LOMBOK FOR LEBARAN

So… Blog 2 of 3 to finish before I go home in a week. Due to intense procrastination on blogging, I am condensing two big trips into one blog. My last blog was a doozy of a post so I think I’ll impose a word limit on myself this time: 3,000 words (including this little introduction.) So, word economy is the name of the game and I’d best start right away.

The second biggest vacation of the year, after Christmas break, is Lebaran (aka: Idul Fitri, or Eid al-Fitr) when everyone is done fasting for Ramadan and they go to their hometowns to celebrate. We get two weeks off, instead of the usual one week term breaks. Although my work visa was actually (barely) renewed on time, I still chose to stay in Indonesia for this break. Indonesia has so many things to see and places to explore. I don’t feel like I’ve seen even a tenth of what the country has to offer.

For this break, my friend Aasha and I explored Lombok. We spent about half our time on the little island of Gili Air (again; see previous blog for my first visit there) and the other half on the Lombok mainland. We had ideas about getting over to Flores and Komodo too, but these didn’t pan out. What we got instead were some new friends and travel mates. More on this later.

Early Saturday morning on the first day of break (because you don’t waste weekends; that would be unthinkable,) Aasha and I hopped on a flight to Bali. We got a taxi to take us to the eastern port of Padangbai (also see previous blog) with the hopes of getting a boat ride to Gili Trawangan that day. The sea had other plans however. Due to excessively big waves and the fact that no one wanted to die and be sent to a watery grave, no boats were making the Bali-Gilis-Lombok trip that day. Some hawkers were really trying to sell us a slow boat ticket instead (the only one that was running,) that would take us all day to get to our destination. They were very pushy and even followed us around town. Fortunately, we didn’t take them up on the offer. Instead we managed a deal with someone else: one night’s accommodation, breakfast, and a one-way boat ticket to Gili T the next day, all for 50 USD. It was a blessing in disguise because we discovered that Padangbai is actually a really lovely town (once the hawkers have dispersed.) We enjoyed walking to a small, secluded beach, eating dinner, and seeing the stars for the first time in a long time.

The next day we pushed our way onto the dock where the Marina Srikandi boat was leaving from. You need a ticket to get on the boat, but it actually doesn’t reserve you a spot. You just have to get their early enough to elbow your way to a spot. If you don’t make it, tough luck, you just have to wait for the next boat. We sat on the top of the boat (the only space available) with some other young travellers from Europe. It started out fine, but by the end we were totally soaked by the waves coming up and over the edge. We arrived soaking wet but hey, it’s the tropics; you dry quickly enough.

One of the first things I remember about Gili T was that there was a white, 30-something year old man locked up in a little cell at the dock. What he was doing there was a mystery, but seeing as he still looked drunk / hungover it wasn’t too hard to concoct a story about some terribly embarrassing, maybe even illegal, thing he had done to make an ass out of himself the previous night. Gili Trawangan has more people, more parties, more places to eat, more bars to drink at. I prefer Gili Air. That doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy our one night on Gili T however (it was supposed to be two, but night one was at Padangbai, Bali, as you recall.)

Aasha and I went snorkeling, which turned out to be a bad idea, because the surf was going out and we got stranded on very ragged, cutting rocks. That night we enjoyed a splendid dinner with a carafe of sangria between us, chatting away and enjoying the night breeze and the stars. (You know, I appreciate being a girl – woman? Am I a woman? Am I an adult? – because I get to do things like having splendid, star-lit dinners with a carafe of sangria and chatting away the night with guys or girls and it’s pretty normal either way in society’s eyes.) That night there was an outdoor screening of Midnight In Paris, which seemed too good to be true and I couldn’t – and didn’t – pass up the opportunity.

The next morning we took a boat to Gili Air, where I'd spent some time with my parents during June break. Aasha and I wanted to have accommodation before we got there, and the only place open that I could get a hold of was the place I had stayed with my parents, Youpy Bungalows. So a horse cart to Youpy it was. Talk about déjà vu. Here is where I hope to condense time (and save words, seeing as I only have just over 2,000 left. Am I really going to be able to make this goal?) So let me just say the next four days were spent learning how to scuba dive, eating dinner, and relaxing.

I had decided I wanted to learn to dive during my trip with my parents. It looked like a lot of fun and I figured this would be a great place to learn. There are – at least – half a dozen dive schools on Gili Air alone. I chose one called Gili Air Divers. I had a great instructor and good dive buddy and I enjoyed every minute of it. (I learnt too late that my certification is SSI and not PADI, but even if SSI is not as widely recognised, I still feel like I had very sound and thorough training.) As an added bonus, almost everyone at Gili Air Divers spoke French (including my dive buddy, Thierry, and my instructor, Arno, both from France.) I enjoyed hearing everything in both languages and even chatting with Thierry in French. And being used to les francophones as I am, I was not alarmed when Thierry started to faire la bise upon greeting. Anyway, one of the best experiences was on the first day of diving in the open ocean when we circled around a big coral and I had a feeling just like being submerged in an aquarium. (!!! So cool!) One of the worst experiences was at the end of my three day training when my nose got clogged with snot, I couldn’t breathe, and my sinuses started aching and pinching and so drove me to distraction that I had to surface. Fortunately I had descended far enough for long enough to cover the requirements. And lastly, one of the craziest experiences of my training was in the pool, when we had to practice breathing from the regulator out of our mouths in the water. The best way I can describe it is like the reverse of drinking from a water fountain. You take the regulator out of your mouth underwater, press the button to release a torrent of air bubbles, and then have to open your mouth underwater and breathe! You drink in the stream of air while totally submerged in water! This has to be one of – if not the most – crazy, mind-bending, counter-intuitive things I have ever done. There is a good reason why your body freaks out a bit if you open your mouth to breathe underwater. But, hey, it’s okay. It’s all part of the training. And now, I am a certified open water diver. I did four dives for training and two more a week later in Kuta, Lombok.

After my training was done, Aasha and I decided to stay one more night on Gili Air so that I could have a chance to relax and lie in the sun one day without the stress of diving (which, fun as it is, can be a physical drain.) For our last night we found new accommodation (Banana Cottages, just behind Biba. Highly recommended for anyone who might find themselves on Gili Air.) Which was not only cheaper, but came with A.C. and hot water! They were also newly built. Aasha and I somehow got the honeymooners’ suite with a king sized bed and a heart-shaped shower drain!

The next day it was off to the Lombok mainland. (Approx. 1,500 words left. I need to stop these word count updates. They’re not helping.) On the way over we struck up conversation with a Dutch guy. He was connecting to shuttle bus to take him to Flores, while we were Senggigi-bound by minicab. But even though we only chatted for an hour or two at the most, it was fun to talk (he turned out to be a big NFL fan, unexpectedly) and he gave off that easy-going and friendly vibe that a lot of travellers do. Connecting with other travellers is one of the best parts of travelling.

Aasha and I had been doing a good job so far of chatting and making friends with all sorts of fellow travellers. We found, during out time on Gili Air, that our generosity one night in making new friends was soon repaid. We wanted to eat at Biba, the best Italian restaurant on the island, but it was very crowded, as usual. We waited for 20-30 minutes before finally landing a table for four. It was just the two of us, so we had two empty seats. Later, two girls about our age were looking to sit down, but got turned away because the restaurant was at capacity. We offered them our two empty seats and enjoyed talking and eating with them that night. Soon (was it just the next night?) two couples sitting at a table for six did the same thing for us. They were from England and three of the four turned out to be teachers, so we had plenty to chat about. The night ended with ice cream and several rounds of Uno. I doubt I will ever see them again (or the girls at Biba or the Dutch guy from the boat,) but I enjoyed every minute of our dinner with them. Amazing the good times you can have when you open yourself up to sitting down at a table with someone.

And speaking of making cool, new, international friends… it was about to happen again in Lombok.

The directions for catching the shuttle bus were not especially clear, but we shuffled on down a little street to an out of the way café. Aasha, our Dutch friend (Nicolas,) and I were worried that we were in the wrong place but suddenly this café jam-packed with white 20-somethings sprang out of nowhere and we squeezed our way in. I nearly freaked out when someone took out tickets – I didn’t know what was going on – but soon enough we said goodbye to Nicolas and were lead out to a jam-packed minivan, our luggage unceremoniously thrown onto the roof and bungeed corded down. I believe we had 15 people in a 10 passenger van. I was in the back with two other women. Just as we were about to leave, someone began speaking to me in Bahasa, trying to tell me something. I was confused and suddenly a man with the shuttle company was squeezing himself into the already cozy backseat. So, with arms and legs pressed in, we started down the winding coastal road to the resort town of Senggigi.

