Arrived MCO11:30

I think I'm done posting here since we have completed our return trip to Orlando.  I could post some photos of the Hong Kong airport, or our L.A. takeoff in the wee hours but I think I won't.  It has been some pretty exciting four months on the road, and we're a bit jet lagged and fried from some lengthy lay-overs in Hong Kong and L.A.  We had a lot of fun, found my old friends, made some new ones, got to visit my sister and her husband in Guam (they gave us the grand tour), and Peter Tan in Singapore (Peter and his wife Jenny gave us a grand tour), and none of it would have happened had we not had Sony (Wahono's son) provide us with a sponsorship for our Indonesian visas.  Wow!

Lessons learned

update: food and drink, rocks in your rice.

Visa
Pay to have it done, otherwise it is a bit time consuming and tricky.

Communication
Most people know enough English that you can probably muddle through so long as you are very patient and don't mind when you don't get what you expected.

Unlike India or China here the facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language is as we expect in the West.

All the folks we dealt with were extremely friendly.  During our 3-month journey we ran into some grumpy fundamentalists on a very few occasions and had no interaction with them at all.  Maybe just as well.

Learn to speak some Indonesian for the locals will appreciate that you want to try, at least yes, no, thank you, please, good morning, good night,...

Money
There are ATM's everywhere that will accept Visa and MasterCard, with English menu systems.  Look for those that issue 100k Rupiah notes, and withdraw the maximum, usually 200M, to reduce the cost of getting money.  We usually do two withdrawals of 200M, around $400USD, at a shot.  In Sarangan we had to take a taxi ride for a 10 minute ride to get to and ATM with small bills, but this situation is the only one we ran into where there was not an ATM within walking distance.

Carry some change in your pocket to give to street beggars in the small towns.  The locals do this too.

Expect to pay a bit more for stuff sometimes simply because you are a foreigner, but really you can afford it, and these folks can certainly use it.

Expenses in Indonesia will likely run 2 times your plan.  I'm pretty sure ours has.  Too much fun.

Accommodations
We avoided hotels catering to Westerners because they are so expensive, and more likely to get bombed.  The best deals are Homestays for in the neighborhood of $20USD/night or less including breakfast.  Don't expect everything to be fully operational.  Maybe the toilet won't flush right or there's a leaky sink drain, or the breakfast could have been better.  3 and 4-star hotels charge US rates room, food, and drink.  Book them online when possible.  Agoda (owned by Priceline) works well for this.
You can actually come into town with no reservations and have a cab driver take you around.  I took this approach in Bali.  There are at least 10 times the number of hotels than show up on the web.

Hygiene
Wash cloths do not exist.  Bring your own.  We bought a dust cloth at an Indomaret (local convenience chain) - works great.
Toilet paper is unlikely in public toilets.  Bring your own.
Napkins may not be available in restaurants.  Bring your own.
We carry a packet of tissues, always.
Laundry can usually be handled by the hotel/homestay.

Food and Drink
Bottled water is available everywhere, in little streetside stalls, everywhere.  Ice is made from bottles water, and everyone is aware we don't drink anything other than bottled or boiled water.

We still do not eat fresh vegetables, only cooked, just 'cause we're chicken.  I take it back, we did eat some tomato slices at a place in Yogya owned and run by an Ausie.

Almost forgot, Indonesians generally eat with a spoon in the right hand and a fork in the left, picking at their food, examining it, deciding what piece to take next.  They are also looking for foreign matter.  Occasionally you will find a small rock in your rice.  Look and chew carefully.  During our 3 month stay I can recall maybe 2 or 3 instances for each of us.  Oh, I broke a tooth in Guam on some chicken sate that I killed on the grill at my sister's place. I got the tooth fixed in Madiun, Indonesia.  Found the dentist on Facebook, he used an amalgamation cured with UV light, refused to be paid, and gave me a T-shirt his father sells.  I did end up giving him what he admitted was his usual fee, something a little over 10 bucks.

Alcoholic beverages on Java are almost exclusively limited to beer.  Arak, a local rice wine home brew, can be had under the table.  Yogya had some real box and bottle wine.  Bali has some wine.

Insects
Bring your favorite bug repellent, or buy some, available in streetside "drug stores"  (Toko Obat / Apotik).  Mosquitoes don't like me so much, but they love Pat.  Romantic outdoor bathrooms are beautiful, but really!

Everything Else
will work out some how or other.

Borobudur

OK, we've done Borobudur, we can leave Java now.

There really is a reason to see Borobudur.  Kind of like the Great Pyramids of Egypt, but smaller, more complicated aesthetically, more obvious religious significance (it's mostly on the outside).  It really is awsome.  

They cut the stones out of lava rock (same as Prambanan), cut them to interlocking pieces, stacked them up on a hill, then carved iconographic images all over.  And, oh yes, put Buddha sculptures inside stone bells (sort of), but they leave one uncovered so you can get a good look.  It really is big.  When you go to visit check with the locals first to see if there might be some sort of school holiday in process to avoid being mobbed by school kids.

