Travel Update

Dear Readers,

Just to fill the void between the last post and the next one without actually saying anything; a travel update!

We're finally leaving beautiful Indonesia and heading to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia tomorrow. I was beginning to love it here in Padang-Padang, but Nathan and I just found out surfers were actually quite rude and one of the beach hawkers took my drying shirt and tried to sell it. True story... So we're ready to go! I'm planning on doing country summaries at the end, so suffice it to say Indonesia was lovely.

So, tomorrow will be a travel day (our last one!) so the update may be a little while in coming. As I've learned to say here: Live well, dear readers, live well. Far out. Peace.

Chris

The Children of the Sun

Well, not much to report from the shack by the sea in Padang-Padang. Beautiful sunsets, beautiful people, and cheap food have made this stay both enjoyable and uneventful. The beach here is a veritable Tower of Babel; Russian, French, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia, and a number of languages I didn’t recognize all bandied about. Luckily, the lingua franca of the East is English, so we’ve lucked out. In fact, a Spanish gal and an Aussie are conversing amorously in English just outside my bamboo leaf walls.

So, instead of telling all about my sunscreen application techniques or the time I got sandy and swam for a bit then got sandy again, I’m going to discourse for a bit about the people I have met along the Southeast Asia backpacking road. Backpacking is a concept that I’m vaguely familiar with, having run across backpackers from Munich to Moscow and everywhere in between. However, these were European backpackers, usually in search of the European experience for a few weeks or months, enjoying the cultural adventure before heading back home. It is completely different here, for the most part. Different places here have different types of backpackers, but they fall into three main categories, with surprisingly few outliers.

1) The Tourist

Myself, Nathan and Meredith fall into this category. From all over the world (besides America apparently, ourselves excluded), this group of down to earth explorers is fine with following the beaten path, but do so in order to extract the maximum out of their limited time and resources. They generally seek to enjoy and experience the culture, but never forget that they are, in fact, not locals. I have found The Tourist most commonly in Sumatra (Bukit Lawang and Lake Toba) as well as Panang and Java (Yogyakarta and Mount Bromo). These places are generally cultural, fairly difficult to get to (only public transit) and lack completely any sort of stereotypical Western amenity. The Tourist is enjoyable to talk to, share experiences with, and get advice from.

2) The Spring Breaker

Short shorts, Ray Ban sunglasses, dumb tattoos, cheap beer in hand, these perpetual partiers convinced their parents that spending the summer in Ko Phi Phi or on Bali would be, “like, way more educational then that wicked awesome month in Miami with the other frat bros.” Whenever a group of these crazy dudes congregates, one can be sure to find an airport with direct service to LA and NYC, a Western burger joint and a night club with native fire-twirlers nearby. Generally staying at resorts and zipping around in private cars bought with funds siphoned straight from daddy’s bank account, these hard-partiers can often be spotted talking about how far-out it is vacationing in a third world country while using the free wi-fi at the pizza place. Back home, when asked about Thai or Indonesian food, they will say without irony that, “It’s just like here, man!” This group is living proof that, with enough money and a can-do attitude you can party like a frat star anywhere on the globe.

3) The Children of the Sun

My least favorite fellow travelers. Considered ‘bums’ in the United States, these dreadlocked, sun darkened, spiritual creatures drift along the mainstream backpacker currents impressing the gullible and innocent with their wondrous tales of travel. Most gave up their comfortable lives in the West in order to ‘find themselves’ in the spiritual East. They seek to leave behind the materialism of home, declaring time and technology a capitalist construct. Generally, their hypocrisy knows no bounds. Instead of connecting with the natives, I have found most of these guru wannabees in the most commercialized, Western places I’ve visited. The closest thing these guys get to communing with locals is through the thoroughly jaded tattoo artist or the poor guy who’s teaching Mui Thai boxing to the 13th white kid that day. I imagine that 30 years ago, these type of people weren’t pathetic, probably actually finding a little jungle village and staying there for years learning their language, religion, customs and really ‘leaving it all behind.’ Not a lifestyle that I would choose for myself, but certainly respectable. However, Lonely Planet has made that dream accessible to the likes of, say, me, and instead of branching out farther afield, these trailblazers have become sheep, pathetic sheep in desperate need of a bath. One more conversation about some cannabis fueled exotic Eastern journey and I’m going to yank them by the dreadlocks until they wish they’d had some of that Advil they so gladly left behind.

