Category Archives: travel

4-22 By the Numbers

I know that I have missed a few months of blogs, but I wanted to do the wrap up post sort of on time. I’ll fill in the details later.

Countries visited: 15
Passport stamps received: 24
National languages heard: 10
Religions seen: 9
Cities slept in: 34
Seasons passed through: 3

Number of plane rides: 14
Hours on a plane: 45
Number of train rides: 15
Hours on a train: 62
Number of bus rides: 12
Hours on a bus: 50
Number of boat rides: 4
Hours on a boat: 38
Other transport methods used: 7 (Taxi, rickshaw, tuktuk, walking, gondola, car, public transit)

Unesco Sites visited: 21
Major monuments visited: 50+
Museums visited: 33
Places of worship visited: 53
(Tech Meccas: 2)
Shrines, chapels and offerings: 100+
Photos taken: 10,711

Hotels slept in: 34
Friends houses slept in: 6
Longest time at one place: 6 days

Days traveled: 122

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3-13 The Multitude of Museums in Malacca

Red Roofs of Singapore

We left Singapore on a bus on January 8th. We had to jump out at the border and go through border control then get back in, which was amusing. There were only 3 of us on the bus, so it took about 45 seconds despite our extremely impatient driver’s laments of it being very slow.

Malacca has an amazing amount of museums. There is a district that seems to be primarily devoted to stuffing medium sized buildings full of relics, models and large blocks of text. Some of the museums are grouped into sets, where you can pay a single admission for all of them. This is how we ended up in the Literature Museum, the Democracy Museum and the Military Museum all within 3 hours. There were two more in the set, but they were closed for renovations.

Museum of Literature!  Books and authors and things!

I really like that Malacca has a museum devoted to literature. Generally speaking, people assume that libraries are enough, but as the Museum showed, there is a lot more. They highlighted people who have made important contribution to Malaysian literature through writing or through maintaining traditional storytelling techniques. They gave short histories on different styles of Malaysian literature and what they were based on. And they showcased books. Honestly, I was a little lost. I don’t know Malaysian history or literature enough to know how all the pieces fit into the greater whole. I can learn all about the specifics of the first woman to be published, but only makes a little bit of sense because I don’t know the history and context of women’s rights in Malaysia. Still, it was cool to see a museum devoted to books.

The military museum was less interesting. Jason and I can’t agree as to weather it was military or military leaders. It had models of rooms in a mansion, lots of clothes and photos of important people and a table set for a formal meal. Again, I’m sure it would have been more interesting if I’d had context for any of it.

The old fort, partially restored with
red tile instead of red stone.

The third museum was the most modern. The Democracy Museum had a mission statement that was something along the lines of, “Teach young people about the history and importance of democracy in Malaysia.” They seemed to be doing a good job, since we watched about 2 dozen people between the ages of 18-30 wander in and out while we were there. The museum itself ran a nice line between giving some of the context for the foreign visitors and not re-telling Malaysian history to the Malaysian visitors.

The Deomcracy Museum had a display of royal formal clothes over the course of a hundred years or so. At the beginning, the clothes are what I would expect; men’s wrapped skirts and jackets held at the waist with a wide fabric belt. The belt was decorative, practical and held a kris, or Hindu sword. (My favorite kind of clothing are the kinds that contain swords.) As the years progressed, the style of clothing started to change. By the end of the display, the jacket was cut like a British miliary jacket, the skirt had been traded for pants and the kris had been traded out for a saber (good) or removed entirely (lame). This made me think about culture appropriation and how culture morph and change. There is a forthcoming post exclusively on this topic.

Crow’s Nest on the Maritime Museum

We left the 5 museum zone and went to look for food. Instead, we found the Maritime Museum. It was a giant ship. Awesome. We got to climb around the different parts, including going into the sleeping quarters, captains cabin and the holds below decks. Each area had a small exhibit and a note about what part of the ship it was. While we were there, there were several students drawing, measuring and using auto-CAD to create diagrams of the building. I wanted to ask what they were studying, but the language barrier made it too intimidating to even try. Instead, I took pictures of them. (I did managed to ask permission for that.)

I do love museums. They are vastly informative places. Going to 4 museums in one day was a bit overwhelming. I’m not sure how much information I actually managed to retain. Enough to know I need to learn more history, that’s for sure.