The other interesting thing: we pay a bit more and get a tour guide, the thing is she's wearing a jilbab explaining the meaning of the Buddhist temple to us.  OK, she probably is qualified, but then there's these carvings from around 800 CE (AD) that substantiate that the Buddhists of that time believed in Family Planning, that "two children are enough".  Really?  Are you pulling my leg?  She's a government employee, she gets paid for this.

"two children are enough, see the happy family"

steps are really steep.  Where's the building inspector?

see, it's only 5 times the size of Pat's head

Actually there's room for a couple hundred people way up on the top where those little pointy things are, and we're already on the second floor.

Yogya

The movie for the previous post is too big 28MB, needs some editing to get it uploaded.

We made it to Jogjakarta, most often called Jogja, and most often spelled the old way Yogya.  Can't tell your Y's from your J's?

On our return from Bali we had an overnight stay in Ketapang, just north of Banyuwangi, on Java (locally spelled and pronounced Jawa) side of the Bali Strait.  The hotel has a beautiful view of the national forest on the Northwest tip of Bali.

A quick couple of train rides with an overnight stay in Surabaya, and we're here in Yogya.

A day trip to Prambanan from here is well worth the time.  Never having seen the antiquities of Europe, I am not able to compare, but visiting these Hindu and Buddhist temples is a wonderful experience.  The Prambanan Complex consists of many temples, and we get private guides (students who study tourism) to explain everything, except the Kama Sutra.  After touring the really big Hindu temple, with mobs of students from packed tour buses (lucky, it seems it was a local holiday), we visit the neighboring Buddhist temple (built to impress a new wife), and we're alone with our private tour guides - really sweet.  The really really sweet part is visiting a temple in the process of reassembly from the last earthquake, and chatting with one of the guys doing it for 30,000Rp/day (about 3USD).  He tells me how he's had 5 kids all of whom died from various problems, explains the level of corruption he experiences, doubts about Allah,...

The day before we toured the Sultans' Palace grounds (The Yellow House), again with a private tour guide, this one a government employee.  Again, really worth the time.  It seems like ever since the Dutch arrived in the 1400's these sultans have capitulated (except the first who the Dutch would beheaded). But it seems to me that the culture of corruption that pervades Indonesia probably has it's roots in the Sultans' survival mechanism.  Anyway we loved it.  You should come.

Bali, temples

update: Film at eleven shrunk uploaded.  Please excuse the video quality.

I think we are officially tourists now, doing the tourista things, with no other mission on our way through town.

We spent a day visiting the Pura Goa Lawah (Bat Cave Temple) and Gunung Kawi (Mt. Kawi), pictures for which you will find better ones on the web than ours.

Pura Goa Lawah is new to both of us, and with an ongoing ceremony to deify the soul of the deceased family member, en masse, the visit was very special.  Our guide tells us the temple was recently restored.  Saw-cuts can be seen in the large flat surfaces, and you can really see the Chinese influence in the style of the temple.

By the way, I make all these photos small or medium so the webpage will load faster, but you can click on them to see larger versions if you have a real interest. 

Gunung Kawi was of particular interest to me having visited 30 years ago, before any renovations had been done.  Now we have a concrete walkway across the river, whereas before we jump from stone to stone across the river.  And of course in the old days there was not so much selling to the tourists, just a few kids with hand carved ebony chop sticks.  Now it's gauntlet of stalls with goods from all over Indonesia, and some locally made.  Arriving upon these huge monuments after the long trek down the stone stairway makes the trek worth while.

cats, bats, and rats

There are quite a number of cats around here.  In most parts of Indonesia the cats are feral, with tails short, crooked, or looped.  Must be some kind of genetic thing.  Really, a "normal" cat tail is very rare here.  As for rats, I did see one, pretty big too, in Madiun ferrying edibles from a pile into it's hole.  And as for bats, the little guys are all over the place.  But, fruit bats, wild?  Our first one lives down the street at a local hotel, where they must be feeding him, cause he's not in a cage, and he just hangs out.

Before AC and hot water, Ida's

(for those who might be a bit Internet challenged, throughout this blog are links to related web sites with text that appears like this that will open a new window or tab in your browser.)


We've been in a lot of hotels but this is the most unique, Ida's (eeda's).

Most of the hotels, unless they are at least 3-star have something wrong: the hot water only works for 5 minutes, bathroom sink drain that leaks onto the floor, or some other little thing creating some minor discomfort.  Now you might see the sink drain leak as a problem, but when the floor is sloped toward another drain who cares?  The water all goes to the same place.  You got a problem with that?  These rooms all have a surprising lack of roaches, but they do have ants.  I have heard it said that ants are the cleaners, and they do do that, carrying out every little scrap they find.

So with all the experience of the various inconveniences we found this place that is really rustic and thought we'd give it a try.  Last night we were at the Kelapa Mas (Golden Coconut), very pretty garden, nice front porch, but the western toilet is mounted where the eastern one was and now where you expect your feet to be there's a 3 inch drop-off, which was great for the eastern toilet.  And the shower hose is too short to reach over to the bathtub.  "What?", you say.  Remember the drain in the floor thing?  Well most of these places were built before showers, bathtubs and western toilets came to Indonesia, so the shower head is on a hose attached to the old spout that used to fill a ceramic tile box.  You'd scoop water from the box and dump it on your head.  So, now we've got showers, and sometimes tubs, and most often they are not collocated.  In one place the tub actually, intentionally drained onto the floor.  Oh, and don't forget the moth balls.  Some places really like to use them, like stuck under the furniture all throughout the room.