For me, the trip passed in silence, but Asha began chatting with her seatmates upfront and was on pretty friendly terms with them by the time we arrived. They were a couple from Switerland (Swiss-Germans) named David and Andrea. The four of us started looking for a hotel in town, having no plans or reservations. We wandered around for a bit before finding something nice and fairly cheap. We ended up being hotel neighbors. We parted ways for a while and Aasha and I ended up on the beach, enjoying the shade and some very expensive Cokes while planning the next leg of the trip. Would we try to get to Flores and Komodo? How would we do that? (We had also looked on Gili Air, but nothing seemed quite right. We found one reputable company that left on a bad day for us, and one company we knew nothing about that left on a good day for us, and ending up booking nothing.)

I was swimming when who should stroll by on the beach but David and Andrea? I called to them and we all sat down together. (On my way out of the water I cut my toe on a sharp shell or something and had to have it bandaged for the next several days. That was a real bummer. But not especially relevant to anything else…) We looked at different tours and talked about what we might do. That evening we went out for beers and dinner and stopped by the Perama tour office to see if they had anything available. There were two spots possibly opening up on a Komodo tour, if a couple of people did not call to confirm said spots. But if that didn’t pan out, there were also some tours that went around the interior of Lombok to see cultural and natural sites. In the end, we didn’t get on the Komodo tour. Instead, we spent the next week with David and Andrea.

Our friendship with David and Andrea formed very fast. You can get to know a person over time if you work with them, much faster if you live with them, but probably fastest of all if you travel with them. David and Andrea were at the tail end of six months of travel through Asia. After having spent so much time together, they said, they liked to meet and talk with new people along the way. At times we were afraid they would get tired of us, but they never did. We went on the two-night-three-day tour around Lombok together with a private van and  driver. The first day we saw a monkey forest (not nearly as cool as the one in Ubud though,) and drove north and east to Mt Rinjani (which we did not hike up; maybe another time…) We saw a beautiful waterfall though. Sadly, the locals were intent on throwing as many plastic wrappers, cups and cigarettes as possible on the ground. The water was freezing cold and I just managed to edge my way up to it. I don’t understand how some people actually bathed in it. Not only was it utterly frigid, but the water pounded the ground with enough intensity to flatten a person.

That night we slept in a cute, little, wooden cottage. It was actually chilly at that altitude (this was the town that most of the Rinjani tours start from,) and I had to dig out my one pair of socks from the depths of my backpack. David and Andrea were fine because they had all their warm clothes from Mongolia. We enjoyed talking the night away and playing cards. For dinner and breakfast the next day we sat on traditional, outdoor, roofed pavilions, Rinjani in view.

The next day we joined up with a Perama tour for the day. They were starting out on a multiple-day tour that would eventually end up at Komodo national park and then bring them back to Lombok. We got to crash at Perama’s private island, Gili Kondo. We swam and replanted some coral, had dinner, a bonfire, singing and mandatory group bonding through line dancing. The tour left to sail on through the night and we (along with some British girls who were – or weren’t – in the same boat as us) stayed and slept in an awesome, tiny tree house on the island. The next day we were treated to some amazing snorkeling and a visit to a tiny spit of an island, just a sand bar really, that actually got smaller the longer we stayed on it. It was beautiful though, sand and water and bright blue sky as far as the eye could see. One of the more beautiful spots on our whole journey I think.

Day three took us to some weaving and pottery sites on the interior of Lombok. We were getting tired, so we spent a lot of time sleeping in the van, but I did really enjoy stopping at the pottery village and picking up a few items. That night we headed back to Senggigi where we had one more night at our original hotel. The next night we took a day tour south to Kuta (Kuta, Lombok is not to be confused with Kuta, Bali) stopping at an interesting, multi-religious temple complex. Our tour guide there (a friendly, middle aged man bedecked in green, yellow and red with a pot leaf belt buckle, Bob Marley on his T-shirt, and reggae playing from his hand phone,) explained to us that the temple was very old and traditionally had hosted Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim worshippers altogether. We also stopped at a traditional Sasak village before arriving in Kuta.

Aasha and I thought we might part ways with David and Andrea then (surely they wouldn’t be mad enough to voluntarily keep themselves in our company any longer,) but Andrea suggested we all search for a hotel, so, we happily did just that. We found a little two story house opposite a café that had a total of four rooms. The accommodation was perfect: a room for 250,000 rp ($25) with three large beds and breakfast in the morning. Some things in Indonesia are so wonderfully cheap.

(By the way, I passed over the 3,000 word mark 65 words ago. Screw it. Whatever. I’d rather have more details than too few. Haha! Like I’d ever write something with too few details! But perhaps I should just finish Lebaran and save Vietnam for one more hastily compiled blog.)

That night we made more new friends, thanks to my striking up a conversation. They were two German travellers, Chris and Sharmaine, who had both been studying in Australia. We all ate dinner together that night and had drinks at the café opposite our homestay. We bonded with Sharmaine right away. I liked Chris too, but he was so utterly, unshakably German. Prim, precise, serious about everything (including having fun,) far better groomed than me, and with almost laughably high expectations about Indonesian customer service. (He said he was going to try to write a letter to get money back after being ripped off on the ferry ride to Lombok. I just smiled and nodded and told him not to get his hopes up too much.) What I do have to be thankful to Chris for, however, is letting me have a go on the motorbike he had rented. It was my first time driving a motorbike and it was so much fun! He took me to a rather quiet road where I wouldn’t have to worry about traffic and I enjoyed zipping up and down the hills with the sunset in view. And once I had tried it, I found it wasn’t too scary after all.  

The next day was David and Andrea’s last full day in Indonesia before their flight to Malaysia. We walked up and down the beaches, taking in some absolutely spectacular views from the hills. We passed a dive shack at a hotel and I signed up for a dive the next day. David and Andrea would have probably gone with me if they hadn’t been leaving. We continued our ambling and ended up at beach that was mostly populated by locals. We had a blast swimming with the local kids. The inner teacher in me came out because we must have played with those kids for at least an hour or more. They taught us words in Bahasa while we taught them the same words in English. (I am happy to say I brought amusement to all when I accidentally called my kepala (head) a kelapa (coconut.) Why do those words sound so much alike?!) We also bonded over reciting the Pancalisa (sort of like the Indonesian version of The Pledge of Allegiance) which all school children, regardless of class or background, know. They were delighted that we knew it too.

A scrawny little six year old took a liking to me. She spoke hardly a word, but basically attached herself to me so I gave her a piggy back ride for the next hour. Of course, all the kids wanted a piggy back ride then, so I had at least two or three children hanging off me as I swam around and bobbed and twisted and ducked underwater. Eventually their mothers called them away and we were free, but I really did enjoy playing with those kids – who were a mixed group from 4 or 5 to maybe 12 years old – and learning Bahasa from them.

David and Andrea left the next day, which was definitely bittersweet. Aasha and I both really enjoyed hanging out with them. They weren’t just traveling companions, but I really feel like we became friends in that week. I sincerely hope we will be able to meet up again someday in the future. I went for my first post-certification fun-dive (with more francophones, bien sûr,) and made sure to log the dives in my dive book. It was funny, but the guy in charge of the dive shop knew who I was already. Turns out he was friends with Arno, my dive instructor from Gili Air. I’m not surprised they all know each other. Apparently Arno had mentioned an American girl who spoke French and the guy in Kuta figured I had to be her. So once again I got to converse in French!

Aasha, Sharmaine and I spent our last couple of days together. Chris had left for a Rinjani trek and Sharmaine moved into our room in David and Andrea’s recently vacated spot. We walked around town a bit, freed a baby goat from a fence and bought a few pairs of travel pants. (I am convert to the ways of travel pants now.) We also rented motorbikes and explored the coast, enjoying the beach, dinner, and a beautiful sunset from a high peak at the end of the coast road. We almost didn’t make it up because it was too steep. We ended up parking the motorbikes and hiking up. It was well worth it.

We headed back on the Sunday before school recommenced. It was a full vacation, even though we didn’t cover as much ground as we normally do on vacations. It was nice just to stay in one place for a couple of days, both in Gili Air and in Kuta. The landscapes were breathtaking, I got to learn how to dive, and best of all, we spent almost the whole time in the company of new and awesome friends whom I still hope to be in contact with in years to come.

Well, I’m just about to 4,000 words. I’ll just have to write about Vietnam this week and post it as soon as possible. Sorry for my long stretch of procrastination followed by (hopefully) four blog posts in one moth. I want to be caught up before I get on my flight home for Christmas however. So… stay tuned. More adventures are on the way!