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2-12 Singapore!

Things I noticed about Singapore:

  1. There is excellent public transport.
  2. Food is expensive unless you eat at Chinese takeaways or Little India
  3. Little India smells delicious. Like the whole area, starting as soon as the doors open on the train.
  4. The story of Singapore is very much like the story of the USA. Immigrants looking for a better life or opportunity but often finding a squalid existence for at least the first 10 years and land disputes with native peoples.
  5. It is a very clean city.
  6. I love not being hassled by hawkers.
Creepy hand print at the water and light show. 
This image is being projected onto sprayed water.

We arrived at the Singapore airport and caught the train into town. This alone was a bit of a shocker. There was a train that went from the airport to town in a simple, well-mapped fashion. Brilliant. Then we had to find our hostel.

The hostel was hidden and I kind of think the manager did it intentionally. We looked around for about 15 minutes from the street corner it was meant to be on. Then we called the reservations number. We asked where it was and said we’d like to drop off our bags. The manager babbled something and hung up. We waited on the street corner, thinking she’d said she’d come down. No such luck. Finally, we started opening random doors to see if the address was wrong. Through the second door and up a flight of stairs, we discovered the hostel. We knocked. No answer, we rang the doorbell, which did finally get an answer. The manager stuck her head out to say that check-in didn’t start until 1 pm. She was shutting the door on us when we asked if we could leave our bags. She grudgingly allowed us in and pointed to a corner of the common room. We dropped off our bags and ran away. When we did go back to check in, she was much more civil but we still spent most of the 3 days we were there trying to avoid talking to her.

The immigrant stories struck a chord in this American

Singapore has an excellent Asian Cultures Museum. We were in it for close to 5 hours and only covered half the galleries. We didn’t have the brain space left to keep looking at things after 5 hours. I learned a lot about Islam and Buddhism. My favorite section was the bit on calligraphy. It is fascinating to see different orthographies and think about all the different ways we could create words with squiggles on a page.

A photo of a photo.  I’m so meta.

My favorite museum in Singapore was the Chinatown Museum. It is relatively short, but very well put together. It shows how the Chinese immigrants came and made lives in Singapore. It had a very good demonstration of the cramped living quarters with the personal effects of several families. It also had quotes from people who lived during that time, which really humanized the whole thing. I would recommend it to anyone visiting Singapore.

We also took a trip to the night zoo. I love animals, so I enjoyed myself, even if the flying squirrel wouldn’t jump off the tree while we were watching. They had nice exhibits with a good mix of animals all of which seemed well cared for. Watching the show gave me a sense of dislocation when they said, “This great animal comes all the way from North America.” Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore. (The animal was a Great White Wolf.) The otters were the best. They’ve been trained to recycle. The trainer set out a bunch of bins and scattered recyclable across the stage. Each otter chose a different material and threw it in the correct bin. It was very cute.

The owl was a show off.

The shocking thing about Singapore was the modernity. Coming from Vanuatu and Indonesia, it was unexpected. Not that I think Singapore shouldn’t be developed, because I know it is, but rather that the contrast between these places was shocking. Sinagpore looked a lot like home, and I guess I wasn’t expecting that. Going from streets crowded with food stalls, parked cars and motorbikes to wide open walking areas and clean, timely public transportation was pleasant. But going from smiles on the street with a nod or a greeting to head down and move along on your business was less so.

We left Singapore on a bus heading into Malaysia. It was a short visit, but that’s all our budgets could afford.

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2-12 Night Train to Jakarta

We figured a night train saves on hostel costs. We figured a night train means more time sightseeing. We figured a night train means sleeping instead of boredom. What could go wrong?

A very buff, weird frogman statue. 
Clearly we were thinking with all our brain cells.

Most of that plan, it turns out. We did save on the hotel costs, but we did not sleep or get to see the countryside. A lose-lose. After staying out late to watch the puppet show and then getting up early to see Borobudur, I was feeling the need for a good night’s sleep. Instead, we were in seats with the flourescent lights and the Adventures of Tin Tin playing at full volume all night. Even when everyone in the car was asleep or trying to be asleep, there was no dimming the lights or lowering the volume.

I slept about 2 hours. Jason slept about 4. I read an entire book.