Anyway, Ida's is right next door to Kelapa Mas ...
Kelapa Mas, our room was D9.

Ahhhh

looks nice, huh!

Ida's, our room is 5 (no loft, but high ceilings / roof (the roof is the ceiling)).

Oooo

Bali, culture

[update: Hindu story, page 2]

So, what is Bali about besides Hinduism?  Well, the Dutch invaded some time ago from the north at the port of Singaraja.  So, how about a tour to the Royal Palace of the king, destroyed by the conquerors, and rebuilt in 1929.

a small section of the palace

Then let's have a chat with a Hindu guru, Ketut Suradnya

Ketut Suradnya, keeper of the temple

as he explains the symbolism of the “temple of the dead” once destroyed, again by the Dutch during the same invasion, then later rebuilt.

Hindu story, page 1

Hindu story, page 2

Then we cap it off with visit to a brass gong and Metallophone maker.  Pak Gede performs (and he really knows what he is doing) on the metallophone as we observe the making of the gong.

Pak Gede on the vibes

I visited a similar operation in Java 30 years ago and have always thought that it could have been the last of a dying art.  The art lives on.

Temple Ceremony

(apologies for image quality) 

Tonight we're in for a treat, we've an invitation to a semi-annual Hindu religious ceremony at the temple of the extended family of Pak Gede.  We've discussed how to get there and as we understand it, we go up to the main road, take a right then a left and we're there.  It turns out that we're going by motorcycle, Pat and I on the back of separate scooters, in the dark, both with sarongs, observing protocol.  Hold onto my Balinese hat.  It was a left, not a right, and then a right, up about a mile, another right at the round-about, then take your first left (I think), up about a quarter mile.  You can't miss it, there's a crowd gathering.  Good thing Pak and his friend gave us a ride.

We arrive from the dark into a fairly well lit alleyway lined with fifty or so scooters parked and people milling about.  “Go straight back down the alley”, and we do, through a small temple gate to a large concrete patio slab with a sort of pagoda in the center (please excuse the mixed religious context here) with lots of fruit piled up.  We are accidentally greeted by a young man who speaks fluent English, and tells us we can sit anywhere.

There are no chairs so off to one corner we park ourselves, backs to the wall.  Very, very lucky for us, our English speaking narrator, Sudiano, gives Pat a blow-by-blow.  (She should be writing this.)  Soon another forty or fifty people arrive, filling up the place.  We're all sitting on the ground, except those in the central pagoda, and those in the Gamelan on the far side under a small lanai.

Sudiano

pleanty of seating

blow-by-blow

It seems it's a nice time to chat; everyone is chatting with their neighbors, a social gathering as much as anything else, while some few are directly involved in the ritual offerings, incense burning, and sprinkling with holy water.  The food is for the god(s), apparently not for the people, though had we stayed later, maybe.  There is a cacophony of music when, from neighboring temple, like right next door, their gamelan starts up just after ours.

everybody's here

Gamelan plus  

These guys, in the gamelan, play all the while the offerings are made, and the rest of us are chatting away, until it's time for the prayers, followed by the message, when all goes quiet and someone gives something of a short sermon – we're all equal and should respect one another.

prayer

holy water

Then we all get up. As for the locals, they mill about, and we head back the way we came, on foot, in the dark, forgetting exactly how the hell we got here, and after asking a few folks, doing a 180, and walking down a dark road for about a mile (lucky for us I brought a flashlight), we made it.  

This evening is really very special for us, and we have Pak Gede to thank, and many thanks to the larger family for allowing us to witness.  Pak Gede owns a homestay in desa Anturan, and can serve all your needs.

So, how did it feel, there in the midst?  I provide the clips and photos so you can get a bit of the flavor.  It was fascinating, an unforgettable experience.  It's one thing to walk through a Balinese temple, and yet quite another to be part of the ceremony.

Gede Homestay

location (Google Maps)

this place really sucks bad. You know what I mean?

Dolphin Tour

We didn't bring a camera. I figured I'd probably drop it in the water, but really I wanted to have the experience without the bother of thinking about digitally capturing the scene. It's such a bother sometimes, most-times.

All the boats are designed very similarly with only a few tweaks here and there, hewn from a single tree, dug-outs, about two feet deep inside. Arched outrigger supports held with lynch pins and blue poly-whatever rope binding. Most boats are painted white like ours. Curious, one of our bamboo outriggers is painted white and on our right side it is pink. I think we've all seen pictures of boats like these. They had names painted along the full length, “Morning Star” with a website URL. Some names are Indonesian, most are English, some names advertising a local hotel or restaurant, some with aggressive names, implying speed and strength, which I have forgotten.