Americans are extremely hard to come by. I have perhaps seen 10 outside of Ko Phi Phi in my three weeks here. I find this odd.

Toodles.

Bali: Underwater Paradise, Jury's Still Out on the Shore

I got my SCUBA diving license! Nathan and I went through the super intense course (we condensed the 4 pool dives to one and turned our four open water training dives into pleasure dives). The first dive was on one of those vertical coral reefs which was pretty incredible, especially for my first ever dive... Mangku, our instructor, would give us about 10 tasks we'd accomplish right under the boat, we'd do two of them then we'd spend the rest of the time swimming around in a sea of fish, coral, and other crazy things that fell in between those two categories. We saw lion fish, real Nemo fish and all sorts of creatures that I'm pretty sure went home at night and plugged themselves in to recharge the crazy assortment of blues glowing from their bodies. Pretty cool. The second day of "training dives" were at the wreck of a WWII transport sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1942. The diver in me was in awe of the challange and fun while the historian in me was absolutely in raptures as well. And presto! We were certified.

To celebrate, Nathan, Meredith and I had a bottle of Bali wine (quite good) and a few rum and cokes. Then Nathan and I went out to the beach and came across a pack of Indonesian men clustered around a camp light. Sure enough, it was a gambling ring with fistfulls of cash being thrown onto a roulette type apparatus and a ball getting rolled around over numbers. Nathan and I watched and even participated a bit with the aid of a helpful local, but we never did figure out the rules of the game... Needless to say, we limited our losses and headed home. And that was it for Lovina Beach, Bali! We just arrived at Padang-Padang on the south of the island and I think I'm in paradise. Pictures and description later, but I think we're staying in a tree house on the side of the cliff over the ocean. Not bad...

Pictures!

Belatedly, pictures have been added on most of the previous posts. Feast your eyes.

Regards,

Chris

A 2AM Wake Up, Ash Storms, and an Unforgettable View

Well, I’d say the title says it all. However, my trip to the volcanoes of the T------- Caldera started with little to no expectations due to my continued inability to read ahead in the guidebook and my habit of simply trusting my esteemed travel companions to choose excellent places to visit. All I knew was that they were ‘cool’ and that they were volcanoes and that was more than enough for me. I wanted to go.

We arrived at Cemero Lawang, the village closest to the volcanoes, at about 10:30PM and, considering it gets dark here about 5:30, it was pitch black. We immediately crawled into our warm beds and under the thick covers to keep out the considerable chill (about 10 degrees Celsius). We wanted to climb one mountain in order to watch the sunrise, then hike to the most famous volcano, climb it and then call it a day. In order to get to the top of the first mountain by sunrise at 5:20, we needed to get up pretty darn early to get to the top. We thought we had about 7km of hard climb, so in our desire not to miss the sunrise, we kept pushing up our start until we had a 2AM wake up and a 2:30AM start time. Should be sufficient.

Sure enough, we were up and at ‘em after only three hours of sleep and in our eagerness (and desperate desire to keep warm in our thin fleeces and windbreakers- I mean, come on, we’re practically at the equator!!) we left around 2:20. Spoiler alert: the hike wasn’t 7km and over half of it was the fairly flat approach to the base of the mountain. The three hours of time we’d budgeted to get up the hill seemed a little silly when we stumbled across the lookout point only 55 minutes after setting off. Within 15 minutes, the sweat had dried and we were left to contemplate to a long couple hours with only body heat and humor to keep us warm.

But it was so worth it. Because we’d arrived during the previous night and hiked up before dawn, I had no concept of where I was or what I was going to see when the sun came up. I was surprised that the road up to the mountain seemed to be rather ashy, but the light form our headlamps only served to light our immediate path and nothing farther than 20 feet in any direction.

