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!
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!