We had four other passengers, all of us single file in our dug-out. I sat in the back, just in front of the engine, was quite noisy, as you might expect from a 10 HP lawn mower engine, and Pat in front of me. You can image removing the engine from your riding mower and attaching a seven-foot extension rod on the end of the crank shaft, and stick a six-inch, four-blade prop on the end of that. Set the engine in a steel swivel bracket with a pivot pin on the bottom of the bracket, so the crank extension sticks out the back and the engine is on its side. The pin goes in a hole in a two-by-six, attached crosswise, just ahead of the pilot, and is lashed with more rope. You've probably seen pictures of these motors used in South East Asia on small shallow draft sampans.

Our pilot sits perched above all us passengers at the stern. He's a young man about twenty-five with a “Billabong” T-shirt and long pants, both worn from daily use for untold months, but probably washed every other day anyway. Kind of like us, traveling light.

There must have been sixty boats like ours as we came abreast with the rest of the dolphin seekers, Asians and Westerners alike. Pat said it was worse than Disney. The boats were milling about in a semi-orderly fashion, avoiding collision, in search. When a school porpoised there'd be a race among the nearby boats to get close, the closer the better is seems.

We did see quite a number of schools, at lease ten, small schools of less than twelve, darker gray than Florida dolphins, probably eating breakfast. We were all out there as the sun was just coming up through a dark cloud mass. You could see a smoke layer across the strait coming from Java to our west, and behind us on Bali to our south were two volcanic peaks ringed with clouds.

For the return trip our motor crapped out a few times, once to refill the tank. Each time our pilot would adjust a carburetor screw restart the engine and turn the crew back to its original position. Just before we reach our place I spy two very large boats on shore, resting on the sand just like our twenty-foot outriggers, but these guys are forty-feet long with twenty-foot beams and no outriggers. These must be for the big boys fishing, yet there were a dozen or so fishermen using outriggers just like ours, or with lateen sails, setting trot lines on our way back. These big boats had engines just like ours with the long extension prop shaft, but probably three or four cylinders, and really long shafts, reaching below the 4-foot freeboard. I had to look really hard from our distance to convince myself that the engine rigs were such.

The sun was two hands high and in our eyes as we head east, the Java smoke seemed to thin out on our two-mile return trip, but to our right is Bali, a narrow black sand beach, capped with a string of family operated hotels, too many, and occasional rice terraces. The hotels are backed up with the first layer of tree covered volcanic hills, maybe 1000 feet ASL, and behind that are the 7000 foot active babies, like the one that wiped out the neighborhood in '63, treed nearly to the top. Pak Gede, our homestay owner, almost died of starvation during that time; we are the same age. Most of the boats have already landed, ours must have been the last out and the last in. We can see those already landed in clusters of ten or twenty along the shore, every quarter mile or so, as we continue eastward. Our landing point is the eastern-most of all but one, and our pilot uses local cell towers to navigate, where his father probably used the signature of the hills.

Nice to be back at the hotel for a breakfast of coconut and banana filled Jaffles, fresh fruit, and black coffee.

As an aside, looking on the web you'd think there are no more than ten hotels here.  There must be fifty anyway.  My advice is look around.

Traveling

So, two nights in Bondowoso, with day two spent climbing Gunung Ijen, then one night in Jember.  That was a pretty swanky place with a private balcony overlooking a small courtyard one story below, and walled in all around and up one story above, palm trees and koi fish ponds with water streaming from fountains.  Very nice furniture, glassed in shower and separate bathtub.

Yesterday we arrived in Banuwangi, and today we walked outside the hotel compound (this too is a pretty special place), and down to the shore to see what we could see.  Of course, few tourists venture this way, and we were greeted with smiling halo's, that's Bahasa Indonesia for hello, and "asli dari mana" - where are you originally from.  And as usual the great surprise when we say we're from America, when it is assumed that we must be from Holland or Australia.  Probably for the reason that we are speaking Indonesian, and secondly, most of America thinks Osama is still lurking behind every tree in every Islamic country, so there are no, American tourists here, none.

And tomorrow morning we get on a 45 minute ferry ride across the strait to Gilimanuk, Bali, where we'll hopefully meet Ketut, the son of the hotel owner to give us a one and a half hour ride to the hotel in Lovina Beach, on the northern side of the island, away from the south and east where most tourists go, where Osama lurks.

Contact

We made probably our last contact from one of the old photos.

Aline in '82-'83 (left)

That's her on the left, with the snappy orange knit shoulder bag, and the furrowed brow, wondering who this strange guy is, camera hanging at his waist.  They never actually saw me take the photo, you know. 

We finally met Aline (ahleena) on our last day in Madiun, before leaving on our next leg to Bali.  She restores our faith that there may be enough sensible people here to stem the tide of conservative religious fervor, an independent thinking young woman with one daughter and a husband, running her own business.  Hard working, expecting a better life for her and her family to result from her efforts and that of her professional husband, she was a pleasure to meet and have conversation with.  And, her English is undoubtedly better than my Indonesian.  We went back and forth with emails and conflicting schedules and locations for a number of weeks, and finally in Madiun we were able to sit together and share philosophies.  With similar ambitions, not too unlike that of any modern Western woman, she has purchased a small shop where does a retail business, and where her family resides in the back half.  Aline expects men and women to treat her with respect, maintains a measure of independence, and wants a good life for her daughter.  Bombing Western chain hotels is the furthest thing from her mind.  Her husband is supportive so I think they'll probably make it, and next time, hopefully, we can meet him too.  For Aline material things are important, but not so important as to disrupt family ties, and friendships.  You'd like her as much as Pat and I do.

