Sarangan, finally here

got pix, videos low quality due to connection.

The ride here was interesting, let us say. I had figured, no problem, ask at the hotel desk for a taxi, and away we go.  Well, do I know the phone number for the taxi company in Madiun?  What?  The girl at the front desk talks to me like I'm a native speaker so I get about a word per sentence.  The gist is, no can do, but if we throw our bags in the back of this LTH shipping truck he'll take us to the bus depot, just down the road.  OK, if that's the deal, then that's it. The bus ride is way the hell and gone again, and when we get there there's a bunch of old minivans, the drivers are vying for who gets to take us.  We get a guy with a very old Mitsubishi Colt, same era as '83, engine underneath the front bench seat.  I sit in front and Pat's in the middle row with the bags, windows slid open, taking a few pix along the way.  The driver takes some short cuts to get back to approximately where we came from before resuming the uphill trek.  These roads, the shortcuts are not lined with shops, rather paddy, rows of vegetables, or cane.
The old uphill road is now half again wider with strips and guard rails.  Wow!  Actually I knew that from viewing youtube videos more than a year ago.  The section with the switch-backs, 10 or so, is a piece of cake now.

shortcut north of Magetan

New Magetan Sarangan road, guardrail and everything, reflectors

Virtually no change to Hotel Sarangan, unbelievable. Hotel Sarangan, old but fairly well maintained, and a few upgrades - western toilets, hot water (a little slow), and shower heads.  And a bunch of cell towers disturbing the  horizon. Why put them there?

Handi @ Hotel Sarangan '80's, same as today (new yellow color )

Pat looks out over the lake and beyond to the distant volcanoes shrouded by clouds and says, we're in paradise.  Maybe a snap decision.  Sarangan is a tourist town, know all over Indonesia but not much elsewhere, so we will likely be the only occidentals here.  Some Dutch tourists pop in now and then to see where Grandpa headed up the colonial farm.

We've decided to take our morning mile walk, plus the 100yd down and up the mountain side, as the sun comes up to avoid the mayhem of tourists and vendors crowding the way.  Well it was Sunday after all, and a holiday weekend to boot.  The east end of the lake is like a dinky Daytona-boardwalk, and the rest of the lake's perimeter is lined with food stalls.  On the lake are about a dozen 14 foot fiberglass boats sporting 40HP outboards thrilling the adolescent passengers and disturbing the lovebirds in the plastic swan boats.  Lots of noise lakeside. 

But up here at the hotel it's really not bad, kind of entertaining, not too loud. And weekdays the boat rides have virtually stopped, and those that did run today took it very slowly.  No throngs of people and no indo-pop blaring.  We're alone here at the hotel.  I think the  30 or so hotels here are probably running each 2 guests tops.  Hard to know how they stay in business.


Sukiman is 69,
has worked at Hotel Sarangan 45 years,
grows veggies to eat and his wife sells.

Sukiman 1983

This, Sarangan, is our planned location to stay put for a while, so blogging will be slim. 
We did not get the $20/day rate I had hoped for.  After some haggling we got $25/day, breakfast included.  The room-rate list says $37 for our 2 room suite.  At one point in our negotiations I mentioned the $17/day I'd seen on the internet and she, the manager, said "in what year '80?" (my translation).  Actually it was 2010.  Lunch and dinner will run us about $10/day, and a bottle of beer for 3, so $38/day all told. I think if we root around we can find cheaper lunch anyway.  Maybe I can get beer in quantity and pour it over ice, like the old days.

Magetan, my home town

The ride by taxi from Madiun, past Iswayudi, and on to Magetan has really changed since '82-'83.  By the way, of all things, in Madiun we saw a Terminix truck.  Hard to imagine the effectiveness since I've never seen anyone use window screens.  Madiun kept going and going, and the buildings on both sides of the river obscured it.  I missed it all together; Pat saw it looking out the side window, and asked if it was the same, where I took a photo of a man defecating.  Yup.

Then at Iswayudi Air Force base, where I worked, the housing for officers and contractors has really grown.  And trees grew up at the runway touchdown zone; saw only a rack of landing lights.  All along the route to Magetan where structures were only one deep, now they are 4 and 5 deep.  I call them structures because it's very difficult, if not impossible, to discriminate between residences and businesses.  The architecture gives us no clues.  So, if the population of Java is still 90M, as it was, then all this new building is for business and residences for folks that used to live in the kampong (extended family neighborhood).  I even see American style single family home neighborhoods popping up - the burbs.  Magetan which was probably population 5000, now on one website shows 500,000, and is it ever bustling.  Wow.  No sleepy town here.

