Indonesia

Here's the narrative describing our time in Indonesia. The pictures are at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/115483161265544236321/Indonesia?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPmoiLfg4_aYOw&feat=directlink

and

https://picasaweb.google.com/115483161265544236321/Indonesia02?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLKhxIKcvNapmwE&feat=directlink

Given the March 11th earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we decided to change our travel plans and head to Indonesia instead of Japan at the end of our 3 months in New Zealand.

We flew first to Singapore for just a day and a half. The change of climate was quite a shock to our systems and the heat and humidity left us without much energy for exploring. We did manage to take a walk through the shopping mall district down to Chinatown. And in the evening we had a nice walk through the beautiful botanical gardens. We enjoyed lovely company and delicious meals with our hostess - a colleague from Amsterdam.

We then flew to Denpasar, Bali to visit some more Amsterdam colleagues. We had a wonderful few days with them, and it felt great to have some time staying in one place and just resting. On Sunday we went together to visit the temple.


On Wednesday we managed to motivate ourselves to leave their house long enough to go to visit the Green School - an international school located near Ubud - and joined in their regular Wed. afternoon tour. It is quite an amazing campus!

At the end of our time in Bali, we regretted that we hadn't been adventurous enough to rent a motorbike. I think that really is the way to do it as the distances aren't that great, it probably isn't that much more expensive than the public transport, and you would be able to see so much more. My impression of Bali was that the end destinations (tourist spots) weren't that interesting in and of themselves, but that the ceremonies and villages we passed by would have been quite interesting to be able to visit.

Instead we took public transportation. In the area our hosts lived there was remarkably little public transport as everyone seems to have a car or motorbike. So we had to take a taxi to the bus station in Denpasar. There we easily found a bemo (minivan) going north to Candikuning. We had to wait about 45min for the bemo to fill up but it only cost 20,000/person. It was sad to pass by so many people selling Durian along the roadside and not be able to stop and buy one. Though probably if we'd asked the bemo to stop, it would have.

It was pouring rain when we arrived and the first hotel we tried was closed because the owner was going to Denpasar the next day to pray. He did let us wait on his porch for the rain to stop though and even brought us complimentary tea. We walked around and ended up at a nearly empty, huge hotel on the edge of the lake which had hot water and a nice view of the fog over the lake.

In the morning it was still raining and we decided against spending more time in the area. So we took a look at the nearby temple and then hailed down a bemo that was heading north to the coast. Here began the Indonesian chapter of the great “trying to get services for the prices stated in the guide book” or, in other words, “do things the difficult way in order to spend as little as possible” game. We didn't really succeed at first.

The bemo wasn't going all the way to Lovina and it dropped us off in a rather strange place (it seemed like it must have gone closer to the where its route and the road to Lovina diverged). The driver also insisted on 20,000/person when the guide book indicated it should be 8,000. We walked to a very unhappening bus terminal where they wanted 50,000 to take us the few remaining km to Lovina (should have been less than 20,000). We decided to start walking, hoping we'd find some shared public transport along the way. After several empty bemos tried picking us up, we gave in and bargained one down to 30,000. Unfortunately he proceeded to try and drop us off at every hotel we passed (I guess trying to drive as little a distance as possible). We also were harassed by a man on a motorbike who wanted us to stay at his guest house. He followed the bemo on his motorbike and pushed his card into our faces whenever the bemo stopped. As ignoring him and then politely declining didn't work, Machiel took his card and threw it out the opposite window. This earned us curses in English, but he stopped following us. That was the most extreme case of someone trying to get us to stay at their place we've so far experienced on our travels. Later that night when we chatted with the tourists eating next to us, we found out that they had been followed by the same man while riding their own motorbike. They too tried everything to shake him, but he was unshakeable (followed behind them and when they stopped went ahead and waited for them). In the end, they gave up and went to his guest house. I scolded them for giving him positive reinforcement for such annoying behavior.

Lovina was a disappointment. The street we stayed on led to a very dirty and narrow beach. We saw a few interesting boats but there were too many scary looking dogs and we didn't feel comfortable walking along through what were essentially people's houses to explore the beach beyond a few meters. I guess we thought there'd be more of a village/town to explore.