Aline 2012

Survived Gunung Ijen

I'm looking for our next hotel in Banyuwangi, love the name, on the eastern most coast of Java.  We're here in Jember, just down from Bondowoso (another pretty good one), where we climbed up to view the crater (caldera) atop Gunung Ijen.  Yep, it was at status level 2 according to the sign at the trail head and I had to sign a waver "this idiot insists on climbing when this baby could burp sulfuric acid at any moment".

don't try this at home

The 2 and half hour car ride at 5AM was enough excitement, and the climb had beautiful views of other volcanoes in the distance.  Some parts of the 4 to 6 foot wide trail were a bit steep and the gravel, when dry, wants to roll away under your shoes.  But after an hour and half trudging, against the flow of a few sulfur miners carrying hundred pound baskets full of cakes of sulfur from inside the caldera, we reached the summit.  When the volcano burps a big one it leaves a layer of molten sulfur on the interior of the caldera and these guys go down there and break off hunks about a foot across and 3 or 4 inches thick, put it in baskets joined by bamboo slats across their shoulders and carry this stuff down what takes us one and a half hours.  They stop at a weigh station along the way, where the price is determined, dirty stuff is worth less (I overheard the discussion), and head down the rest of the way, some in rubber boots, others in flip-flops, and some barefoot.  This has been going on since colonial days.  I have no idea who is buying the stuff from these guys.  Some folks sell small molded trinkets from molten sulfur.  We bought a cute little turtle.  

Since we had a level 2 status they're (the sulfur miners) not allowed in the caldera but they can take down what they've already retrieved and and left along the trail.  I had read the night before that the latest status was level 3, stay 1.0 Km from the caldera, whereas level 2 means 1.5 Km away.  Well at the top looking down into the jaws of death we're maybe 300 yards.  Just awesome!

wow!

Holik, Pat's new man

Misc.

Bugs
There are no bugs here at Hotel Sarangan.  Oh, certainly outside there are, but very few mosquitoes indeed, and inside there are none.  I take it back, we did have one house fly.  Now there's something.  These house flies are the fastest flies I've ever tried to clap.  Can't get 'em, just too fast.  It's in the genes.

Entertainment
Had a wonderful time today, returning from lunch, walking by a hotel with some live Javanese entertainment.  Someone showed us in, another gave us a front row seat.  He turned out to be one of the musicians, and gave us drinks and snacks.  One of the drinks was arak Jawa (Java wine).  When the music stopped for a moment I was able to ask what percent?  About 30.  It was kind of wierd, we were almost as much entertainment as the entertainers.  It was a big tent full of chairs and the people were sitting all around the perimeter.  Most of the place was empty, room for another 50 to 100 people, and we were front and center.  After the set completed we excused ourselves, thanking everyone, shaking hands with everyone.  Really kind of fun.  And the real entertainment was Javanese vocalists with an electronic band that somewhat mimicked a gamalan jawa, but not.  It was a real treat.  This link will give you the flavor of the entertainment, add in another slinky woman, and middle aged jokester, a bit pudgy.  This particular song happens to be very very popular.  And they have been partying like that since noon (now 11PM), with the amplifiers blasting their music and antics all through the town.

Who's the entertainment?
After we leave the show we run into a gaggle of elementary school girls, who are of course quite surprised to see Occidentals in their midst.  Further surprised, when they are to shy to open their mouths, that I tell them in Indonesian who we are, where we're from, etc.  One responds with "tidak mengerti Ingris" (I don't understand English).  So now we're the entertainment.  Lets all gather round for a picture taking session with the kids and some of the parents.  Kind of fun.  Really.  Actually we go through this sort of thing on smaller scale nearly every other day.  Occidentals in an out of the way place, what the hell are we doing here anyway?  Well they don't really approach us like that, really it's always a very pleasant exchange.  We're sort of ambassadors of good will here, and it's very easy to do since everyone is sooo nice.

Shine
So I asked Juari at the hotel (He's usually the guy that waits on us.  We'll call him our butler.) about the arak 60 proof.  Not sold in stores, but 2.50USD can get you a bottle if you know who to ask.  We scored some, and I'm going to sample it in just a few...

Hand Shakes
There is a wonderful approach to handshaking here.  We in the West grip hard and manly, as if to say I'm just as strong as you, so don't mess with me.  Some might say the intent is not that, but rather to show sincerity.  You mean we equate strength and sincerity, is that it?  Anyway, the handshake is an Islamic thing.  After shaking hands softly, sometimes grasping the other's had with both hands, very gently, then the right hand is brought to ones own heart, as if to take a part of your friend and place it in your heart.  Children are taught an even more endearing approach, they will take your hand and brush it against their cheek.  The first time experiencing a child's handshake is really very heartwarming.  It was really a surprise too, I must admit, that a devout Muslim family would ask their children to shake our hands in such a way.

