Indonesian Visa in Kuching

Yes, Kyushu is positively lovely.
Visited Usuki, too? Surprisingly untouristed.
What happened to the "traverse" trail?

We went to Usuki too, and also discovered a few other interesting stone Buddhas and stone-cut temples in Oita. And lots of lovely scenery.

The mountain erupted a few years ago, and took out the central section of the "traverse" trail. You can now visit either side of Kirishima, but cannot walk between them around the main active peak.

Well, one interesting development in Kalimantan is that they seem to have finally pushed through proper roads between West and Central.
There are even Damri buses from Pontianak all the way to Palangkaraya for 400.000.
Also Damri all the way from Pontianak to Brunei.
If I had known when that guy was asking about overlanding to Brunei in a hurry...

The DAMRI buses from Pontianak to Brunei were operating when I was there. The bus I took from Pontianak - to Kuching - tailed the Brunei bus for a long stretch of the road. Both buses were running late.

DAMRI buses to Palangkaraya are definitely new though! Wow. I think they built some new bridges on the Palankaan Buun (sorry, I'm sure I killed the spelling there) - Pontianak stretch, which has opened up the road. I hope it doesn't shut down the river speedboats completely though. Those were a lot of fun. So was hitchhiking through the palm oil plantations in the middle of nowhere...

I can't think of oil palm plantations being fun, in any way.

Btw, Kuching buses in Pontianak now must use a new terminal horribly placed way out of the city in the middle of nowhere, reachable by a 35.000 Damri shuttle or 150.000 taxis. Ridiculous.
Meanwhile Damri can maintain a terminal in the center.

It's fun when someone stops and picks you up finally, after 5km of walking past identical looking oil palms...

DAMRI have a terminal in the center, but the Kuching-bound buses don't stop there. Not that they bother telling passengers that. I bought a ticket at the central office, and was told I could come there on the morning I wanted to go to Kuching to get on the bus. Except that I couldn't. I ended up on the back of a DAMRI employee's motorbike (with my big backpack) for the trip out to the ridiculous new bus terminal. The buses do run along the road past the earthquake memorial on their way to Kuching, though, and there's a more convenient location there somewhere where you can get on them.

The bus station in Kuching is just as bad, or at least it was for me. By the time the buses arrive from Pontianak, in late afternoon, there is public transport left connecting Kuching's bus station with the city center.

The Kuching buses no longer run past the equator monument.
They now use an interior road, approaching Pontianak from the east.
The new bus terminal is also east of the city, surrounded by bush.

Agree, the Kuching one is a pain, too.
Only handy for the airport.
But at least you can take night buses to Kuching, arriving in the morning.
To Pontianak, there are morning buses only.

Ah, okay! That actually makes a lot of sense all of a sudden.... I'm sure the bus terminal is the same one that I used, but at that time the buses still traveled out of Pontianak towards the west, on the Singkawang road. I guess there's a new shortcut through the interior now up north to Kuching?

I hate night buses. The irony of the Kuching bus station is that it's called "Sentral".

Yes, they now go through Tayan.
This road is shorter and less busy.
The new bus terminal is quite lavishly decorated insinde with color reliefs showing scenes of Dayak life or so.
Mind you, it still looked unfinished.
From Singkawang itself, buses travel both to the Aruk and Entikong borders, but not to Kuching. If you cross at Aruk, note that shared taxis for 40 ringgit are the only public transport from Biawak on the Malaysian side to Kuching.

Whoever set up the linkage between public transports and long-distance transport (airport, Kuching Central) must have gotten a bribe from the taxi companies. That said, there is a bus stop into town opposite the main entrance of Kuching Central bus terminal. You just have to cross a very busy road without crosswalks to get to it.

The airport used to have a local bus stop years ago. Now you have to walk about a quarter mile (in the intuitively opposite way from town).

There is an option. Uber does have an app in Kuching RM 9-13 and about RM13 with Grab Car.