The next day we were more successful with the bemos though. We didn't have to wait long for a partly full one to stop for us and the driver accepted the guide book price. We took it all the way to Gilimanuk (3hrs) where we failed to find the hotel mentioned in the guide book and ended up in a slightly skanky and dirty but very cheap (50,000) hotel which was essentially managed by an Iranian tourist who had stayed there twice previously and always for a week or so at a time. He didn't like living in Iran and returned only occasionally to collect more of his inheritance money before returning to India and Indonesia where he could get visas and live cheaply. The real manager was around sometimes.

Easter morning we were woken up at 4:30am by a very loud, much distorted, and extended amplification of the call to prayer and reading of the Koran by children. At least this helped us get an early start on the day. We took a bemo back to Lalang Luang and found two other tourists to share a boat/snorkeling trip with.  Supposedly we were going out for 4 hours but it ended up being 2 ½ hours (we didn't realize until we were back what the time was), but this was a good thing as we managed to get all the way to Probolinggo on Java that day and if I'd stayed in the water any longer my back would have been seriously sunburned instead of just sunburned. In any event, the snorkeling was AMAZING! The Norwegian guys with us went quite a ways down the coast of the island away from the beach where we started and had a turtle swim with them for a bit. One of them had been there before and seen a shark and baracuda on previous trips. This prompted me to swim with a rock in my hand the entire time which made me feel slightly more secure even though I wasn't sure how a rock would help nor exactly what a baracuda looked like. Typical Jennifer silliness. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of plastic/garbage floating on the surface, which was rather disgusting to swim through, but the color of the water, an underwater cliff and the fish were wonderful.

We took a bemo back to Gilimanuk, got our packs and walked down to the ferry to Java. The trip across took about 20 min but it took another ½ hour to wait for a spot to dock. There was a moment of confusion when we tried to find a bemo to the bus station as people were telling us different things, but we managed to find it eventually. At the bus station we got duped, which was rather annoying after having been traveling so long. We just temporarily forgot our rules of bus travel – talk to no one, especially the men trying to talk to you, and buy the ticket on the bus where you can see what other people are paying. As we walked up to the bus a man got off the bus and we assumed he was the ticket seller. Wrong assumption. He told us the price was 70,000/person but when we walked over to a sign that showed destinations and prices, he agreed to sell us a ticket for 46,000/person. This was one of the prices on the board, but it also said 28,000 which he said was the price for the minibus. Unfortunately we ignored the alarm bells telling us that this story didn't make sense as the bus is usually the cheapest and it made more sense that the cheaper fare was the basic bus and the 46,000 the air-con/direct bus. Well, once the bus started the actual ticket seller went around and when he came to us told us that we had an illegal ticket. He wanted us to pay the actual 28,000/person but we refused and he didn't argue. We arrived in Probolinggo at 7pm after 5 ½ hours on a very hot bus of smoking men and off tune guitar player/singers. Luckily there were some lovely women in the bemo who jokingly chided the driver who tried charging us more than the actual 3,000/person and who had fun trying to talk to us in very broken English. It was a long day to say the least.

The next day we took a bemo back to the bus station and found the bemo that would be heading up to Cemoro Lawang (the village next to the Bromo volcano). It was 9:00. We didn't end up leaving until 3:30. In between I read my book, Machiel got a haircut, and we watched the bemo drivers sit around. Around 12 a mother and son arrived which at least reassured us that the bemo did actually go to Cemoro Lawang. At 2:30 two more Indonesians joined us. Then at 3:00 a driver suddenly hopped in and off we went. Well it turned out to be a false start as we only drove down the street to pick up two female American tourists who had bought a Bromo package deal at a tour office. Extreme tourists, wearing tank tops and smoking, they proceeded to drink a beer as we drove back to the bemo stop where we'd been waiting. Twenty minutes later, having finished their beer, they realized that the bemo wasn't going anywhere and started asking questions. They were understandably perplexed having just spent who knows how much money for their tour which included transportation to Bromo and, having taken a night train from Jakarta, they were eager to get to their final destination. In fact they were so eager to get to their destination, they didn't mind spending more money to leave immediately. So bargaining ensued and we ended up with the situation of the Indonesians paying the normal fare they would have paid if the bemo were full and us tourists (a French couple arrived as well) paying 250,000 between us so that we would leave immediately. The actual fare should have been 15,000 per person and if we'd waited another ½ hour the missing 4 seats would have been filled (we found out at dinner that another bemo of tourists came up after us). Having waited so long, we were a bit annoyed to be pressured into paying the tourist price, but we also weren't about to watch the bemo drive away without us.