Taste Test
It goes down like brandy, smells like brandy but kind of like gin too.  So, no wine here, but we do have brandy, of sorts.

Holidays
Tomorrow is begins a long weekend for all of Indonesia.  The 17th is "Kenaikan Isa Al Masih" (The Ascension of Christ), and the next day is " Sesudah Kenaikan Isa Al Masih" (After The Ascension of Christ).  Yup, we're talking really Christian here.  We are really trying to maintain a pluralistic society here, this is a government holiday, and the banks are closed too.  Big doin's all weekend here.

Other updates

State of Affairs
Well, now that we have the Internet here we need to ensure we don't bruise the eyes and ears.

Censorship when it counts

While 6 o'clock news clearly depicts bodies dragged from the wreckage of a highway accident, here with this jet crash we're not allowed?  Note the "Oops" on what otherwise would have been a video clip.  So, two theories, 1 - important people are involved,  2 - big money is involved.  Will we ever know?

We'll Get to See Bali Yet

Our visa extension was a bit touch-and-go there for a while, but the folks at the very new Madiun Imigrasi office decided we really did not need to return to Jakarta, where our sponsor lives, to process the extension.  We could email back and forth the form he needs to file.  How could you not extend the visas for an old couple finding grandchildren to match the 30 year old photos of their grandparents, where no other photos exist, and photos of adults when they were children and no one could afford a camera?  Back to the office on the 23rd of May and we should be good-to-go.

Food

I have yet to find any sambal olek like they used to have, like what we can get in the US. Now we are finding some stuff from Delmonte more like Ketchup.

Friends Found

We found Mami, the woman that cooked and cleaned for me for about a year.  It was the old guy I met on the street that said he knew her and my driver, Murjono.  Murjono was not the deceased husband of the woman across the street, but that woman took my photo of Mami with her daughters and delivered it.  The next day Mami is escorted to our room by our hotel manager.  Wow!

Her two daughters are now living in Surabaya, and a son is elsewhere, sending mom a few bucks.  Mami is in pretty rough shape, still cooking, apparently selling the stuff she makes, with no pension.  We may learn more later.  She showed her right elbow to me, just the shape of it covered by her sleeve, it seems to have healed wrongly from a break.  Missing quite a few front teeth, probably diabetes, maybe glaucoma or cataracts.  She puts things close to her face to focus.  This'll make anyone cry, even if you didn't know her at 32.  She was a tough one, as strong woman.  She really stormed out of the place when I told her she needed to stay and cook during Ramadan.  What the hell did I know then?  

We've determined that we're about the same age.  Now she, like so many is sporting the Indonesian Jilbab, headscarf.  I really want to know how and when she made this transition.  We're to meet again Saturday at three.  And while assembling this post, I just figured out that when Mami was telling me something that included the word "Titing", which I could not find in the dictionary, she was referring to her daughter; that's her, the taller of the sisters, and her sister Setiowati is the shorter.  You, or at least I do, feel just so guilty, you've got to help somehow.  Why should I be so healthy and she, well, she probably doesn't have as many years left as I do.  We gave her about a month's income, the least I can do.  I'm hesitant to give handouts - I don't want to kill her pride.  I'd bring them all home if I thought they could survive the loneliness.

PLEASE DON'T FEED THE ANIMALS

sorry about the quality reduction to get these clips uploaded.

to Solo

Added a video at the bottom.  Sorry for the quality and size, the originals are in HD.  Bummer.  But I have a bit of difficulty uploading anything larger than about 3 Meg.


We took a trip over Gunung Lawu to Solo (Surakarta for short) to get Pat's heart med's. Two hours each way.  First to the hospital which I selected from my research on the web because it has a kardiak (see, you already know some Indonesian) unit including a half dozen specialists.  We had tried a number of drug stores back when we were in Madiun just to check availability and had no luck with one particular drug.  Later we bought some in Magetan, at a drug store directly across from the local hospital, and got all but two.  So we're off to Solo.  A few weeks back we had a nice conversation with two of the owners of Hotel Sarangan, where we currently reside.  He and his brother and sister inherited the old hotel which his father built during colonial times.  Very nice fellows, Pak Wicaksono and Pak Wimoko.  Coincidentally  Wicaksono has a son-in-law, in Surabaya, who is a heart specialist, who has promised to help us if we run into difficulties.  So, I said we'd make an honest attempt to do this ourselves.  

Akung, working here at the hotel, has a buddy, Budi who has an '80's vintage Toyota van and he'll chauffeur us.  $35 round trip; we bought him lunch too.

After a visit to the hospital, you see we must have a prescription form a doc at the hospital to get med's in their pharmacy.  I figured that hospital would be our best bet, kardiak unit and all.  So we went to a recommended drug store first; maybe they'd take Pat's American doctor prescription.  The others did.  Well, they didn't have the stuff anyway, so back to the hospital.  We'll talk to the doc and get a new prescription.  The girl at the info desk escorts us personally to where we need to go to get in line.  There are dozens of people in this room, maybe fifty.  They bump us to the head of the line.  Actually there was no apparent line, but we got our form (name and address) filled our right away, and she escorts us to another building across the way.  We wait maybe five minutes for the doc to arrive and in we go.  Well, it's not the doc yet, but a nurse who gives Pat an EKG.  Then we wait another five and we see the doc.  We chat, the usual about how I can speak Indonesian.  The conversation is half English and Half Indonesian.  A very nice guy, he writes the script and has a nurse call to see if the hospital pharmacy has the drugs, which they don't.  So we're off to the first of the drug stores he's recommended.  (Oh, and the bill for the EKG and consultation was about 17 USD.)  

