Francis and his wife Ah Hong.....they are really good adventurers......