Cemoro Lawang is an eerie village as it sits right on the edge of a huge volcanic crater. The fog, rain and thick layer of ash that had fallen on the village two days previously (and which was slowly being cleared away) only added to the eerie feeling. It was also cold here and we were glad to have sweaters, socks and hats to put on. We talked to another traveler who convinced us that waking up to see the volcano at sunrise was worth it (everything was in the clouds when we arrived) so we set the alarm for 3:30.

When we awoke, we found the village still enveloped by clouds and we debated going back to sleep. But we rallied and decided it was best to go anyway and hope the skies would clear with the sunrise. As it turned out, the skies cleared as we walked along the dark road and we could see some stars. The way up to the volcano was easy to find as we just had to follow the steady stream of land rovers filled with tourists. We arrived at the viewing platform just as the first clouds began turning pink. It was a spectacular changing light show and we climbed up on to the roof of one of the viewing shelters to get the best view of the volcano and sunrise (which was primarily a bit to the left (north) of the volcano. The light show continued even after most of the tourists had returned to their land rovers. We also enjoyed walking back to our hotel and seeing all the farms we'd passed earlier in the dark. It being 8:00 , we packed up and went and got breakfast at the little warung down the hill where we also ate dinner. We then found the bemos a bit further down the hill and made an agreement with the driver to pay him 15,000/person but not tell the other tourists that that was the price (he charged them 25,000 which they thought was a great deal after having paid 40-70,000 to get up there). The bemo drove back up the hill to pick up all the tourists at one of the hotels before returning to the original waiting spot to pick up the locals who were headed down to market. On the way back to Probolinggo I missed a great photo of 30 or more men sitting alongside the road. They were all wearing the traditional black hats and huddled under their pink or purple sarongs which in this case were being worn like capes/blankets. It was a colorful sight but my initial puzzlement as to why they were all sitting next to the road delayed my “take a picture” instinct and then we were already past. I guess they were waiting to go to the mosque, but that's just a guess.

Back in Probolinggo, we quickly found a bus heading to Surabaya. It was another long (4 hours) hot ride, especially the hour we spent in a huge traffic jam which is a permanent occurrence due to the fact that traffic has to take a detour because the highway has been engulfed in that area by a mud volcano that has been spewing out mud for 5 years (ever since an gas exploration company was looking for gas and tapped into it). 1,000 sq meters of mud is being expelled a day!

The guide book served us well in Surabaya, and it was easy to find the bus that took us downtown to a nice central hotel. This bus was also full of lovely people. One man who started chatting with us was in town to pick up his renewed Dutch visa so he could go back and continue working in Den Helder as a sailor. He paid our bus tickets. Another woman took good care of us and made sure we got out at the right place. We found internet at the Starbucks in the nearby shopping mall. Crossing the street was not as problematic as the guidebook made it sound – provided one used the pedestrian overpasses.

The next day, the guidebook wasn't as helpful. We decided to go down to the harbor with our bags before heading back to the bus station to continue on to Yogjakarta. The guide book's description of where the large wooden schooners were anchored was vague and we ended up at the wrong harbor and the rickshaw driver who insisted he knew where to take us, in fact didn't. We did, however, find a man selling durian by the side of the road. It was quite tasty, though a whole durian shared between two people is quite a rich meal.

The ride to Yogyakarta took 9 hours, but luckily the bus was AC and the seats actually had some leg room.

Unfortunately, it was so hot here that the next day we only managed to walk to the Sultan's palace (where we got to see a gamelon performance) and back to a lovely vegetarian restaurant connected with a project to help street children (Milas Restaurant) before collapsing at our hotel for the rest of the day.