We arrived at the Jakarta train station at 5 am, well before we could even go drop our bags off at the hostel, much less check in for a nap. We went to Dunkin’ Donuts, because it was there. (And we hadn’t seen a Dunkin’ Donuts in about 3 years.) I fell asleep in the corner. Jason messed around on his phone. At 6 am, we decided to see if the hostel would at least let us drop our bags off. To kill time, we walked there. It took another 45 minutes, carrying all our stuff.

We woke up the attendant who was very confused. We left our bags in a corner of the common room and went for another walk. Anything to stay awake. We ended up going to the National Museum of Indonesia, which under different circumstances probably would have been fascinating. They had an ethnography section that went through each of the major tribes/clans in Indonesia by showing some of their items from daily life like baskets and clothes as well as some of their ceremonial items like religious figures, jewelery and weaponry. We kept finding signs to read that were located in front of benches so we could sit still.

One of the monuments in the National Park

 took a wander through the kastomabodes section. I forget what it was called, if I managed to read the sign at all. At that point, text was getting awfully complicated to process. From there, we went into the textiles, though we gave up shortly afterward. Neither of us could read things longer than a sentence and the logical leaps such as “this sign goes to this display” were getting difficult.

It was only 10 am, which meant no check in for another 3 hours. We found a place to eat. It was overpriced with poor service. They didn’t understand my order and failed to bring me food. It was just par for the course.

We went back to the hostel at 11:30 and sat in the lobby until they gave us a room. Luckily, they had internet so, we could keep ourselves awake on Facebook.

We left Jakarta at 5 am the next morning, heading for Singapore. Perhaps not the best “last moments” in Indonesia, but I’d still go back.
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2-8 Temples Part 2: Prambanan

My continuing obsession with gargoyle-things

Prambanan is a Hindu temple built around 850 and abandoned beginning around 950. The temple complex was originally named Shiva-grha or Shiva-laya in homage to Shiva. It likely got the name Prambanan from the nearby village, though there are conflicting opinions on that. The temple was built by Rakai Pikaton of the Hindu Sanjaya Dynasty probably to show that the court had changed from Buddhist to Hindu. Also, because there was a really big Buddhist temple nearby and that couldn’t go unanswered. In the 930s, the royal court moved to East Java, probably due to volcanic activity. That was the beginning of the end for the temple, until its “re-discovery” in the early 1800s.

Though the local people have always known of the temple, it wasn’t a mark on the world stage until Sir Thomas Raffles’ involvement. One of his hired surveyors found the ruins and made a report, which caused more surveyors and more reports which led to some mass looting which led to some poor archeology which led to more looting. In 1918, reconstruction began in earnest and the main temple dedicated to Shiva was restored in 1953. The restoration of the temples has continued though possible restoration is slowing down. The temple and surrounding area have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and are now in use for tourism, religious practice and cultural conservation. The archaeologists are only restoring temples that have more than 75% of their original stones available. Due to the heavy looting and re-purposing of the stones in the 1600s and 1700s, many of the stones are no longer available.

The statue in one of
the main temples. 

The original complex at 240 temples. The three big ones were dedicated to Shiva, Bramah and Vishnu with 3 slightly smaller temples dedicated to their mounts. An additional 10 small shrines are located on the 4 cardinal directions inside the wall. The majority of the temples (224) were placed in four concentric rings around the wall. Smart people like to debate why and what it represents. I won’t go into that for fear of the smart people.

To show respect to the temple, everyone wears a wrap skirt, much like a sarong. Because most tourists don’t have this on hand, they have bunches. As you walk through the ticket booth, they wrap a strip of fabric around your waist and tie it, mostly without speaking. If I hadn’t known ahead of time about the respect thing, it would have been a bit abrupt and abrasive. As it was, I found it funny.

The approach to the temple is startling. Though you can see the temple in the distance, it sneaks up on you when you come out of the ticket booth. Its like you were far away and by crossing into the ticket booth, you teleport much closer.

The extremely detailed carving was gorgeous and very
well preserved

There are two main areas in Prambanan. The first is the area is enclosed in a fence and holds thousands of blocks. The blocks were once a part of different temples, but the temples have fallen or been dismantled. In many cases, the foundation of the temples is still standing, but there is no information about what it once looked like. Instead, the blocks are stacked in neat piles in hopes that there can be more reconstruction in the future if new information comes to light.