TRAVELLING WITH MY FOLKS IN JUNE & JULY

I haven't posted a new blog entry for four months, and that's just too long. I've got a lot of travel to report on. I hope this will be one of three last posts for 2013. I do apologize, but I have been so exhausted lately. The sheer amount of grading I have to do is unbelievable. I think the amount of planning for me is comparable to what an American teacher might have to do, but here in Asia (and I have been told this by Asians so I’m not just making stuff up,) the thinking goes that if there is no physical, written work produced, there is no evidence of teaching or learning. Hence, a mountain of worksheets and tests. And each worksheet has lots and lots of items to mark. And of course all of those have to be properly filed and recorded and kept on hand and maintained in the proper way. IT’S EXHAUSTING! Not uncommonly, I come home and just can’t muster the energy to even move for an hour or two. It’s bad. But I do want to get a move on with my blogging. I really need to post something, so…

I'm going to start with my parents visiting this summer. Nevermind the fact that in Indonesia - the vast majority of which is south of the equator - June, July and August is technically winter. The length of day scarcely changes, nor does the temperature, so as far as I'm concerned, it's still summer. In fact, it's always summer. J

So, on to my marvellous June holiday adventure in which I was still travelling with teachers but they happened to be my parents instead of my friends. (Can't escape the teachers in my life - they're everywhere!) Mom and Dad and I had been planning the trip for a few months beforehand and I was working with a travel agent to get an itinerary for the first part of the trip. The last few days we left unplanned because we didn't know exactly what we would want to do or how much time we would have to do it in.

I picked up Mom and Dad from the airport on June 17. It was a long wait, but eventually they came out the exit and I ran to meet them and give them a big hug. Just finishing two days of flying and being in a new time zone 12 hours ahead, they were all mixed up, and we were too excited to turn in right away so I took them out for chicken satay and beer at 2 AM at a 24 hour restaurant near my old apartment. We went there three times in total during their stay! I always enjoyed that placed before, but now I especially associate it with Mom and Dad. And it's funny that if I tell them I was at Midtown Owl, they know exactly where that is and can imagine it. 

The next day I took them around some of the places in my neighborhood here in Jakarta. Mom and I got a deep-conditioning-head-shoulder-massage ("creambath") and then it was off to the local market. We took bajai (for a steep bule price) from the market to my school and I showed them around. Upon returning to my apartment we got our things together and left for the train station to catch our train to Yogyakarta. Confession time: I should have known better! I should have known that any slight delay in leaving would exponentially increase our chances of being late because as 5 PM approached, traffic got worse. Well, our slight delay in leaving did stick us in traffic and we very nearly didn't make it. We reached the station with 10 minutes to spare. But our troubles were not finished. What I thought were our train tickets turned out to merely be our tickets to acquire our real tickets. Frantically looking around, trying to figure out what to do (this was my first time taking the train in Indonesia by the way - real smart) we finally showed our tickets to someone who moved us to the front of the line - explaining to everyone that our train left in 10 minutes, which everyone seemed to accept as a perfectly good reason to let us cut in front of them - and we turned in our not-real tickets, got our real tickets, had our real tickets rubber stamped, dashed up the stairs to the platform and hopped on the train with 2 minutes to spare. Crazy, kind of stupid, but hey, we got there in the end.

The train featured decently comfortable seats and one of the less sanitary squatter toilets I have seen (which is saying something.) In typical Indonesian style, we arrived well over an hour late to our destination. Fortunately, our hotel was within easy walking distance of the train station in the Sosrowijayan area. Thus commences...

Chapitre une des vacances: La culture

As anyone who's been to Yogyakarta knows, one of the main reasons you go there is to see the spectacular Prambanan and Borobudur temples. We were pretty well exhausted after arriving the middle of the night, but nonetheless didn’t waste time the next morning starting to explore the city. We walked down Jl Malioboro (which is, in fact, named after the English duke of Marloboro.) Someone just so happened to lead us to the very same batik workshop that my friends and I came across in February. What luck! they said. We just so happen to be open today. I don’t believe any of it. I’m pretty sure they plant “helpful locals” around the city to usher the tourists to the batik shop. It’s not so bad, the workshop is fun to see and sells very nice batiks, but I dislike the less than truthful nature of the operation. Don’t tell us that you just so happen to be open today. I’m pretty sure you’re open every day of the week to sell batik to tourists. Sell your wares, just don’t lie about it. We did end up buying a few batik paintings.

Later that morning we walked by the Sultan’s palace – the Kraton – and ate some nice Indonesian food at a nearby cafe, which I had been planning on taking my parents to since we went there for the first time in February.

That afternoon, we met our driver who took us to Prambanan. I will never forget Dad's reaction to his first ride in an Indonesian van with an Indonesian driver. And I thought his "Kuwait-training" would have prepared him! I was tired and falling asleep in the back seat, while Dad, poor thing, was gripping the seat with white knuckles and praying that we got there in one piece. 

It was raining a little bit, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the temple and taking in the architecture. We were still plagued by people wanting pictures with us however. When I visited in February the picture-taking was terrible at Borobudur temple and not so bad at Prambanan, whereas this time it was somewhat flip-flopped. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant and returned for a night-time showing of the Ramanyana ballet. Which was awesome and came complete with setting prop straw huts on fire! Unfortunately by this time, we were all really exhausted and we left early because we literally couldn’t keep out eyes open. Travelling for two days halfway around the world and then starting right in on a sightseeing holiday can do that to you.

The next day we went to Borobudur, which is a huge Buddhist temple. Most people head straight for the top, so we were more or less left in peace as we wandered the different levels clockwise to the top. Even as touristy as the place is, I would probably go back even a third time because the sculpture and art on the temple are so breath-taking. It’s amazing to think just how long those statues and carving have been there and how much work it would have been to create such a temple.

We headed back to Jl Sosrowijayan and had a relaxing afternoon at the backpacker’s bars and cafés. There was one that offered snake on the menu! (But you had to order a day ahead of time.) It was also fun just to relax and hang out. My parents are the ones who introduced me to a travelling lifestyle and travelling mentality, so I found it very easy to travel with them, as I knew I would. So we just enjoyed hanging out together, drinking beer, looking at the well-thumbed guide books on the café bookshelf, and chatting.

We woke VERY early the next morning. Our ever-anxious driver, Herlambang, was soooo worried about macet (traffic jams) that he asked us to leave extra early. So we got up at 3 am. I drifted in and out of consciousness as we drove straight north to the city of Semarang. There was some traffic, but it was mostly overloaded trucks going at 5 mph that we had to continually pass. The fumes came right into the car sometimes though and that was fairly nasty. In the end, we were not late at all getting to the airport in Semarang. We were very, very early. Herlambang did what he did best – worry – that we would be upset at getting there so early, but of course we just tipped him and had some coffee while waiting for our flight for the next part of our journey to…

BORNEO!

Chapitre deux des vacances: L'environment

Our flight took us from Semarang to Pangkalan Bun, a little town in south-central Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. (Borneo is the name of the island mass; there are three countries there: part of Indonesia, part of Malaysia, and all of Brunei, which is still teeny-tiny.)

The airport at Pangkalan Bun is very small. I don't think it's the size of a school gymnasium. Our tour guide, Agus, was waiting to pick us up there. Ah, Agus. He was... an interesting fellow, with a wealth of knowledge and passion and a very short attention span. We timed him once and he didn't go more than 20 seconds with talking or making noises. In fact he was really quite annoying at first (mostly due to the fact that he never, ever shut up,) but I think we warmed up to him by the end of the tour. He made us repeat words in his local dialect and would always shout to us when he saw wildlife, whether this attention was solicited or not. He was the sort of person you avoided making eye contact with or sharing a casual comment with if you didn’t want to spend the next 30 minutes in non-stop conversation. But like I said, we did in fact warm up to him in the end and now I can’t help but smile when I think of him.

But enough about Agus. Let me tell you about our journey up a river into the Borneo rainforest to see orang-utans. (Doesn’t that sound exotic? It was!) We had a two-storey boat (do boats have storeys?) that was actually larger than most and was in fact pretty comfortable, except for the stuffiness of the sleeping room. There was a lot of deck room to eat and relax and we had a cabin to sleep in and a shower and toilet. Our crew consisted of Agus, the captain, the 2nd mate, and the cooking lady (none of whose names I can remember, if I ever could.)

Our guides had driven us to the river port in nearby Kumai (en route, stopping to photocopy our passports for the police,) where we embarked. We had lunch before taking off that afternoon. I was exhausted and promptly fell asleep on the mattress on deck after eating. When I fell asleep, I could see a wide, muddy-brown river flanked by ships and concrete buildings. When I woke up, the river had narrowed and was now surrounded by tall ferns. I couldn’t fall back asleep then because the sheer exoticism of it all had got ahold of me and it was already like a romantic image from an old book or movie unfolding in front of me. (Sorry if I’m waxing poetic; it really was cool.)