The next day we took the public bus to Borobodur and walked the 5 min. from the bus station to the temple. Again, it was incredibly hot and humid so we walked quite slowly around the impressive, but not quite as impressive as we'd expected, temple. Several Indonesian tourists asked to take photos with us. I was sorry we didn't have energy to rent bikes and explore the area as supposedly there are some interesting villages in the area.

The next day we caught the 9am train to Jakarta – economy class. It was a 7 ½ hour ride through some lovely rice field countryside. A fellow passenger who noticed how much we disliked that our neighbor was smoking, spoke to him and he did his smoking elsewhere for the remainder of the trip. We were entertained by the food and knickknack hawkers and were even tempted to buy the batik patterned band-aids. I still marvel that they sell tofu as a regular snack.

Jakarta has a busway system with enclosed bus stops and a bus only lane on the roads. This turned out to be a great way to get around the city though not taking the local trains meant we missed the spectacle of extremely overcrowded local trains (even more than in India) which we later saw on the news while watching TV in Sumatra.

We debated going to visit a bird sanctuary north of Jakarta, but decided instead to head directly to Sumatra. In Indonesia one can't buy flight tickets online with a credit card less than 48 hours before departure so we went to a travel agent to arrange the tickets (same price as the online price) for the next day. With a day for sightseeing we decided to go explore what was once Dutch/VOC Batavia. Unfortunately it was May 1st and after waiting in the busway stop for longer than seemed normal we realized that a huge procession of people with flags were headed our way and were occupying the entire street. Not wanting to be so close to such a large political demonstration (though there was no indication it would be anything but peaceful), we left the busway and took a taxi instead. First we went to the puppet museum which while small, housed some beautiful and interesting puppets. I was sorry we didn't get to see a live performance. We had lunch in a renovated shipping warehouse (most of the old Dutch buildings have been left to ruin) and then visited the maritime museum. There were quite a few interesting boats though it was sad to see them and the building deteriorating. Then we walked to the nearby port where we finally got to see the wood schooners we'd looked for in Surabaya.

The next day we caught a 7am flight to Medan. While it felt a shame to skip over so much of Sumatra, it just would have taken us too long to make the journey by land and we'd told Ratna, our wwoofing host, that we would arrive around May 1st. In Medan we found our way from the tiny airport to a road that bemos went down and caught a bemo to the bus station. Once again, though the bemo deposited us a little ways away from our actual destination, we found our way and arrived just in time to catch a departing bus to Lake Toba. Unfortunately in the haste of catching the bus, Machiel forgot to get his pen back from the ticket seller who'd sold us the tickets. Even with our few possessions this year (or maybe because we have so few) it is still hard not to be sad when we lose something. Though we've actually done quite a good job of keeping track of our things and mostly what has been left behind were items that had worn out. This brings me to the topic of how little wear and tear most things are made to withstand these days. It has been interesting to see how quickly some things wear out if you use them every day. But I digress! The bus ride was quite a crowded affair and the bus manager even directed people to sit in the small baggage space just behind the last seats. The man next to me actually asked if I minded if he smoked and while he obviously was disappointed I said yes, refrained from smoking until I later moved to a less crowded area of the bus. The only stop during the 5hr ride was next to a cake stop. After watching everyone else get off the bus and buy cakes, I finally decided we should too (my decision making capabilities must have been damaged by the hot bumpy ride). But just as I neared the counter, the bus driver gestured that the bus was going to leave. I made a look like, “I'll hurry so can I please get some cakes?” and he came over gesturing that he liked a specific bun. When he repeated the “me – bun” gesture, I understood he was “asking” me to buy him the bun. I obliged. They were good cakes, especially since we hadn't eaten any lunch.

When we arrived in Parapat/Ajibata we found a ferry to the huge island Samosir (the size of Singapore) where we were going to stay for a week. There is only one boat a day to the village Silimalombu where we'd be staying and we'd missed that. However, there were boats to towns 10km away and we planned on taking a minibus from there to the village. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Tomok, we found that there were only motorcyclists willing to take us to Silimalombu. Not wanting to take a motorbike and it being too late to walk the 10km before it got dark, we decided to walk 4km to Tuk Tuk, sleep there, and then catch the direct boat to Silimalombu the following day. This turned out to be a great decision as the hotel we found in Tuk Tuk was cheap (60,000) , spacious and with hot water and good food. This village was once a big tourist destination, with raging full moon parties. But then Thailand became the place for that sort of vacation and now Tuk Tuk is a lovely laid back quiet spot.

