First World Third World ... Thursday!

...because let's face it, I'm going to forget to post on Friday. Again.

In honor of my recent, somewhat clandestine, trip to the Malukus....


First World Problem: My website got hacked.

Third World Problem: During the recent religious and political strife, someone hacked up my neighbor. And ate him.

More on the Malukus and why this is relevant coming soon

Selemat Thursdays!!

Jalan Jalan

In Bahasa Indonesia to jalan-jalan is to walk. In my brief experience I’ve learned that Indonesians don’t really like to walk anywhere, which is many ways is understandable since it alternates between being hot as Satan’s crotch or monsooning on any given day. Because of this frame of thinking, my choice to walk to places in my neighborhood causes quite a bit of confusion and consternation for the people around me. My favorite security guard, Iphul, would rather ride his motorbike from the front gate to my house, all of a hundred feet, instead of walk around the corner. Why not take a becak, their eyes all seem to say. Or at least buy a motorbike.

                      

I don’t often miss New York. I loved my time there and created some amazing memories, but I would rather trade my right hand than live in a snowpocalypse again. Funnily enough, when I do experience separation pangs from NY, it’s rarely about people (although I do miss some of you and you know who you are). Mostly it concerns walking. I often miss walking around the city I was beginning to know and love so intimately. I miss the freedom of moving confidently, iPod intact, as a soundtrack of my choosing swirled around me, enhanced by the pulse of street noise and the occasional catcall. I’ve come to learn from one of my students that walking with my iPod here is considered somewhat snobby, even though I take pains to smile brightly at every Tom, Dick and Harry that clamors for my attention on the street.

Walking in Indonesia just isn’t the same, and not only because the city planners of Makassar didn’t seem to consider intact sidewalks an important contribution to the residential quality of life. Walking in Indonesia is often a decision that requires you to consider how much you love being alive.  Urban or rural, perils abound.  Oops I walked into a cow, got to be careful because they bite sometimes (Rural).  Hmmm got to watch out for those roosters blocking my path (Urban).  I wonder if that patch of ground in front of me is solid or a sewer ditch that I’ll fall into an could possibly cause a Typhoid infection (happened to a friend of mine and apparently the typhoid vaccine is only 50% effective). Hope a motorbike doesn’t come zooming out of this alley and almost run me over (every day).  I hope today I don’t step on a dead cat…again.

Vacation Series Part 3: All's Well that Ends Well

I have a deep and abiding love for puppets. For many of you in my life this is old news, especially if you have ever seen me flip my shit when Bread and Puppet comes to town. The source of this love is as intangible as it is virulent and I will be happy to sit and discuss its merits as an art form upon request (excluding socks and Muppets, sorry Lamb Chop). So you can imagine my distress when, due to the ferry ride from hell, I not only missed a 9-hour Ramayana ballet performance but I also missed my one chance to see Wayang Golek, my all time favorite Indonesian puppetry form*. Yogyakarta was booked into the epic vacation schedule not only because it boasts some awesome shopping, but it is also the performing arts capital of Java. So if you’re going to see Wayang Golek, you have to see it in Yogya. To miss the opportunity is like going to New Orleans and neglecting to eat red beans and rice or gumbo. Tragic.

My disappointment was assuaged by the opportunity to go see one of the largest Buddhist temples/ UNESCO world heritage sight known as Borobudur. Not a bad way to spend the last day of 2010.  Borobudur lies about an hour outside of Jogya and it is massive. Unbelievably massive actually.  Seeing as one of my fellow adventurers had spent some time teaching in Tibet, we had the down low on how to properly circumnavigate a Buddhist stupa.  Technically you’re supposed to walk around each level clockwise, 3 times. Seeing that it took us about 30 minutes to make it around the first level once, we opted for the abridged version. Making it to the top it was a pretty awe-inspiring accomplishment.

Seeing that it was New Year’s Eve day, it felt like an appropriate time to cut the ridiculous mass that was my hair at the present moment. As expected the curling heap on my head was greeting by confusion and mild panic. Due to “dryness” I was told I was in desperate need of a crème bath. Of course this exchange was in Bahasa Indonesia so I was only sure of about 30% of what was going on around me. I was only mildly disappointed to find out that a crème bath is not some ancient eastern bathing ritual, but rather a hair treatment. Cool, for $2 I was game to see what all the fuss was about. I soon learned a crème bath is the beauty treatment equivalent of a gorgeous man saying “ here I made this giant bowl of chocolate covered strawberries for you…oh and I’m going to provide you with mind blowing oral sex for at least 2 hours while you eat said strawberries”. Yes it is that good, but calorie free.  In slightly less verbose terms, a crème bath is a 90-minute head, neck and upper back massage with deep conditioning crème. If Indonesia has taught me one thing, it’s that I have a slightly addictive personality (chocolate peanut butter Oreos, iced coffee, DVDs) so I knew I needed to tread lightly with my new indulgence. The gloriousness of my first crème bath experience served to somewhat take the sting out of having my hair cut about 6 inches shorter than my “ please just clip the ends” instructions called for.  Once again I was failed by America’s inability to teach the metric system, and I had a chin length indo-bob to show for it.