So when the sun finally began to come up, with blues and reds and oranges to set the heart aglow with wonder, it came up on a scene that my Floridian soul could hardly comprehend. The first thing to catch the red glow of the sunrise was a massive black cloud in the distance to the west. Soon the glow from the horizon illuminated first one, than two, three, and finally four towering volcanic peaks, all clustered together about 4km distant. One was visibly spewing ash high into the air, creating the black cloud that we’d seen first. By the time the sun actually peeked out from behind the mountain we were on, it fully revealed the fantastic scene. The mountain we were perched atop formed one side of a massive caldera. Farms stretched out below and mountains on all sides dropped suddenly into a very large, very circular lake formed by a massive volcanic eruption from hundreds of thousands of years ago. The lush green that edged this waterless lake only served as a contrast to the ashy desert in the caldera itself. And rising from the bottom of this flat desert were the volcanoes.

Once we’d recovered our senses, we hiked back down to the village and had our breakfast, and we started the next part of our trek that would lead us to the edge of the erupting volcano’s crater. This volcano, Mount Bromo, is perhaps Indonesia’s most famous, and just had a major eruption about three months ago, so it was still rather unsettled. We didn’t quite realize this from afar, but as we approached its base across the shifting and featureless desert base of the caldera, it became more and more menacing. The final 75 or so meters to the rim of the crater was supposed to be easily reached by 253 steps (according to the lonely planet guidebook). However, by the time we reached base of these steps, we realized that three months of eruptions and heavy ash fall had buried these steps under a thick layer of ash, making the extremely steep assent very difficult. After much exertion we made it to the top.

The massive amounts of ash spewing from a volcano’s bowels are rather more impressive from 10 yards away. We sat, gasping for sulfuric air, perched on the rim of the crater and just listened. Listened to the rushing of the ash going past, the rumblings of the boiling lava far below, and, rather surprisingly to Meredith losing her breakfast right next to us (this is actually quite hilarious, honestly, what a majestic and dignified place to get violently ill. She’d been sick for a day or so, but characteristically uncomplaining. There we were perched on the edge of a massive and ancient volcano, burying partially digested egg, rice, etc. in volcanic ash. The humor of the situation may be lost on you, my dear readers, but we have since laughed long and hard). Then the ash rain started. An unfortunate wind had blown a heavy rain of chunks of ash right back down on us, coating our clothes, hair, faces and cameras. Yet we couldn’t tear ourselves away from the surreal beauty, that is, until the ash building up on the insides of our sunglasses began to threaten our vision (sight being a rather important sense when a false step could send you to your immediate and, I imagine, rather painful death in the depths of an active volcano).

We beat a hasty retreat down the side of the cone, made our way through an inconvenient sandstorm across the 2km back to the edge of the caldera, made our way up the side and back to the homestay. Not even the breathtakingly cold showers could keep us from at least attempting to get the fine black dust off our skin and hair and by the time we were done, the bathroom floor was black with dirt. Even today, two days later, 300 miles away and on the beach in Bali, I’m still getting volcanic ash out of my ears.

But it’s a lovely reminder of the day I stood on the edge of the entrance to the underworld.

So Many Batik Salesmen, So Little Interest

We finally left the City-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named (Medan. Whoops...) and landed several hours later in the bustling metropolis of Yogyakarta (or Jogjakarta as it’s pronounced, rather confusingly). Our immediate impressions were that it was way better than Medan, at least as far a quick comparison of airport bathrooms can be trusted. The impressions held up upon further investigation.

It’s been a few days and I really don’t know what to say about the city, so I’ll just hit the highlights. Jogja is known as the capital of Javanese culture and also the epicenter of the batik making and sales. Batik, as far as I could tell, was some sort of traditional fabric made on a loom and colored using wax and natural dyes. Everyone who comes to Jogja buys batik, which of course ensures that there is absolutely no way to get a fair price or not get harassed by every local trying to get you into their “homemade, cheap, local priced” batik shop. The prime local trick is to pretend to be a guide at the sultan’s palace or other such site, demand no fee for their services, and then steer you blindly into their shop. We didn’t get nabbed but it was very, very annoying.