The next morning we took the boat back to Ajibata and waited around until 2:00 when the little local boat left to go to Silimalombu. While it took a lot longer to get to our final destination this way, it was nice to have had a relaxed night in Tuk Tuk and the multiple boat rides were cheaper than if we'd taken the motorcycle taxis in the first place.

We spent 8 days at Ratna's house along with two other volunteers who were there longer term. Her house consisted of 4 bedrooms (so we had a room to ourselves) and a large living room area in one building and several attached additions which contained the bathroom (we learned to live without toilet paper), kitchen (with window directly out to the pig pen which made throwing out the garbage very easy), dining room (with TV upon which we watched Indonesian soaps every night during dinner – I got hooked on one), her mother's room, her employee's room (handyman/farm help), and a storage room. Her mother was the third wife of the local king, and while he died when Ratna was only 4, he had made sure that each of his wives had separate properties so she had quite a large area of land that she is in the process of cultivating and defending from the tenacious jungle plants. While the land technically belongs to her brothers, she is the one making the decisions about how to use it. She is well educated and previously lived in Jakarta working for TNT. She's a wonderfully spirited woman, strong, independent, loving to laugh, but very serious when working.

When we first arrived she gave us a tour of the land and laughingly talked about how it was hard work all the time here. That first afternoon we hauled water plants that had drifted into her cove out of the water to add to the rapidly growing compost pile she's created.

The next morning we woke up at 6 ready to get to work...but Ratna was out collecting the fish she'd caught in her nets (her most consistent income as she sells the fish) and the other volunteers were still asleep. So we waited. By 8 the other volunteers had woken up and we ate breakfast (instant oatmeal). Ratna returned from fishing and got ready to go to teach a group of 4-5 year olds Indonesian (they speak Barak at home). The other volunteers showed us how to clean the net that Ratna had pulled in. Cleaning the net was the most consistent of our jobs during the week and while I got a bit faster at it, it still took about 2 hours (3 when I did it myself) to rid the net of bits of plastic, little water plants and thick green slime. Ratna returned around 11 and we helped her prepare lunch. After lunch everyone took a two hour nap as it was too hot to go work outside and Ratna and her mother had already been up since 4. Finally at 3:00 Ratna told us we were going to go work clearning the weeds away from chilli plants (also income for her) and baby trees. It was a bit tricky finding the chilli plants among the weeds sometimes, but satisfying to clear away the thick weeds. The next day, the backs of my legs were quite sore though from bending over so long. It started to rain eventually, so we returned to the house, walking down through the huge mango trees (another source of income for her) and picking up the dropped ones to feast on once we were back at the house. Even though mangoes are not usually in season at this time, this year the trees were still producing which was lucky for us! Around 6pm we helped to prepare dinner, ate and then everyone retired to their rooms except her mother who continued watching the soaps. Lunches and dinners varied everyday but there was always white rice, a vegetable of some kind and fish cooked in sambal (a chilli, onion, garlic paste - that Ratna promised she was making the less spicy version of, but which still was quite spicy). We got to taste some other Indonesian dishes as well and one day she had her neighbor come to help make a special coconut noodle dish.

The days passed rather slowly and it was sometimes frustrating not having clear directions of how we could be of use. Machiel managed to find some projects around the house like fixing a part of the ceiling that was falling in to the dining room. One morning I went to the school with Ratna and learned some Indonesian color words that she was teaching the kids. Machiel also started the project of building an enclosure for the water buffalo, but this also was frustrating as the available tools weren't what he was used to and cutting the cinnamon trunk into poles took several hours and resulted in some impressive blisters. On Sunday I went to church with Ratna which included some beautiful singing. I also took a long walk to pick up some of the trash along the roadside.

All in all it was a beautiful location and a wonderful opportunity to gain some insight into Indonesian culture, eat home cooked food and get to know an interesting woman, but after 8 days we were ready to be back on our own.

