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!