On the way here, to Magetan, I attempted to determine the point where the city began.  I guessed wrong at least three times, and only when we crossed the old major intersection did I have my bearings.

Entering Magetan

And here's a little weird one.  Checking into our hotel in Magetan we are informed that later in the day we will be interviewed by the police to ensure that we are not violating the purpose of our visa.  I look forward to it.  22:48 and no Polisi.  We call is rubber-time.  No problem.  Actually they never did interview us.

We strolled up the main drag west, uphill through Magetan toward my old house, or at least the same location.  Everything is newer, bigger, more modern, and 10 times more of it.  Stopped in a 7-11 clone and picked up a few domestic items, TP, bottle opener, wash cloth (not SOP in hotels).  Checked out the beer.  This store's got it; maybe the only one in town and only a half block from our hotel, the best in town, 25/night.  Actually the only hotel in town, that looked like a hotel anyway.

Nearing the site of my old house we passed by one that looked kind of like it.  Nope, not that one.  Onward, it can't be too far, it was about 100 yards from the intersection with the road to Sarangan, and we're about there.  But all these two story places on both sides of the road really confuse things.

New neighbors of the old house

My house was the primo house in town, back when.  If it's still here it's got a lot of competition.

Now here's a bunch of guys and maybe one is the right age to remember the house, or me for that matter.  I've got a laptop full of hundreds of photos of people in Java and maybe they're in one, or their father.  They are hanging out next to a house under construction where my house once stood.  Pat took a few pix of me in front of the construction.  So me and the guys go through all my old photos, the light is bad and they're hard to see.  We got a few hits though and I've promised to get a print made for one.  We spent about a half hour, maybe an hour doing that.  It was a lot of fun, everybody got a big yuk, particularly when a photo of one my local girl friend was happened upon.  I felt the need to explain that I was then not yet married at that time.  Still, too funny for these guys.

The boys and Me lookin' at old photos

As Pat and I make our leave and head back to our hotel we bump into a young girl (who turns out to be forty with two kids) who tells us she knows where my old house is, she remembers when a guy from Holland lived there.  But that's not me I tell her, I'm from America.  We discuss the time frame as she leads us back toward the corner and determine that she only thought I was dutch, and the house?  I take a closer look, and this one, the one I thought was kind of like, really is the one where I lived.  Wow!  Unbelievable!  Still there!  We take a few pictures in front of the house with Anik.

Anik and I in front of my old house

And then, get this, the highschool age girl behind the gate, wearing a white headscarf, invites us in to see the place.  We take some photos.  The furniture is the same!  Beautifully hand carved Java stuff, hardwood, no AC to maintain a constant environment, yet it's in near perfect shape, some not even reupholstered.  Risky is her name, she wakes her parents from their afternoon nap to show us around a bit.  Water is served.  Oh-Oh you say. Nope, this is purified water sold in cups the plastic cover penetrable with a sharp ended straw, like some juice drinks, and packaged by Nestle, by the way, the largest seller of bottled water in the world. Check out the water you buy, it's probably Nestle in the fine print. 

You know, these people invite some old white guy with a pony tail, and his wife with no scarf,  into their home...Open arms and open heart - that's the default position for Indonesians.  Tough to imagine, huh.

Suwandi and family owner of my old house

Risky, her mother, and Pat

On the way back I am overwhelmed and I am not sure why.  It really wasn't that we had found the place, rather I think, It's that I have now more Indonesian friends (virtually strangers) who I can never repay for their kindness.  Remember a time when you could hitch-hike without thinking you'll get your throat slit by some nut, or when you'd give a ride to or help a poor sole on the side of the road, without a thought of possible dangers, some kind of trap or scam?  It's like that here.  As I write I wonder how long till it gets killed.

We've got a big day ahead, I've promised photo showing to some old ladies in the neighborhood.

Anik was not in the location we found here the other day.  I ask about Anik with A 35ish woman in headdress and she directs us down what was 28 years ago a dirt alley, homes with made of grass mats, bamboo, and cly tile roofs (now stucco brick and mortar), that I would never have entered, not for fear but for respect for privacy. These kampongs as I mentioned are lifelong extended families.  I always felt that to enter there would be like walking into everyone's livingroom.  We get to a hair salon and it's name sounds like the name I heard Anik calling herself the other day and that explained why the spelling she wrote did not make sense to me.  A youngster (in headdress) comes along and with some back and forth she says Anik will be back later.  As we leave the kampong Anik and family arrive on a motor bike.  We return to her place and it's not her.  Bummer.  Wrong place, and this woman explains the address we have is back on the main drag just a bit further, and so we go.