We saw orang-utans that day in the afternoon. (On a side note, I keep writing “orang-utan” because that’s the Indonesian way, and the old fashioned English way as well. It’s actually a compound word. “Orang” means person and “utan” means forest. “Orang-utan” literally means “person of the forest,” and because I know that now, I tend to hyphenate the word.) Our first stop in Tanjung Putting National Park was a feeding station that was about five minutes’ walk from the river. Mom and Dad and I had thoroughly cloaked ourselves in long, loose cottons, hats, scarves, tall socks and lots of bug spray. We looked pretty ridiculous, but the hope was that we wouldn’t give mosquitos any chance to share their malaria with us. (Of course the next day, I did a 180 and wore shorts and tank top.)

That first orang-utan experience was incredible. They were already feeding when we got there. It was absolutely stunning to see these creatures in the wild with no fences or barriers or sheets of glass separating us. And when you see them up close and in the wild they are so much scarier! There is an element of awe and fear and respect because you realise that this creature is just as large as you – larger in fact – and stronger, so much stronger. And it’s just right there, making eye contact with you. There’s nothing separating you, so the possibility that this wild and powerful animal could be a threat is very real. Of course, they don’t look very threatening; they look peaceful and laid-back more often than not. Nonetheless, the knowledge that you are face to face with such an animal – one that looks eerily like a very ugly human (in my biased human opinion) – is daunting and cool and intimidating.

Watching them eat was fun, because their method of eating was to shove as many unpeeled bananas as physically possible into their mouths and scamper away into a tree to eat. You wouldn’t believe how wide their mouths could expand! The little ones usually had to wait for the alpha-males to get their fill before they dared to snatch any. As we left the feeding area, one orang-utan followed us a bit and we got to take close up pictures with him.

The next day we went as far up the river as we were going to go, to Camp Leakey, home to the famous researcher Biruté Galdikas, who was trained by Louis Leakey himself. I had many moments of sheer nerdy bliss as we toured the camp and snapped photos under the Welcome to Camp Leakey sign.

But I forgot to tell you about Percy! When we arrived at Camp Leaky, before we walked into the jungle, an orang-utan named Percy, sadly ostracized by the other apes, was hanging out on the deck with his handler. We all admired Percy and took pictures for several minutes. Eventually, there was a moment when every person looked away for some reason or another. Quick as lightning Percy struck! With a few swift movements he swung himself onto our boat, snatched the sugar jar from the table, and swung himself onto the deck and into the safety of a tree. Where he proceeded to eat the entire jar of refined, white sugar in front of us. What a little jerk-face! Just like a naughty kid stealing candy, but with the planning and calculation of very smart creature. Anyway, I’ll never forget seeing that ape on our boat for just a split second while he grabbed our sugar jar and scampered away.

At the feeding spot at Camp Leakey, we arrived before the ranger with the big bag of bananas, so we got to witness him dump the food on the feeding platform and then wait… This was truly amazing. At first nothing for a minute or so. Then a soft rustle in the trees, a distant, high branch swaying, a slightly louder rustle and crash. And then rust and orange coloured orang-utans suddenly appear out of the jungle to grab their food. That’s what gets me. It’s just the open wilderness and the apes look so much more magnificent and powerful and beautiful in their natural element.

Our journey lasted 3 night and 4 days (but really 2 nights, 3 days would have been fine.) Other highlights for us included seeing proboscis monkeys, a monitor lizard, and a hornbill. (If you don’t know what a proboscis monkey looks like, I highly encourage you to do a Google Image search.) The food was also great. There was scare when we saw our cooking-lady washing the dishes in the river. We asked her to stop doing that and I think she did. Anyway, none of us got diarrhea too badly.

We also stopped at little riverside village and got to walk around and see their local school. Just like in Jakarta, the framed images of the president and vice president adorn the front walls of every classroom. I bought a carved orang-utan statue that I think I will be a good memory in years to come, carved by locals. We also got to chat with other tourists on our route. Although we had a boat to ourselves, we stuck with a group of three or four other boats doing our same trip. In particular, we enjoyed talking to a young couple from England (the girl had grown up in Kuwait and knew Mom and Dad’s old school!) and a multi-ethnic family from Timor-L’este (the man works for the American Embassy and knows one of Mom and Dad’s old expat friends. Small world…) They invited me to visit them some time in Dili, the capital of Timor-L’este, and I think I will!

On the last day of the journey it was my birthday. I turned 24, which means I am no longer in my early 20s but my mid 20s!!! Oh no! I’m so old now! Basically I guess this means I have no excuses to act like a teenager anymore. L

In any case, I woke up on my birthday in Kalimantan, but I went to bed in…

BALI!

Chapitre trois des vacances: L'art et la beauté

We arrived in Bali at night, having flown from Kalimantan to Jakarta to Bali. It was my birthday wish to eat a posh ocean-side restaurant and bar that I had been to with my friends when I first visited in August, 2012. (Geez, that seems like so long ago.) We were tired from travelling, but it was nice to actually make it there at the end of the day.

We stayed in Seminyak for two nights. The Seminyak-Kuta area was like it always is: choked with tourists, overflowing with Australians, crowded with tacky souvenirs, too much traffic, and a fair amount of litter. Naturally, we didn’t stick around very long. We took a day trip down to Jimbaran, on the northern end of the Bukit Peninsula and had a really nice fresh fish lunch on the beach (feet in the sand and all.) We then wandered down the beach and made ourselves at home on the lounge chairs of a swanky hotel where we were allowed to stay because we ordered a drink. I wouldn’t mind going back to Jimbaran again.

After Seminyak-Jimbaran, we headed north for a compulsory trip to the cultural sites of Ubud. You can’t go to Bali and not see Ubud. Yes, it’s touristy, but actually still nice. It’s very artsy and also a little bit greener and cooler there. Not only is it artsy, but there’s just a lot of art there. There’s art everywhere in Bali. It’s totally inescapable. No building, door, window, room, nor anything else can seem to go unfurnished without intricate Balinese carvings. It’s something that my parents and I certainly appreciated while there. It’s beautiful to be surrounded by art everywhere you go.

In Ubud, we saw the Elephant Cave, the Monkey Forest, and Mom and I saw a Balinese dance our first night at the hotel. (It was an awesome hotel – like cottages really, on a hillside overlooking hills and rice paddies – and we had it almost all to ourselves.)

The second day in Ubud we went on a bike tour, recommended to me by my friend Kristina. The bike tour was great for two reasons. First, we make some new friends from Italy, Ireland, and Holland/America, some of whom I’m still in contact with over Facebook. The second was that the tour itself took us though some very beautiful terrain and we got to bike right through traditional, off-the-beaten-track (except for bike tours) Balinese villages. It wasn’t exactly easy either. It had rained heavily that morning (in fact, we were worried it might have gotten cancelled) and when it came to certain off-road, uphill sections, everyone in our group had to help each other push and drag out bikes along. We ended up pretty mud-splattered and happily tired in the end. We got to our final destination for lunch just before it started down-pouring again. The companionship and camaraderie was what really made it special for me, as we all had beer and tasty food and laughed about the crazy adventure we had just experienced together. We also got some good travel ideas from our new friends.

Earlier in the day, before biking, they had taken us to a tea and coffee farm, and we began discussing where we were all headed after Ubud. We discussed it again at lunch. The Irish girls insisted that the Gili Islands were definitely worth seeing, as they had just come from there. We had nothing planned after Ubud, but the Gili Islands, Lombok, and Flores were all possibilities. After hearing the glowing praise for the Gilis, particularly Gili Air, we decided that would be our next stop, along with the Italian sisters. So the next morning we packed up and hired a driver to take us to…

THE OCEAN!

Chapitre quartre des vacances: L'océan

Finally, we arrived at that thing that surrounds Indonesia entirely, the ocean. The rave review of the Gilis convinced us we should go see what they were all about.

We thought to research some Komodo tours whilst there, and we did, but they turned out be impractical for us because if we had gone on any of them, we wouldn't have had any time to spend in Gili Air (and we would've probably had to go back Bali to join those tours anyway.) Anyway, Gili Air was more than idyllic enough to make us never want to leave. The place has an utterly relaxing, almost hypnotic, ambiance that makes you exhale, breathe deeply, smile, and say to yourself that you would be perfectly happy to do nothing but sit at the beach for the rest of your life. It’s one of those places where no matter how many days you plan to stay, you will almost inevitably end up staying a few days longer.