 New Year’s Eve passed without too much fanfare. About 10 of us ETAs got together for a little drinking, dancing, fireworks and of course Indonesian go-go dancers, which are an oxymoron at best. The next day I went on a walking tour of Yogya and then it was off for a solitary morning trip to the Hindu temple complex of Prambanam. I got to put my prolific bargaining skills to good use, acquiring a Wayang Kulit puppet for 40,000 rupiahs. A far cry from the 200,000 rupiah asking price.

Epic travel fest 2010/11 finally ended in Gili T, again. Seeing as I’ve written about my Gili adventures before I won’t bore you with tales of traversing familiar haunts. I will share the fact that the young bartender at our new favorite bar made my girlfriends and I friendship bracelets. It was that type of vacation.

* for anyone interested here is a , not so entertaining, but very informative video on  Wayang Golek *

Vacation Series Part 2: Ok, so now I can't leave the jungle?

So all hell broke loose.
And by hell, I specifically mean the 28 hour ferry ride from hell. An no I’m not talking about Charon’s dingy , because at least after paying that fare I would have arrived on time. Not twenty-five hours late.

But let me start from the beginning.

Looking back on things it’s really all Trigana Air’s fault. Trigana is a small Indonesian airline, and it’s pretty much the only airline that flies into Pangkalan Bun,  the jumping off point for the jungle cruise. Trigana also only flies out of two cities….on  the island of Java. Now in most cases this wouldn’t be an issue. You simply go to a travel agent and have them buy a ticket, and you use said ticket when you arrive in said city. Well Indonesia is not most cases. If an airline doesn’t fly to your city then they don’t have an office in your city. And if an airline doesn’t have an office in your city, then you cannot even purchase tickets for their flight.  But like I said, this usually isn’t a huge problem, for me at least. I live in the grand metropolis that is Makassar, and it is serviced by pretty much every airline in Indonesia….except Trigana.

While this little issue was seemingly about to throw a major monkey wrench into my holiday travel plans, my friend Abbey swooped into save the day. Abbey lives in Semerang, Semrang is on Java, Semerang also happens to be one of the two cities that Trigana services,  as a result Semerang + Abbey became my new favorite combo. Abbey was generous enough to offer up her time and money by going to the airport and paying for 5 Trigana tickets on her dime.  At about $73 bucks a piece, this was no small gesture. Not wanting to take advantage of Abbey’s kindness or checkbook, we all opted for one way tickets. The plan was to simply purchase our return tickets when we all arrived at the Semerang airport....because after all Trigana does a daily flight and who’s really doing that much traveling between the two. EVERYBODY that’s who. Everybody and their effing mother is flying from Pangkalan Bun, so that by the time we arrived EVERY  return flight was sold out until the 4^th of  January.  While this realization provided a few hours of mind numbing panic ( What?!? I am not spending new years in the Jungle, damnit! I need a cocktail!), our tour company quickly came to the rescue. Apparently we had two options. Leave the day we wanted on a $150 flight or leave a day later on the $50 , 24 hour ferry.  Four out of the five of us opted for the cheaper option ( Judith doesn’t like boats or small spaces, and she isn’t cheap).

I often say, usually in reference to some dumb thing that one of my friends has done, that we sometimes “make choices” and we must live with the consequences of those choices. Well I made a choice. I made a choice to be cheap, and as a result I experienced a hell of my own making.  Things started off fine. After departing the boat, we stopped by the ferry office to pick up our tickets. Judith was departing the 27^th, and we were departing the 28^th at 6pm. No problem. Jeni then drove us back into Pangkalan Bun, where I got us out of having to pay for  three hotel rooms by explaining that two people in our group were married and the other three women were to scared to not sleep in the same room. Score.  The next morning Judith departed for the airport and Corey, Abbey, Mary and I went to explore all that Pangkalan Bun had to offer.  Which wasn’t much. The next morning we had a leisurely lunch and then started the jaunt back to Kumai (where the ferry would depart from). Then the trouble began.

The first sign that things weren’t going to continue to sail smoothly was when Jeni called to inform us that the ferry would no longer be leaving at six pm  but at 10 pm. About twenty minutes later we were informed that the ferry would actually arrive at 1am  the next morning, and  then leave at 3 am. Disgruntled, but not defeated we decided to return to our favorite losmen, Losmen Hijau,  and once again commandeer the one tv in the lobby and maybe take a rest before our early morning departure. Around 8pm Jeni appeared at the losmen with the news that our ferry would in fact be leaving at 10pm that night. Huzzah! We hurridly packed our bags and prepared to leave. Seeing that we only had occupied Losmen Hijau’s lobby for about 5 hours and would in fact not be spending the night, we asked the propetier if we could maybe have half of our money back.  After shuffling his feet for about 30 minutes and consulting with his wife, he finally said no, because they had to “clean” both rooms. I then explained that their “cleaning” consisted of spraying air freshner. He countered with the fact that we were “occupying” rooms that others might have wanted. I retorted with the fact that NO ONE had walked in for 6 hours. Our conversation eventually ended with me yelling “SHAAAAMMMEEE” , a la Modern Family (http://youtu.be/3ThXs4qAxYM) at him and doing the Arabic “ I wash my hands of this” hand gesture.  And then Jeni came back to inform us that he had gotten the time for the wrong ferry, and that our ferry would be arriving at 6 am. Needless to say, no one spoke of the “shame” incident and we did in fact spend the night. At the full price.

