I sat in a park for an hour today. It was the first large public park I’d seen in Borneo, but it was hardly used. Admittedly it was a weekday, but I thought more mums with kids would be about. And it wasn’t as if they’d done a poor job on it. There was a huge amphitheatre for events and a few pagodas to rest under as well as a number of shady trees and stone bridges. I saw one young couple in the shade at the end of a bridge and a few idle people walking through, but no one really using the park. Strangely, there were 3 security guards lounging in the shade, one with a German Shepherd. What kind of security problems were they expecting, I wonder?
Outside the park itself, but cutting into a corner, was a large swimming pool complex with high dive boards, but again there were very few people using it – all kids. I might have stayed longer, waiting for more people to come along or for those there to do something interesting, but ants were biting me where I sat under a tree and the pagodas only provide a concrete floor to sprawl on. The security guards had brought their own plastic chairs.