Fortunately our driver is fairly familiar with Solo, so getting around is not a problem.  Without him, jumping in and out of taxis would have been a bit of a struggle.  The first place has one drug but not the other.  OK, we'll get one.  So off to the next store.  They have both, and the pharmacist is very nice, patient with my limited language skills.  I have to be creative with my limited vocabulary, stop the conversation when necessary, and repeat my understanding in my very simple terms so I know what the hell we're talking about.

We're good.  We got all the drugs and the pharmacist, she was so nice, caught the fact that the previous place only filled half the quantity for the one drug, and filled it too.  Thank goodness, 'cause we did not catch it.

On the way to lunch we passed by Solo Inn, a white colonial facade.  It was the only place in town in the old days, now shamed by all the others, glass and stainless steel.  Marty Johnson and I drove to the Solo Inn on a Saturday from Magetan, three hours each way, to get a hamburger, the closest place available.  I'm sure I still have a picture of the occasion.  You really need to want a burger to spend six hours to get it.

Lunch this time was good, nice shrimp, bihun goreng, and a beer.  We asked about finding a place where we could get a bottle of wine and all we got were laughs.  And we're off, on the return trip.

These trips are always exciting, everything we see is marvelous in some way or other.  And, we made it home safely.  Budi is a safe driver, and we are thankful and will hire him again.

Here's a video of some of the shacks along the way as we near Solo.

A day in the life

Up to catch the sunrise.

sunrise Sarangan, May 20 minutes compressed to 1

sunrise, Sarangan May 2012

One lap around the lake with the monyet-monyet.

keluarga monyet, Sarangan

Makan pagi (breakfast) in our room.

service first, Hotel Sarangan, Sarangan

A little web stuff, like this blog.

Trip to Magetan to get some cash, once a week.

minibus/taxi ride to Magetan

passing through Plaosan

Makan siang (lunch) at the local "Chinese" restoran.

Pat likes the food

Kim likes the food

inside out

Daftar Makanan (menu)

ikan mas goreng (Golden Fried Fish)

Chat with the locals.

Adelia and Dea (background)

 Pak Kamidin, near his home, Sarangan

Afternoon mandi (shower).

Study Bahasa (language).

Makan malam (dinner) at the hotel restoran.

dining hall, Hotel Sarangan

Study more.

Bedtime.

nightlife, Sarangan, actually most nights are quite dead

Hotel Sarangan, our room

Hotel Sarangan is likely the oldest hotel in Sarangan and is yet relatively well maintained.  It's in my view something of a monument to the grace and charm of Sarangan of years gone by (as they say).  It's all about the service, there's hotels, and there's hotels with service.  We've got service.  Pick up the intercom and they'll make it happen, whatever you want, and if they can't, they'll get as close as they can.  Hotel Sarangan aims to please.  Yeah, it's a bit rustic, but it was rustic 30 years ago, so I expected it.  I must say that it does surprise me the lack of bugs in our room.  Anyway here's what we get, visually.

We're running this video at low res, 2x speed to reduce the file size.  Hopefully we can get it uploaded.

our place, Hotel Sarangan, Sarangan 2012

More clearly expressed

This article describes the life in Jakarta for the poor better than I ever could.  The DVD is probably worth it for those with a serious interest, not in English, but the visuals are probably fantastic.
kim

Connections in East Java

good day for uploads.  all done.

We've made contact with a few people whose images I stole photographically those 28 or so years ago.

Formerly at Hotel Indah, Madiun we found
Sri - still working at Hotel Indah,
Martono - taught me Indonesian, now selling snack food via bicycle,
Mamat - now at Hotel Indah, Sarangan
and Rakimin - at Hotel Imelda, Magetan.

Now, it might be interesting to note that Sri and Martono who worked in Hotel Indah for at least 28 years have seen no apparent advancement in their positions.  And similarly for Mamat and Rakimin, although at different hotels seem not to have advanced.  Why is that?  In economic schools labor costs are said to be sticky, they move more slowly than other prices.  I'll say so!  And Martono with the most potential, with the additional language skill, survives on his snack food sales.  So what happens if they want to retire?  Here's the deal on Indonesian Social Security.  None of these people are eligible because the hotel had less than 10 employees.  Old age benefits are paid in periodic payments if the total fund accrued is greater than approx $5000 USD.  Not sure if there are any real benefits here, looks like nothing I'd want, for sure.  One of the owners of the Hotel Sarangan, a retired physician, explained that the SS benefit is too small to live on.



Rakimin, Sri, Juni, Kim, Martono 1983

??, Sri, Martono, Kim 2012

laptop image - Rakimin 3rd from left

In Magetan we found

the grandmother of Okti,

Karsini's mother,

and Sukarman and Augustri, father and son, just as they were but a bit older now.