Yup, when we arrive Anik is there.  We start right in, in the stall that sells sim cards, it's about 4 x 8 with a sales counter, and we've got a crowd around from 20 to 80 years all looking at the pix on my laptop.  We go through perhaps a hundred. Anik lets us know with each photo whether anyone in the crowd knows anyone in the photo.  Two hits. Now we'll need to find a place to make prints.

Can you imagine Pat on a motorcycle? We duck into a stall that does photocopies, on a long shot maybe they can do photo prints.  I might mention that the main drag here is lined with little stalls selling all sorts of stuff.  He says back up where we came from is a guy that does make prints, and one of the guys hanging out offers to take me back on his motorcycle.  After our ride, to everyone's surprise, he leaves me and returns with Pat.  First bike ride in two millennia.

The following day we run into an employee at our hotel and he remembers me from when I lived in Madiun at another hotel in '82, but we're in Magetan now.  We have some real trouble communicating, and I'm kind of politely blowing him off, but he's a bit insistent on getting his point across.  Oh, I finally get it.  He saw my name in the hotel register at this hotel, he was telling me about the old jeep I drove, an French guy that I was buddies with, and other details, so I finally got the picture.  He's Rakimin (pronounced rockymin).  Now he's married with two kids, working at this much newer hotel.  I think he said his wife works at the old Hotel Indah in Madiun but I can't be sure.  So we take a picture, he and Me and the laptop showing him 28 years ago.  So I need to get another print.

Rakimin (3rd from left in '83) and 2012

 We're on our way to show my laptop photo album to some more likely suspects.  The first of the suspects is not home, and next speaks only Javanese and her neighbor isn't home to translate. We take a street I think is the location of a family that once posed for me, three generations.  We find a possible neighbor and are invited inside where the light is better to run through the album.  They recognize the crazy guy, and the guy with one eye, and the other guy that's an "idiot", they call him.  It seems these guys are recognized by anyone who lived in town.  No other hits.  OK, it's back to the photo shop again to get the print made for Rakimin.

Oh, by the way, while we're here maybe Okti would like to run through the album while her husband Sonny (that's Sony to English speakers) works on the prints.  Okti likes looking through them, taking her time.  I let her drive, so at her own pace.  I demonstrate that the pix can be expanded like an Ipad.  Her son, about 10, hears that an right away wants to show us how to do it.  Okti has to nudge him periodically to keep him from fiddling.  Okti recognizes the same as everyone else.  Wait! That's my school, my elementary school! (I'm translating here for you).  But the teacher, I don't remember his name.  And later on, she finds an old woman, likely not alive today.  Okti looks very closely to be sure.  "That's my grandmother" (I'm not translating here). 

Nenek Okti - '83

Okti found her nenek

I get choked up again writing about it.  This is partly why we are here, and definitely why we're boring people with hundreds of old pictures.  I told Pat that in one respect this relieves me of a certain level of guilt.  I lived with these people for two years and what did I do.  I took as many photos as I could (most often surreptitiously), I bought stuff from them, I  worked, and then finally I left.  Really, what a jerk!  Now I can, at the very least, hand to a few souls some old photos that they otherwise may never have had the chance to have.  That might a bit sound odd, but in the '80's cameras were a not common, and I was using slide film which could not be processed in East Java, so I had no way of giving prints to them then.

I'd say mission accomplished, but it might have another connotation to some.  Anyway, Okti's husband had a 5GB flash stick so I dumped the whole album on him, and maybe they'll run across some other soul who'll recognize someone else in the album.


The second day in Magetan our walking is around the town square and the southern edge of town where the leather tanning businesses are located.  Almost as soon as we get to the square is a guy speaking English quite well with us.  An English teacher, and he'd like to bring his students to our hotel to have a live experience with native English speakers.  We all, Jamaludin Malik along with his students have a bit of meet and greet, and what our lives are like.  The students are all quite shy, and Pat, Jamal and I do most of the talking.  We prompt the students, what do you do after school, what are your plans after you graduate?  They are in their first and second year of high school.  Jamal is probably offended because I don't take him up on his offer to show us all around. Jamal, please accept my apology.  it's just that we prefer to explore on our own.