We arrived by high-speed boat from Padangbai, Bali. The hawkers were fierce when we arrived. Everyone was in our face, pushing tickets very aggressively. It wasn't just annoying, it was maddening. Why do they think that works? Do they actually get enough business that way to keep it up? I am a gentle person, but I wanted to punch people in the face. They just wouldn't quit. We pushed our way through them to do our own investigating and bought tickets from a company called Marina Srikandi. The boat left soon and was at full capacity. The majority of the holiday revellers disembarked at Gili Trawangan (which is why we didn't.) Gili Trawangan (or Gili T as I usually call it,) is the "party" island of the three Gili Islands. The third, Gili Meno, is very quiet and calm. Gili Air is a nice balance between the two.

There are no cars or motorbikes on any of the Gilis so we took a horse cart to our bungalow. That's how it is: very chill. On our way to the bungalow, we joked and laughed as we saw people turn their heads at our approach. Was life so slow here that a horse cart coming down the road was exciting? A day or two later, we were doing the exact same thing.

We stayed at a decent place called Youpy bungalows. We spent the next couple of days relaxing and going in the ocean. On the first full day we went on a snorkelling tour in a group of about thirty and we saw some beautiful sea turtles! On the second day Mom and Dad went for a fun-dive (the SCUBA training finally paid off!) and I snorkelled while waiting for them. (As an added bonus, an EXTREMELY attractive German guy about my age was on the boat with us, in Mom and Dad’s dive group, and I enjoyed chatting with him very much. Oh, he was so handsome… Dad tried – none too discretely – to get a picture of us talking. In this picture, I’m pretty sure the German guy looks beautiful and I have my mouth open and am blinking.)

At night we deliberated about which ocean-side cafés to eat at. We had some very good meals there, the best being fresh fish, shrimp and French fries. We also had some very tasty drinks. I discovered how good Caipirinhas and Caprioscas are. Now they are two of my favourites!

After three days, we had to fly back to Jakarta. L We spent one night in Bali in the town of Sanur before heading to the Denpasar airport for an afternoon flight. The next day was July 4th and it was the first day of teacher induction for me. Mom and Dad hung out around my apartment and went over to the mall. I cut out of induction in the early afternoon and came back to have lunch with them. They packed up, we got everything ready, had one last Bintang and Anker at Midtown Owl, and then headed to the airport. It was sad to wave Mom and Dad goodbye, but at least this year away from home has been broken up by seeing them at the 6-month mark.

It was a jam-packed holiday (and I have written about 4,500 words about it!) We did so much. We visited four different Indonesian islands, saw ancient temples, watched orang-utans in the jungle, went diving and snorkelling, and biked through rice paddies. It seems even more incredible now in retrospect than at the time. I am sure we’ll be talking about it all over again when I come home for Christmas. And if anyone else wants to come visit me in Indonesia, you’re more than welcome to!

50 NEW THINGS ABOUT INDONESIA

Not long after I moved to Indonesia I had a blog post called 30 Things I Have Learned About Indonesia in (Nearly) 30 Days. Now that I've been here a year I'm making a new list of 50 things, but I'm breaking it up into four sections:

* 10 Things About Life in Indonesia

* 10 Things I Miss From Home

* 20 Funny Things My Students Say 

* 10 Reasons I Love Being an Expat

So... without further ado:

10 Things About Life in Indonesia

1. Everything is written in English, but nobody speaks English. Generalisations of course, but it seems that most flyers, posters, advertisements, brochures, menus, directories, and a lot of other things are written entirely in English. However, few people speak English fluently and a lot don't speak any English at all. You ask, "Where can I find cleaning supplies?" at the big-box store and you get a funny look and/or embarrassed giggle and the employee invariably goes off to find the one English-speaking colleague on shift at the moment.

2. Indonesians are really friendly. People seem very good-natured here and don't hesitate to give you warm smile and help you out. As I wrote above, people don't always speak English but they almost always go and find someone who does if you have a question you want answered. People frequently lend you a hand and middle-aged women who have only seen white people on television will call you beautiful and make you take a picture with their five-year-old daughter if you bump into them on the train or are walking through their neighborhood. The worst is that men sometimes leer at you but even so, it's more obnoxious than predatory. 

3. Perhaps to help deal with aforementioned men-leering-at-you problem, most trains and buses have a "women-only" section in front. It probably also has to do with standards of modesty in this Muslim country. At first I thought it was kind of weird, but now I really like it. Sometimes women stare at you too, but its mostly in the "Hey, you're different," sort of way I mentioned above, and even so, women seem to be a lot more polite than men. Women generally look out for each other more, I think, and won't make a big deal out of fact that you're "bule."

4. Never expect efficiency. I'm mostly a go-with-the-flow sort of person, so this one doesn't bother me as it might some others, but it can still be frustrating. At school for example, if you need something from the upstairs supply room and the one person who has a key to the room is absent that day, no one else in the admin office or cleaning staff seems able to open the room or find a solution to get it open. Nope, you'll just have to wait until So-And-So is back. And when something isn't available, it's always promised to be available "tomorrow." Indonesians hate to disappoint, so they will just tell you "tomorrow" every single day (even if it ends up being weeks) because, apparently, it sounds better than just telling you, "I don't know when it will be available, but I'll let you know when it is." Ha! You'd never hear that. 

5. The smell of raw sewage mixed with the fragrances of pollution and stale canal water is known, formally among Bina Bangsa expats anyway, as "Jakarta Fresh." It's a very distinct smell. When I first moved here, the smells were new and sometimes vague, but now I can identify a breeze of Jakarta Fresh leaking up the street in an instant. Generally if I'm walking with someone, we turn to each other at the same moment and say, "Whew! That is some Jakarta Fresh right there!"

6. Continuing my thought from #5, Indonesia > Jakarta. Jakarta just kind of sucks... Sorry to say. There are some very nice restaurants and bars and dance clubs, and as many malls as your heart could desire, but it's lacking in almost everything else. There are one or two nice museums and some cool historical buildings in the old part of town. Even so, Jakarta is mostly an overwhelming sprawling mass of concrete, with skyscrapers and malls punctuating a sea of little lean-to villages and three-story business blocks. And, it smells so lovely too. And then there's the perpetual blanket of smog that lies over the city. But the rest of Indonesia is much nicer, fresher, greener, and enjoyable. Whenever I meet people trekking in Asia I tell them to definitely skip Jakarta and head straight for Yogyakarta, which is also in Java, but so much nicer.

7. A little package wrapped in banana leaves = lunch! (Or dinner, or breakfast...) Banana leaves are the original brown paper lunch bag. If you're travelling and someone is giving you lunch on the go, it will probably be a banana leaf wrap with rice, chicken, half a hard-boiled egg, and a few vegetables inside. 

8. Burping in public is totally fine. Well, you can't exactly burp anywhere you please, but it is much more acceptable. People really don't think much of it. It's like blowing your nose I guess. If you blow your nose really loudly, it can sound kind of gross, but people don't mind too much or make a big deal of it. Same with burping here. When I've gone for a massage before, sometimes the masseuse will burp almost constantly. Which personally I find disturbing, but the reason is that they are supposedly releasing gas trapped in your tissue when they massage you, and then they burp to give the gas an exit to the world.

9. People rarely suspect I'm American. This was also true in Europe (at least on the Continent - maybe the Brits knew where I was from) but here people just don't guess you're American because North America is so dang far away, few North Americans make it here for any length of time. People more often guess my friends and I are English, Australian, or Dutch. One time, I had a guy believing we were from Moscow for at least a solid minute or two.

10. You can guess fairly accurately what a bule does by where he/she lives. ("Bule," again, is the Indonesian term for white person. It literally means "faded.") We who are faded in West Jakarta are more of the working class expats, mostly teachers and pilots. There are a lot of pilots in the buildings where I live. Mostly young European guys who can't get work at home so they fly for the Asian budget lines. The bules who live in South and South-Central Jakarta are the richer ones. The ones who own their own businesses and work for governments and stuff like that.

10 Things I Miss From Home

1. My family and friends. Well, duh. Goes without saying. I'll see you in December!

2. Fresh, raw vegetables. Can't complain too much, because I can buy fresh veggies from both the supermarket and the local market, but fresh vegetables are almost never served with meals in run-of-the-mill Indonesian restaurants (besides the typical two slices of cucumber and one slice of tomato which seem required.) I also can't complain because I can go to Western-style restaurants to get salads, but still there seems to be a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables served with meals. Usually it's just starch and meat. A lot of starch and meat.

3. Clean air. It's just not that good here. Go outside of Jakarta and you can breath freely and deeply but here inside our lovely, sprawling metropolis of millions, the air is always a little hazy. : (

4. The seasons. You know, all four. Not just rainy and not-rainy. Once in a while when it rains it can actually be cool - mid 70s or so - and then I can actually put on jeans and feel cozy and I like that. But otherwise it's warm everyday and the sun rises and sets at the same time everyday.