We took the bus back to Medan. However, it was a different bus company and it dropped us off at a different station. Luckily it wasn't far from the station we originally departed from, so we walked back and found the man who had Machiel's pen. He was a bit disappointed to part with the pen but he could see it meant a lot to Machiel to have it back.

The next day we took a bemo to yet a different bus station to get a bus to Bukit Lawang - a village next to a national park that used to contain an orangutan rehabilitation center and which still is home for many orangutans. However, when we arrived at the bus station we were told there were no more buses that day going to Bukit Lawang. A sign on a wall showed a schedule with buses departing all day, and the man telling us this was also trying to sell us a ticket in a private minibus, so we were skeptical. We took a seat by the bus stand and decided to wait and see what happened. After a bit, an American guy came by and told us he and his mother had been waiting for an hour and hadn't seen any buses and had finally agreed to take the private minibus. We thanked him for the information and told him we'd wait a bit longer. In fact, about 10 minutes after he left, a bus started up and we departed. But we didn't get very far. Just a bit down the road we stopped by the side of the road and waited another hour for more passengers. Then a few km down the road there was a loud bang and we stopped for another hour to change the tire that had blown out. So the bus wasn't the quickest way to get to Bukit Lawang, but we did eventually arrive.

Bukit Lawang was beautiful and much cooler than Medan. In the morning we went to the national park to attend the feeding they hold twice a day. This practice was originally in place to help support the newly released orangutans and it is continued for the tourists but also to provide additional nutrition for the pregnant and nursing females. They only give out bananas and milk which supposedly is a less interesting meal than what they can find in the forest, so it doesn't replace their interest in foraging for food for themselves. And in fact it was the mother orangutans that came to get the food. We saw one young female and 3 mothers, each with a baby. We spent the remainder of the day resting in the hammocks. That evening we watched an orangutan sitting in a tree eating fruit nearby the hotel.

The next day we were all set to leave and we walked back to the bus station, but once again we were told there were no more big buses going to Medan. Yet there were several buses parked in the station. We waited around for about an hour to see if any buses would start up and in the interim decided that it was just too hot to go back to Medan and that it was better to wait in Bukit Lawang another day (it was the 14th and our flight to Kuala Lumpur from Medan wasn't until the 16th). So we walked back into the village and spent the rest of the day trying to decide if we should go for a walk or not. In the end it started pouring rain so we didn't. Very loud music (it was Saturday night) from one of the nearby hotels lasted into the wee hours of the morning so it wasn't a great night's sleep and I wondered what the monkeys thought about the racket which must be a regular weekend occurrence.

The next day we managed to leave Bukit Lawang, though we had to give in and take a minibus (not a private one, but a "fill it with as many people as possible" one) as all the buses from the previous day were mysteriously gone. I'm not entirely sure why we were being so stubborn about taking a big bus instead of the minibuses except that we didn't like being told there weren't any buses when clearly there were. We were glad we had come to Bukit Lawang before the weekend though as we saw busload after busload arriving with day trippers from Medan who were coming to enjoy the river and cooler air for the day. We were happy to have gotten to experience it in more serene conditions.

We spent the night in Medan and the next day managed to go to a local market for last minute souvenirs and the post office before heading to the airport. When we went through customs at the airport we had the unpleasant surprise that we had overstayed our 30 day visa by 1 day. This oversight on our part (forgot that May had 31 days instead of 30 so staying April 16-May 16 was 31 instead of 30 days) was especially annoying as we had been ready to leave earlier and had essentially been killing time for a day and a half. Other than the surprise and the $20 fine each (the original visa cost $25), it was a smooth flight to Kuala Lumpur and we enjoyed returning to familiar ground (we even went back to the same hotel we stayed in in October).

To sum it up, Indonesia has some beautiful spots and lovely people. However, we found the heat and humidity draining and in our experience it was the most challenging country to backpack through at local prices. And while the big smiles that accompanied all communications/interactions were often genuine, there were also times that they felt insincere. With tofu and tempeh readily available, eating vegetarian was easy and delicious. It was interesting to have an opportunity to experience three of the islands and get a taste for their differences and commonalities.And there are many more islands we didn't get to...