Other than that, the exciting parts of Jogja were the Sultan’s palace (the sultan here still has some political power), his water park pleasure baths, and some pretty cool museums. Probably the most awkward museum award goes to the Vandenberg Fort, the Dutch colonial fort in the middle of the city turned independence museum. We were talking to the ‘guide’ who registered surprise that we weren’t Dutch, as most European visitors to the museum were. This didn’t seem so odd until we had gone through hall after hall of dioramas depicting the independence of Indonesia from Dutch control, who had their capital in Yogyakarta and not Jakarta. Naturally, museums of this nature are rarely kind to the colonizer, especially one as unpleasant as the Dutch. This museum, however, went above and beyond. Diorama after diorama depicted the Dutch troops bayoneting Indonesians or depicting how the “merciless Dutch fighter planes downed the Indonesian aircraft bearing a red cross. And the main European visitors are Dutch?? Wow…

Anyway, we left the next morning, with another delightful 12 hour bus ride to East Java, which I spent trying not to cower in terror as our bus driver demonstrated that you can use the emergency brake on a vehicle that size to great effect.

Medan: City of Broken Dreams (and Open Sewers)

I am in a murder house. Don’t worry mom and dad, I’m not likely to be killed tonight in my sleep, but if I were looking for a quiet place to smother someone with a pillow and have no one notice, it would be here. Now, you may accuse me of being melodramatic or expecting too much from a room for three costing $7.50, but this is particularly unpleasant. The guidebook said, “clean, the whitewashed walls make it appear even more so.” I would like to believe that this was written in 1960. Then I could blame the intervening half-century for the mildew, the rust, the broken toilet, the cockroaches (I was fine with it until he showed up) and the couch that looks like it’s seen its share of triple homicides. But I bore you with my complaints. I have no Internet now, so when I post this in the morning before my flight, I will have survived (hopefully) and all will be forgotten.

Of course, that is my most fervent hope for everything regarding this city. This is my third time in Medan in a week and my first night spent here. The grates in the sidewalk to keep you from falling in human sized holes that lead to the sewer are all gone. Walking along the sidewalk in Medan at night or on a bike would lead to death or serious injury. I certainly wouldn’t issue health insurance to someone living here. Even the tomb of the Sultan, who died in 1998, had one side of its marble rim broken off and in the trash heap behind the cemetery. All this in the Grand Mosque next door which I had to pay 5,000 Rupiah to see. I cannot wait for my Batavia Air puddle jumper to wing me away from this mosquito bitten, cockroach infested city of millions.

Not that the trip here was fantastic either. After the joy of finding ourselves in a private car from Bukit Lawang to Lake Toba, I think we got a bit spoiled. Although we managed to end up in a bus with as many people as seats, the driver inflicted the agony of Indonesian music on us. This music, which I’ve heard (and been able to escape) virtually everywhere defies categorization into my catalogue of music genres. So, I’ve come up with a new one: electro-ballads. We listened to four and a half hours of raspy crooners accompanied by keyboards, key-tars, and what may have been a key-saxophone. All just a few decibels too loud to be ignored…

One positive, though, was that the bus driver was determined to stick the three foreigners in the back with the lack of leg room while the four Indonesians got the spacious middle and front seats. However, we rebelled and simply pretended that our politeness dictated that we let our fellow passengers in first, only to be herded past the folded up seat into the back. The driver did his best, saying what I’m sure was “no! no! you go in the back!” But we just smiled and insisted they lead. Foreigners 1, Locals 0. Well, that’s not quite right… Let’s try again: Foreigners 1, Locals 7. Shucks…

Funniest part of the whole trip: the woman in front had live chickens in a cardboard box on her lap. First amusing bit was realizing about halfway through the trip that there actually WERE live, clucking chickens in a cardboard box on the bus. The second was when we hit a particularly rough patch on the road and I saw the top of the cardboard box lift repeatedly as the poor chickens inside were slammed repeatedly into the top of the box. Priceless. I fear my humor has become less sophisticated in my absence…