5. Nice, quiet, peaceful 4:30 AMs. Normally, I have always considered myself a religiously tolerant person, but lately the cacophonous 4:30 AM call to prayers has really been testing me. Our new apartment overlooks a stretch of kampung and it seems there is a mosque every hundred yards or so. I don't really know how many are out there but they all start about 4:30 and it's no lovely sound. They use very loud, fuzzy bullhorns and amplifiers and compete with each other for sheer volume. It's not melodious Middle Eastern motifs either. At one mosque they have given the job to a kid who must be about 10 - he definitely hasn't reached puberty yet - and he doesn't know many good melodies so he just belts out a repetitive sing-song tune that sounds like a playground chant. Anyway, I wouldn't even mind it at 4:30 if it stopped after a minute, but it goes on until 4:50. Every day! Truly, I have no complaints about living in a Muslim country - except for 4:30 AM call to prayers that go on for 20 minutes.

6. No smoking areas. Even indoors at restaurants you aren't guaranteed clean air! Everyone smokes like chimneys (what do you expect when the cheapest cigarettes are less than $1 a pack) and there is no such thing as a smoking area. Whole restaurants are smoking areas.

7. The open road. Traffic is terrible! I don't miss driving for myself so much, but I don't enjoy being stuck in traffic jams.

8. Free, drinkable water at restaurants. It's such a joy to get to Singapore and enjoy a complimentary glass of tap water! I have to buy a drink every time I go out to eat more or less. Drinks can cost as much as a meal - about 3 or 4 dollars sometimes.

9. Quick check-out lines at the grocery store. You need to schedule at least 15-20 minutes to get through the check-out at the grocery store. First of all, the Indonesian check out clerks are in no rush whatsoever. They go so slowly, just because. Second, there aren't two conveyor belts, like there often are at the big grocery stores in the States. Instead there's just one short conveyor belt, and when the guy or gal is done ringing up your groceries, they will also bag them for you. So that can be a long wait, waiting for everyone in front of you with their 100 packages of instant noodles and their 50 bars of soap and 10 bags of frying oil and sambal, to have everything rung up and bagged by someone who isn't too bothered with quick service in the first place.

10. Cheese. Not much good cheese here. I can get Laughing Cow, Babybel, and a few others, but otherwise the quality isn't as good, and it's not as abundant or cheap. I miss cheese! Most of the best dairy is imported from New Zealand or Australia. (I also miss Cheez-Its; I haven't found them or any decent substitute yet.)



20 Funny Things My Students Say

This list was supposed to be only 10 things, but there were just too many I wanted to share. (Disclaimer: I don't speak Indonesian hardly at all. My vocab is pretty limited to, "Good morning," "How are you?" "How much is it?" "Thank you," "You're welcome," "Fried noodles, please," "Turn left here," "Wait!" and "What?" So if it seems like I'm poking fun... well, I am a little, but I don't want to be hypocritical. I know my Indonesian is less than perfect. In fact, it's less than conversational, and I'm sure I sound rather ridiculous to the locals.)

1. "So cheating, lah!" This one is perhaps my favourite. "So cheating," is their way of saying "unfair!" and "lah!" is an emphasiser picked up from Singaporean English. Just stick "lah!" on the end of anything to add extra oomph. 

2. A variation on this is "So bad!" which you use to show your disgust with something, but more in a lighthearted way. For example, "Sorry, we don't have time to play a game." "So bad, Miss!"

3. "She always minds my business!" Translation: She always butts into my life when I don't want her to. It's exactly the opposite of minding your own business.

4. "So how?" Translation: So now what should I do? It's one of those awkward direct translations from an Indonesian phrase. It might be used in this context: "Miss, I don't have my markers to colour the poster. So, how?" 

5. "Have...?" Translation: Is there any...? Will there be...? Could be used like this: Students aren't allowed in the Teacher's Room, but a student might be hanging around outside, wanting to talk to Ms. Lynsey. To ask if Ms. Lynsey is there, the student might say, "Have Ms. Lynsey?" (Or, alternatively, "Is there Ms. Lynsey?") Or you could ask about what's on your upcoming test: "Have past tense?" Or what's available for lunch: "Have french fries?"

6. "For a while..." Translation = For some undetermined amount of time. You might hear, "Miss, I go toilet for a while?" "Miss, I borrow scissors for a while?" 

7. That's another one I heard quite frequently: "I borrow, yeah?" 

8. "Last time..." Translation = Some undetermined time in the past. Possible usage: "Last time, I had a hamster, but it died." "Last time, my family went to Bali." "Last time, we play catch in the courtyard."

9. Lest you misunderstand me, "catch" is not a game of throwing a ball back and forth, it's tag. There's no such thing as "tag;" instead, you play "catching." It's not "He's chasing me," but, "He's catching me."

10. Along the same lines, you don't search for something, you "find" it: "I'm finding my little sister, so we can go home."

11. "Photo" as a verb. If a students asks "Can I photo you?" say, during a field trip, I usually reply, "No, but you may take a picture of me." And if they tell me, "I photoed her!" I will say, "Oh, you took a picture of her?" I'm constantly repeating things back with the correct grammar. I don't know if the kids notice. They probably think I'm just crazy and never understand anything they say the first time.

12. "Ever..." THIS ONE DRIVES ME NUTS! It's a direct translation from Bahasa Indonesia that just doesn't work in English, but it's difficult to explain that to a student because we do have the word "ever" in English, but not in the way the kids here use it. They might say something like, "I ever go to Disneyland Hong Kong," for "I once went to Disneyland Hong Kong." 

13. They also say "already," a lot. Lots of Indonesians do. In Indonesian you say "sudah," which means "already," but it just floats by itself, so they do the same thing with already. "Have you eaten?" "Already miss." Or, "Have you finished page 50?" "Already, lah!"

14. "Can?" Translation = Is it possible? Will that work? Might be used like this: "I need to make photocopy. Can?" 

15. Conversely, you use "can't" if it's not possible. If something is just too difficult, and you are ready to throw up your hands and thrown in the towel, you exclaim, "Cannot, Miss!" (Or, "Cannot, Sir!" if you are whining to a male teacher.)

16. "Must to..." Translation = It is necessary to; You have to (there isn't really a good translation in English; in French I guess you would say "il faut.") Possible usage: "Must to sign permission slip before you can go." Or, "Must to go home! I have lessons! Miiissss! I cannot stay! My mom will be angry to me!" Hey, I think I just found #17.

17. "So-And-So very angry to me." It's never angry with me, but angry to me. I hear parents say it too, so it's no wonder the kids do too. "My boy very lazy, you know. But when I angry to him, he still don't want to do his homework." (Again, I'm not trying to make fun of anyone so much as I'm just imitating what I actually hear people say. The parents at the school mostly speak English - which is nice because I can't speak Indonesian - but it's not always a polished version of English. And again, these are generalisations of what I hear some people say.)

18. "Running-running," "Shouting-shouting," Translation = Hmm... Hard to translate this one actually. In Indonesian you pluralise something by saying the thing twice. For example, book is "buku," but books is "buku-buku," and I think that's where this comes from. I hear kids using it to empahise something. If I walk into the classroom and the kids were messing around and Student A wants to tattle on Student B, he might say, "Miss, he was running-running and shouting-shouting!" Maybe it means they were running and shouting a lot. I don't really know.

19. General misuse of prepositions. I hear things like, "Spread the jam to the toast," and "I was born at June." It doesn't change the meaning too much, just sounds odd.

20. "Thingy-thingy." Translation = whatchamacallit. You know, a thing whose name you can't remember. A thingy-thingy! Possible example: "Miss! Can't find the thing-thingy!" 

10 Reasons I Love Being an Expat

1. I get to explore new parts of the world, sometimes as a tourist, sometimes as a resident. I know this one seems obvious. I mean, that's sort of why I decided to try international teaching in the first place: to experience life overseas and see a new part of the world close up. But I guess it is my number one reason for being an expat. I suppose it wouldn't be unfair to call it a lifestyle choice. I'm not so attached to my home country that I need to live my entire life there, even if I do suspect I will eventually settle down there. (Probably...) I like trying to live in new places! 

2. Improving my geography. I can actually find Malaysia on a map now and even show you where Singapore is, even though it's probably too small to show up on its own. Also, Myanmar is west of Thailand and the Mekong River runs through a lot of different countries.

3. Getting new stamps in my passport. I admit it, I love collecting new stamps for the countries I visit. If you exit through immigration, you can really say you've been to a place. Like how I was in Hong Kong for only 12 hours, but, I have a stamp to prove I left immigration! (And it has Chinese characters on it!) Most of my stamps are from Indonesia right now.

4. Making new friends and connections. I have made a few Indonesian friends, but I have also met people when travelling and met other expats around. I have met people from Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan, China, Russia, Netherlands, Italy, and South Africa. It's easy to stay in contact with people if you want to. It's fun to chat with people from different places and find out what you have in common or what is different. And, not surprisingly, the people who are willing to engage you are generally very friendly.