Pak Sukarman and anak Augustri '83 

 Sukarman and Augustri at home (inside their store), Magetan 2012

Pak Sukarman at his store front, Magetan 2012

In Sarangan we found Pak (Mr.) Sukiman working at Hotel Sarangan, same as he did 45 years ago.  Now 69, and not quite as robust, he cleans the front office.  He told he how when the Japanese were here, just how savagely they treated Indonesians.  running hard labor camps, kicking those who could not keep up the pace of work and denying them any clothing.  The Dutch came back after the war and were welcomed by many, given the harsh treatment by the Japanese.

Pak Sukiman, Hotel Sarangan, Sarangan '83  

Pak Sukiman, Hotel Sarangan, Sarangan 2012 

We met Risky, her parents (Mr. Suwandi), and siblings, living in the house I once did, with the aid of Anik. We met Anik on the street a half block from my house, and told her we were looking for my old house in Magetan.  Amazingly Anik (I had no photo of her) had remembered me, thought I was Dutch, but remembered the house where I lived.  She was 15 at the time.  She lived, and still does just a few doors east from Jl Diponogoro 21A, Kota Magetan, where Risky and family now live.  Risky's father, Mr. Suwandi is in the leather finishing business.  Magetan is known as the leather capital in these parts, and you can find numerous websites displaying their products.

kim and Anik, Magetan 2012

Suwandi and family (Risky - rightmost), at home, Magetan 2012 

Mamat, from Hotel Indah, Madiun, was 18 at the time of the original photo ('83).  He married in '87 just like me, and like me he has a step child.  At the time, '83, I thought he was much younger.  It has been said that Indonesians are naive, childlike.  That really was the case then.

Sri, Juni, Kim, Rakimin, Mamat, Hotel Indah, Madiun '83

Mamat, Hotel Indah, Sarangan 2012

Karsini is now 53 with two sons Dani 14 and Arif 19.  Arif was quick to connect with Pat on Facebook.  Her mother was caught on film with an expression of a mixture of anger, fear, and surprise.  I hope it was mostly surprise.  Maybe Karsini can tell us.

Dani, Karsini, Arif, at their shop, Magetan 2012   

Karikem Ibu Karsini, Magetan '83 

Okti and her husband run a small photo shop on Jl. Diponogoro, Magetan. We were getting photo's printed for Risky and Anik, and group of men with whom we shared the old photos on my laptop.  So we had time to kill.  There's always time to kill when in Indonesia.  People are the warmest, open hearted of any on earth; part of that naivete, I suppose.  So, we shared the laptop photos with Okti while Sonny did the printing and quick touch-ups.  You can tell he's skilled at this, he knows just what contrast and color intensities usually work for nice skin tones and beautiful scenery.  He does portraits in his shop, and along with selling what you would expect in a photo shop, there's bottled water, flashlights, and a lot more.  Okti was quite surprised to find my photo of her nenek (grandmother).  Wow, just the kind of thing I'd hoped for.  It may be only the second photo of her.

nenek Okti, Mageta '83

Sonny Okti and son, their shop, Magetan '2012

Okti recognized her friend Aline Isadhora who was 5 or 6 in this picture.  Now she's 35, living near Magetan, with a 9 year old daughter.  She has not mentioned anything about a husband.  Aline and I are back and forth with email so we may learn more later.

Aline Isadhora (left) and friend, Magetan '83  

So what has happened in nearly 30 years?

Refrigeration, clothes washers and dryers, bottled water, shopping malls, packaged snack food, multinational chain restaurants, inexpensive motor scooters, cellphones and towers, ATM's, Facebook, ice cubes with purified Refrigeration, clothes washers and dryers, bottled water, shopping malls, packaged snack food, multinational chain restaurants, inexpensive motorscooters, cellphones and towers, ATM's, Facebook, ice cubes with purified water, toilet paper, covered sewers, western toilets, less deisel exhaust, less crazy bus drivers (haven't seen a one), window screen (sometimes), increased emphasis on Islam, stainless steel railings are very popular.

What's missing now?
becak are not so many, traditional Javanese sarong, bihun goreng (still exists, but with less vegetables), shrimp (I think the export price must be better than domestic prices), quiet nights in Sarangan are not so many, view of valley unobstructed by cell towers, slow Javanese pace.

I guess the sum total of the changes is better, but for me the feeling in the air is less, and I attribute it to the increased emphasis on Islam, and the resulting political conflict, and the faster life pace.  Does this sound familiar to anyone living in the US?  Just substitute Christianity for Islam?  I am wondering if Rupert Murdoch is running an Indonesian news outlet, maybe he's got a chain of mosques?  In the past the outward gestures were more humanistic, without the Muslim religiosity.  There were certainly mosques, and imams on loudspeakers, and there were a few Islamic schools, and some women and men wearing conservative Muslim dress, easily less than 10%, even in rather remote areas like Sarangan.  Today we see conservative dress everywhere on nearly 50% of the women usually with scarfs, and mosques have increased at least 5-fold.  The odd part of that is the men are not wearing traditional sarongs rather, Western pants and t-shirts.  Maybe not so odd, huh.