The next morning we awoke with new hope that this, this would be  the day we finally got the hell off of Kalimantan.  Our ferry didn’t leave until 3pm on the 29^th. But hey, after  standing for 2 hours in an airless holding room and surviving a mildly terrifying stampede, we finally made it on to the boat.  Having learned our lesson , Mary and I decided not to skimp on accommodations and took the deluxe cabin, while Corey and Abbey opted for the standard room. Both lacked air-conditioning. Our room, however, didn’t have any roaches. I think. We spent the next 28 hours watching tv  in the standard room ( we couldn’t control the channels since the only remote was at the bar) and eating coconut cookies and clemintines.  After what seemed like a lifetime, Semerang was in sight.

Vacation Series Part 1: Into the Jungle

Recently I’ve been trying to think about how exactly to present my travel experiences over the last month and half. I’ve gone from the depths of the Kalimantan ( that’s the Indonesian chunk of Boreno) jungle to the city famed for being the center of Javanese art and youth culture.  The more I’ve struggled with this post, the clearer its become that trying to contextualize my experience in one fell swoop would be a disservice to all. So I’ve decided to start what one may deem a “mini-series” on my December/January travels, especially since I’m stuck in Makassar for the next month and a half.

So let  me provide a little explanation as to why I’ve been traveling so much. No, I didn’t finally give up and quit my job. And no I didn’t finally shank an overly aggressive angkot driver and as a result I’m on the lamb from the Makassar authorities.  Like I explained once, many posts ago, I’m not allowed to give exams. This fact, coupled with the two week “winter” break, led to about four weeks of travel bliss. I use bliss somewhat sarcastically here.

Due to the fact that I am about to return to Ubud in a few weeks, I’ve decided to skip it for now. Expect an uber post on Ubud soon. 

In the meantime let me tell you about my personal “Heart of Darkness” that was my excursion into the jungles of Kalimantan ( Borneo to the uninformed). Things started off surprisingly good. Judith and I miraculously made all of our flights  and arrived in Semerang in  the knick of time to meet our friends Abbey, Corey and Mary and wait 2 hours for our mysteriously delayed flight. TII-This Is Indonesia. We arrived a few hours late to the grand metropolis ( sarcasm again) that is  Pangkalan Bun and our soon to be beloved guide, Jeni. Jeni greeted us at the airport with a huge smile and a down vest on, because it gets soo chilly in Kalimantan ( I hope you can detect the sarcasm on your own now). Then off we raced to the chic riverside town of Kumai ( yup you guessed it, sarcasm again). However a drive that should have taken 25 minutes actually took an hour because we had to stop at about 5 copy shops until we found a copy machine that worked so, par usual, the local authorities could have all of our information on file…TII

Eventually we made it to Kumai, which is oddly reminiscent of a depression era railroad town. By that I mean depressing.  After a night in the charming Losmen Hijau ( it actually was charming even though I had to abrasively wake up the sleeping proprietors from their afternoon naps so we could check in) it was off to the boat and up the river. Despite my ball busting bargaining-down of the cost of the trip the tour company owner still decided to give us his best boat and his best friend/guide (Jeni), although the “imported jams and teas” were nixed. The boat also came with his father ( the silent sage), his brother ( the captain), his sister-in-law ( the cook) and his nephew ( the little old man). So off the ten of us sailed into 3 days 2 nights of monkey infused adventure.  Our boat tour took us deep into the heart of Tanjung Putting national park and orangutan preserve, and it definitely banked on its promise. Me and my merry band of fellow travelers soon got up close and personal with many an orangutan, and let me just say they definitely have boundary issues. You don’t know violated until you’ve had you butt squeezed by the dominant female of feeding station 3.

Although I got attacked by jungle fire ants, sucked on my two consecutive leeches, bathed in tar black water and then of course there was the “ tramping through the jungle in a fierce rain storm/ mosquitoe hell” afternoon, my time in the jungle was amazing. There is little in this world that can beat the experience of waking up on the mosquito-net shrouded deck of a small boat along with the sunrise and the sounds of monkeys everywhere. Or sitting next to an old dominant female as she eats her afternoon snack and then insists on being carried back to her home in the jungle ( Jeni and Corey really had no choice but to oblige). Or seeing your tour guide ( Jeni) scale a giant tree in order to retrieve a camera trickily stolen by one wiley female and her baby. Our Christmas eve was spent in candle light on the boat, as was every night, and our Christmas day was full of jungle type adventures.  By the third day , as we sailed back towards Kumai in the sunset, the boat was beginning to feel a little bit like home.

And then all hell broke loose.