5. Learning the art of travelling. It is an art, something you get better at the more you do it. Mostly I think travelling involves common sense and balance. Do exciting things, but don't be dangerous and wear yourself out. Try new foods, but don't eat anything that looks like it's been siting out all day. Push yourself, but not too much. Be safe. It's okay to reach out and make friends with other travelers but you don't want to trust everyone you meet. I mean, obviously. Mostly common sense, but still, I do think you get better at it the more you do it. The more airports you visit, the more customs people you have to smile at, the more hostels you stay in, the more you learn how it all works and how to get the most out of your travel.

6. Meeting and hanging out with other expats. One of my favourite parts of living the expat-life. It started with meeting my parents' friends who had taught with them in Kuwait. Former expats, I guess. When I lived in Belgium for student teaching, that really confirmed in my mind that expats are really cool people and that I wanted to be one and hang around with them. Expats always seem to have interesting stories of places they have lived and visited. Many of them are perpetually on the move, relocating every few years. Others have been in their adopted countries for years on end. With expats you can joke about the funny things about living abroad and swap stories and feel like you have something in common, even if you come from, or live in, different countries. Sometimes, I will admit, it feels weird to chat about travel and life abroad with people who aren't expats because you can come across as pretentious. It think this is because it costs money to travel and you seem to bragging about how you have the means to travel. But when you are in the company of other people who share your life, it's easy to talk and joke and share stories.

7. Having two homes. Minnesota is still my home home, and it's the place I feel most rooted to, but sometimes I also refer to my apartment in Jakarta as my home. It's nice to have a place of your own, with your own kitchen, and couch, and bed and your own pictures on the walls. This is my home now, and it comes with all the mundane details like having a security deposit, paying utilities, taking my laundry down to the laundromat, stocking up on groceries, and of course, going to work. That doesn't stop me from every once in a while looking around and saying to myself, "Wait a minute. Now just how did I end up here again?"

8. Showing people around my new country. Like, say, my parents! It's difficult to get a lot of visitors from North America here, but once in a while one shows up. Nicole and I both had our families visit this June, and Kristina has a close friend visiting in August. If anyone else wants to come visit me, I'm happy to plan a trip! It was great to show my parents around Indonesia. Half of our trip was things I've already done which were cool enough to warrant doing a second time, and the other half was new for me.

9. Learning a new language. As I've mentioned above, my Indonesian isn't very comprehensive or polished, but I probably know more words than I realize. I mostly have a tool-box of crude vocabulary that I can make use of. But it's fun nevertheless to be able to communicate with people who don't speak English. Even better if you can communicate successfully!

10. Travel opportunities! Plane tickets to Asia are sooo expensive; I would never be able to travel as I do if I did not live here. With a handful of week-long term breaks and three day weekends scattered throughout the school year, I have been able to see quite a few different regions and countries, and I will keep on doing that this year. Why in the world wouldn't I? Right now I'm contemplating Vietnam as my next holiday spot for term break.



I realize it's a long list, but I hope you've enjoyed a few insights into my life one year on in Indonesia. As always, I've got more things to blog about and hopefully lots more adventures coming up. As to my family and friends, I miss you! One year away from home is a long stretch, but I will be back in December. But we can stay in touch in the meantime. 

HIKE, EAT, LIE IN THE SUN // PART TWO: EAT AND SUN

This is part deux of the Malaysian adventure. I left off with us leaving the Cameron Highlands the same way we came, by bus. The bus trip wasn't too long, and before long we had passed through Johor and got off at the town of Butterworth. (Yes, Butterworth. You can blame the English colonists for that one.) We got on a ferry to take us across the water to our next destination, the city of Penang. Penang is mid-sized island off the west coast of Malaysia. Taking the ferry was fun: we got to see the city come slowly into view while leaning over the railings, and I don't think there were any other tourists. Also, it was very cheap!

One of the best things about Penang is the diversity and melting-pot feel. It's not very segregated between Chinese, Malay, and Tamil and you are likely to find a Hindu temple, Chinese medicine shop, and mosque all in the same neighborhood, maybe even on the same street. There are also lots of old, cool colonial buildings there. It's a place with a strong feel of history and culture.

After checking into our hostel, Lynsey, Kristina and I set off to conquer nearby Penang Hill. (Nicole had unfortunately hurt her knee the day before and couldn't manage the hike.) We started at the Penang Botanical Gardens. After walking around a few times, we finally found the entrance to the hiking path leading straight up the hill. "Hill", by the way, was a bit of a misnomer. More like a sheer slope.

Half way up the "hill" we found a rest area where some older chaps were resting. These men, all in the 50s and 60s it seemed, climb the hill regularly for exercise, or fun, or who knows why. Anyway, I felt a bit ashamed being so out of breath in front of them. But they let us refill our water bottles there. On the second part of the journey up Penang Hill we were lucky enough to meet a man who had a house overlooking the city and ocean surrounding the island. He invited us to see the view from the garden of his house and it was truly impressive (and also a good place to catch our breath once again.) The final stretch up the hill really did me in - it was steeper than anything I've ever climbed before - but with tiny baby steps at the very end I made it. At the top of the hill there are lots of people and some things to see and do. Everyone sane just takes the cable car up. I saw two interesting things: a Hindu temple and a centipede about a foot long, crawling along the curb.

That night we went out to experience what Penang is perhaps most renowned for: its street food. We headed out to Gurney Drive (aka: Glutton Drive) to eat all sorts of wonderful food, with an actual street-food map in hand, produced by the city. (On a side-note, I keep talking about Penang like it is a city, but it's actually just the name of the island; Georgetown is its main city.) First of all, the mere sight and smell of the place was an experience in and of itself. Numbered stalls standing shoulder to shoulder crowded along a several block stretch offering noodles, soup, cuttlefish, meatballs, fried food, and much more. We made it a multiple course meal with a strategy of "divide and conquer." Each person was responsible for buying one food item and bringing it back to the table for all to share. I only made it through three courses, just couldn't make it to the fourth. Alas, I am not a food warrior. Still, I felt like I wouldn't need to eat again for a week.

Our time in Penang was short and we left the next afternoon after a quick walk about town (which included, for me, seeing Fort Cornwallis, the old English garrison, and a famous feng shui house, the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion.) Next stop was another island: Langkawi. The goal for Langkawi was to enjoy beach and sun and surf for three days.

Our first hotel turned out to be a bust. Essentially they, or someone, had lied in their description online. There was no beach next to the place, only construction. And it looked like a worn out, smoke-stained old place with very little happening around it. We took a taxi over to a more popular beach and were able to find two basic rooms only a short walk from the main road with restaurants, next to the beach. A much better choice. And who should we run into there, but Arjen! I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising: the backpacker trail in Malaysia (like Thailand) is pretty well established and it's not unusual to run into people you've met before. My friends also said they saw the Russian guy we kept running into in Cameron Highlands in Penang.

Langkawi was blissfully relaxing and lazy. There were a lot of tourists and backpackers but it didn't have a very strong artificial, touristy feel, like the more commercialized parts of Bali. It was more laid-back. We really did spend three days lying in the sun on the sand, periodically running into the water for a while. Somehow - miraculously - I was the only one who didn't get any sort of sunburn. I was pretty religious about applying sunscreen though. Funny, it only took me about 15 years or so to learn that lesson. One highlight was renting kayaks for the afternoon and exploring some nearby islands. Lynsey and Kristina manned a kayak together, and I was unfortunately stuck on my own. It worked out though - even though I didn't have their strength I was more coordinated just by myself and while they went askew and then overcompensated and then over-overcompensated, I made it back to shore in good time. It was a small victory for one as lacking in upper body strength as myself. The islands were beautiful and we got to take a swim on one. Another highlight was taking a cable car ride to the top of one of the tallest (the tallest?) mountains / hills on the island and getting a panoramic, bird's-eye-view of Langkawi island. On a clear day, they say you can see right to Thailand. I think I might have seen Thailand, but it was kind of cloudy.

We used every day available to us for that break and were in Malaysia all nine days. I liked each part of it, the hiking, the eating, and the beach bumming. When I meet other travellers doing their pan-Asia journeys, I always recommend Cameron Highlands if they ask me for a suggestion or favourite thing I've done. Now, it's a new year and time for new adventures. I already have a few things to catch up on in this blog, such as Mom and Dad's 2+ week visit just a little while ago. I haven't even edited the photos from that trip yet! But, I promise, more to come. Keep posted!