Jamal and class, without the picture taker

Hotel Indah, Jl. Kalimantan, Madiun, Indonesia

30 years later Sri is yet working at Hotel Indah, Madiun.  she's watched everything change around her,  roads paved, open sewers covered, a 4 story shopping center went up on the corner selling probably anything, groceries, motorcycles, clothing, toyotas, you name it, with a parking garage on the ground floor. And that's not the only one in town.  The becek as a mode of transportation still exists but to a much lesser extent.  I recognized her, or at least I thought so.  But when I asked her if here name was Sri, and began to explain that I once lived here, she came to realize who I am/was.  It was easier for me, the recognition, since I had come prepared to find Sri, Martono, Junia, and the others, while Sri simply was working another day.
Most of the staff at Hotel Indah have dispersed while the town has built up around it. Sri now has a daughter 30 years old, I think.  I hope I can get the story straight tomorrow.  My Indonesian language skills leave a lot to be desired.  Sri did say she'd be able to contact Martono tomorrow by telephone.  He taught me virtually all the Indonesian I know.

Rakiman, Sri, Yunia, Kim, Martono - '83?

Hotel Indah is virtually unchanged except lack of maintenance, the polished terrazzo floor is now ceramic tile, the spiral staircase - exactly the same, with open risers, and the polished stainless and glass railing.  The posts are 2 inch plexi rods apparently bubbling inside;  the wall sculpture in the atrium, those funky '50's western (vs. eastern) style globular chandeliers, chrome stalks and a half dozen globes each, the little bar (but now the glass cabinet behind the bar is empty), it's really all(most) the same.  The TV got bigger, but the fan got smaller.  Amazing, and Sri is still here.  Pat says no wonder I recognized her, her face is the same, wide handsome jaw, same black hair, same wide smile, just a little older.  Kind of like the hotel, actually.

There is one thing that I feel sorry for and that is the profound increase in the use of the Muslim head gear for women.  I've been calling them helmets - I think I heard that term used somewhere else.  Sometimes a simple scarf, and others, some serious covering up.  But it's got to be 33C in the shade.  I saw one woman at the Jogja train station, lift up the head gear skirt fanning herself, while her husband, arm over her shoulder telling her something, gestured like a rap star.  I need to get the names of the different varieties of cover-ups, but one has a tight fitting cloth around the face, room at the back for a pony tail, and the material flows down over the shoulders, back and breast for another foot or so.  Seems to me my great aunts, Catholic nuns, wore  habits similarly designed.  It is clearly too hot for a getup like that.  I thought I was going to fall asleep while translating an advertising banner in the train station.

Martono was already here at the hotel when we came down after breakfast.  At 61 years He's frail, half blind with glaucoma.  I recognized his voice immediately as Sri announced our arrival and his visiting.  We laughed a lot at the old photos I have on the laptop. I assisted him to the front steps to retake the same photo as 30 years ago.  He explains that he has plans next month to get treatment for his eyes in Solo, a 3 hour non-stop car ride, where he can get cheaper government assisted health care.  In our former lives we sat nearly every night for 3 or 4 months exchanging our languages' idioms (barang kali (baggage instance) = who knows).  And after working at the same hotel for 25 years he got nothing, now riding around town on a bicycle, rigged with a double-wide box on the back, selling grilled corn, barely making ends meet, barely able to see, sometimes pushing the bike, or taking a breather in the shade of a store.  So, what's the deal here, some weird capitalistic system that ensures down the trodden stay down?

Martono's daughter, 22 years, is out of work.  I think the '08 crash hit here in Madiun a bit too; retail outlets seem a bit over-built, the mezzanine at the 4-story super-k-mart is vacant.  She, her father, mother and grandmother live together in a "medium size" size house, he said.  Grandmother is totally blind, keeping herself company with the radio.  Martono and wife of course assist Martono's mother with her every need.

How can I help?  A handout?  A gift?  Pay for the glaucoma operation?  Martono is a proud man, struggling, but proud none the less.  I am so sad, if I were wiser maybe I'd know exactly what to do, and then I wouldn't cry.  I hope we see him again tomorrow so I can buy some of his grilled corn.
I talked with Martno about the modernity, the material changes versus the emotions.  Maybe it's our age, but he too felt the old days were better in his heart.  More things but less heart.

???, Sri, Martono, Kim - '12