HIKE, EAT, LIE IN THE SUN // PART ONE: HIKE

Not quite as snappy as "Eat, Pray, Love," but it will do. These three thing: hiking, eating, and lying in the sun are a pretty apt summary of our week-long holiday to Malaysia. As you may or may not know, we have breaks after every term at Bina Bangsa. In between the last break (terms 3 and 4) my friends and I headed to Malaysia. In a word, it was awesome. I would not have thought of travelling to Malaysia before, but once I started reading about it and then once we were actually there and travelling around, I would definitely recommend the country for anyone planning a trek around SE Asia.

As is often the case, I'm writing this blog post far after the fact. Many of the entries in my personal travel journal are the same way. A lot of them begin with the words, "Sorry I didn't finish that last entry," or "Sorry to take so long to write about..." Don't really know who I'm apologising to though. I am sorry to write about Malaysia several weeks late, but only a little bit. I would say I'm about 15% sorry. 17% tops. Anyway, I've got to, because now that the school year is finished (!) there will be a new trip coming up.

Now that we're done quantifying my regret, on to Malaysia! Happily we spent every single day of vacation there, from 22 March to 31 March. On the 22nd we didn't do anything but to fly to Kuala Lumpur that night and find our hostel. We were starving though, not really having had dinner, and wandered to a nearby street with big Chinese banners and lanterns. It looked like a typical Chinatown street and at the end there was one little place still open with a number of people eating late night noodles. So we enjoyed some street food at 2 am and went back to the hostel to sleep for a few hours.

The next day was the first full day of our trip. We set off early to go to the bus station, which was only a couple of blocks away. We had booked bus tickets to the Cameron Highlands, further north. The bus ride was pleasant one and I started to really enjoy myself. Malaysia, despite being very similar to Indonesia in a lot of ways, feels a bit more, how shall I put it, polished? A bit more tourist friendly, more green and open, more modern, with less of the chaos and crudeness of Indonesia. Not all of Indonesia is crude of course (and by crude, I just mean unpolished.) Bali is very polished. But, that's about it (so far as I know.) The bus trip only took a few hours, the last one being a series of hairpin turns right up into the highlands, and then we were in the town of Tanah Rata.

Tanah Rata is a wonderful town that I would love to build a summer home in if I was a wealthy person with summer homes about the world. It's lovely and beautiful and green and... cool! Up in the highlands it can be downright cool and sweaters are not unjustified. It's also very diverse. Like most of Malaysia, it seems to be a melting pot of Malay, Chinese, and Indian. Nicole, Kristina, Lynsey and I ate at this one terrific Indian restaurant for at least three of our meals during our three days there. Nicole and Lynsey hadn't really tried Indian food before, but quickly fell in love with it.

When we got off the bus we headed to the place we thought our hotel was. It wasn't quite the right place, but it was another hotel owned by the same people, Gerard and Jay. We only met Gerard on our last day, but we met his wife, Jay, right away. Jay is an awesome person. Immediately friendly and welcoming, she personally drove us to our guesthouse in her jeep. (First though, she showed us a Pitcher Plant growing on the garden wall so that we would be able to recognise them when we were out and about hiking.) After we had dropped our things at the guesthouse she showed us the trails we could hike on our own. The Cameron Highlands are a prime hiking spot. The trails are only a little challenging. They do take some physical effort because they can be rough or narrow or steep in parts, but they're really not too bad. Most of our hikes lasted about four hours or so, which I think is a perfect length. Although the paths are worn enough to tell where to go, they are not exactly the sort of things that are actually maintained by anyone. Instead, they are just worn down by other hikers. Sometimes there were forks in the path and then you just have to dig out your map and try to determine where you are, because although having a map certainly helps, it doesn't make it immediately obvious where everything is or where you should go.

Hiking through the jungles was great. It was beautiful and peaceful and it felt great to be surrounded by greenery. We ran into other hikers only once in a while. The first day we headed toward the neighboring town of Brinchang. We took a wrong turn at first, but soon got back on the right path and ended up at a neat strawberry farm. The place grows lots of strawberries and lettuce hydroponically. They have a great assortment of all the strawberry desserts and drinks you could want at their cafe and we even picked some strawberries ourselves. Before heading home, we stopped at the night market to look around had some delicious corn on the cob.

The next day was a day-long hike. We took a cab to Brinchang again and began on Jungle Walk #1. It was a couple of hours to the top. Somehow I ended up muddier than any of my friends (maybe not so surprising after all) and once we reached the top, some random tour guide gave me a rag and bottle of water to clean off my legs and feet. There were plenty of people at the top who had taken the road up. But hiking was much better! We also saw a man at the top who had started hiking at the same time as us. He looked like a fit old man, and he seemed like an expert at the hill. We asked him if he had done this trail many times before and he said, no, first time. Crazy old guys, climbing mountains.

On the way down we walked along the paved road. We came across an absolutely beautiful scene: a tea plantation sprawling down the hills, more green than you can imagine. It was breathtaking. I couldn't stop taking photos and they don't even do it justice. We had to stop just to admire the scene for a while before continuing on, looking for the Boh Tea Plantation visitor's center. Still using the map we got from our guest house, we cautiously made a left-hand turn at an unmarked fork in the road and hoped we were on the right path. Turns out we were just walking through the "backyard" of the tea plantation, through greenhouses and along winding paths. We asked for directions from someone to confirm we were going the right way, but, typically, the guy we were talking to just said "Yes," and I don't think he really knew what we had said at all. Lesson learnt: Many people will just try to tell you what they think you want to hear lest they disappoint you or make conflict. Doesn't mean there's any actual communication going on. So, eventually we were at a dead-end in a greenhouse, realising we weren't headed for the visitor's centre after all, and heard thunder in the distance. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" We turned back but got caught in the downpour anyway. And it wasn't just a light rain, it was truly a downpour. After a few minutes we realised we were going to get wet one way or another. There weren't any taxis (or any vehicles) around so we said, "Screw it," and walked along the road in the rain, getting completely drenched. Once we got back to the fork in the road and went the right way, we found the road to the visitor's centre really wasn't that far away after all. We stopped for a minute underneath a little shelter. There were lots of people crowded there, trying to avoid the rain. We got lots of funny looks, but already being soaked to the skin, we just continued on.

By the time we got to the visitor's center, we were cold, wet, and hungry. The place was packed because people were sheltering inside and there was a traffic jam leading up to the plantation. We had some hot tea to warm us and I scarfed down a sandwich faster than I think I ever have in my life. Next, we had to figure out a way back to Tanah Rata. The first tactic was to politely ask other tourists who looked like they could help us out. No luck. One couple turned to each other and discussed secretly in German before telling me no, they couldn't help. (We later saw them leaving with room in the backseat of their car. Jerks.) So then we tried to get a ride on a bus full of Tamil-Malaysian tourists. The driver was very cranky though and absolutely put his foot down on that. That's when we met Arjen.

Arjen is a very tall, Dutch guy (I know, "tall" and "Dutch guy" are redundant) who was about our age, early 20s. He too had hiked to the tea plantation and was stranded. Immediately we bonded over our shared predicament. We stood around, trying our luck again with the Tamil bus driver, while a visitor's centre employee berated Arjen (only partially joking) for all the Dutch shortcomings on proper tea making. Eventually we had to give up and started walking back to town (about 8km away if I remember right.)

Well, we hadn't gotten very far out of the plantation when a truck passed us on the road. Kristina stuck out her hitchhiker's thumb and the truck actually pulled over! There was room for two, so Kristina and Lynsey got in. That left Nicole, Arjen, and me to keep on walking. Not five minutes later, who should come by but the Tamil tour bus! And they pulled over for us. It wasn't the driver's decision, that's for sure, but apparently the little kids crowded at the front of the bus made him pull over. I felt it was a triumph. That's what he gets for being so cranky. So, we stood in the middle of the crowded bus and got a ride to the outskirts of Brinchang, where we met up again with Lynsey and Kristina. The Tamil-Malaysian tourists kept asking us questions and laughing at everything we said, even if we weren't joking. But their cheerfulness made me laugh too.

We only had to walk a little ways further before we lucked out again. A white pickup pulled over for us and all five of us got a free ride in the bed of the truck which took us right to Tanah Rata, and dropped us off at a spot about 10 minutes walking distance from our guest house. It was amazing and it felt awesome to ride in the back of that truck after having being drenched in the rain and hiking all over all day and being absolutely exhausted. A perfect end to the day. Later, we met Arjen for dinner at our favourite Indian restaurant.

The next day was more hiking. I really enjoyed walking along the jungle paths. We ran into people occasionally, but not too often. That night I walked around the town a little bit and ran into this tourist who we had kept running into over the past couple of days, right from the time we arrived. He was a backpacker from Russia, so we chatted a little bit at the night market. All in all, I enjoyed every minute of Tanah Rata and would go back at anytime. The next morning we left by bus for  the city of Penang, further north.