The second area is the main temple. A ten foot wall surrounds it, though the ground on the inside has been raised about six feet, making the whole thing tower even further above the surrounding countryside. The ground is packed, dusty dirt that kicks up puffs with every footfall. The temple itself is actually a collection of buildings, not one large complex. The three main buildings are dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma with smaller buildings dedicated to minor Hindu deities.

The wall marking the inner sanctum and the
piles of stones where once there were temples

Again, the carvings are spectacular. Unlike Prambanan, the carvings don’t cover every surface, just almost every surface. The carvings here seem to be meant to help the visitor read the stories on the wall as they pass through the temple. They felt more accessible to the common man. Also, they had excellent gargoyles.

In both temples, drainage was worked into the fundamental architecture. I realize that the architectural knowledge involved in creating the temples is immense, but this touch really drove it home for me. People who planned for appropriate drainage and built their statues to elegantly control water flow are people who have truly mastered the forms they are working with.

These are beautiful creations that show the master works of hundreds of craftsman. They are to be revered for their historical and cultural significance. These places show the best of humanity, the best of what people can do when we work together and create.

By the end of the day, I was in temple overload. I stopped being able to appreciate all of that. All I wanted was a nap and a plate of food.

Prambanan, as it stands now
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2-5 Temples Part 1: Borobudur

Borobudur Temple

I’m not what one might call a morning person. Because Current Me has no sympathy for what she inflicts Future Me, we signed up for a tour to watch the sunrise over Borobudur temple.

We got up at 4 am and got in a truck with one other person. I went back to sleep. Sometime around 5 am, the bus arrived in the hills above Borobudur temple. We got out and started winding up a mud-slick path in the dark. As the person behind me was dancing the Slip and Slide, I was grateful for my years of Pentecost bush walking. Part way up, it started drizzling.

The fog burned away slowly

At the top, we joined a few dozen other tourists, standing in the rain and waiting for the sun to rise. The other person in our truck had an umbrella, which he kindly shared. We had a tripod, which we shared. We ended up wandering the temple with him for the next 4 hours.

Though the sunrise was not spectacular, the walk was worth it for watching the mist dissipate from among the hills and valleys to reveal rice paddies, tendrils of smoke from breakfast fires and stands of bamboo. When the sun was up, we headed back down the trail to the truck. Our driver let us stop a few times as we approached the temple and the volcanoes.

At the temple, things got busier. Though we were early, there were other tourists who took a more direct route to the temple. We were by no means the first ones through the gate.

One of the volcanoes that covered the temple in ash

Borobudur is a Mahayana Buddhist Temple built around the 9thcentury and abandoned sometime around the 12th century. The original name of the place was probably not Borobudur, but it is unclear what the name might have been. Suggestions include Nagarakretagama and Bhumi Sambhara Bhudara. The name Borobudur seems to come from Sir Thomas Raffles mistranslation of the local town name.

Sleeping Buddha Mountain.  See the face?

The entire structure has 2,672 bas relief panels that tell stories from daily life, the Buddha’s enlightenment and past life, and a bunch of other things. These panels are still being used to do research about specific aspects of life during this time. The nearby museum has a boat made from specifications on the bas relief. According to legend, the style of boat portrayed sailed from Java to Africa. There were over 500 Buddha statues when it was built but due to looting most of the remaining statues are incomplete. What is with stealing the Buddha’s head? Its way less impressive without the body.

The proper way to approach a Buddhist temple is called perambulation where the person walks clockwise around the structure three time before entering. We started at the bottom and walked clockwise around the temple, level by level. There are 9 levels, 6 square and 3 circular. The whole thing makes a Buddhist mandala if viewed from the top. We’d done well over 3 perambulations by the time we got to the upper sanctuary.

These kinds of panels covered the temple

Each layer was wrapped in carvings and statues. The carvings depicted scenes from the Buddhist epic, meditating Buddhas and protective figures. Each carving was detailed down to the whorls of hair on a person’s head or the texture of leaves on the tree. Though a lot of the detail had been worn away by time, the remnants were still spectacular. The scale of the place was as awe-inspiring as the detail. The bottom level is 123 meters to a side and the highest point is 35 meters above the ground. There is an additional bit under the ground, but I don’t know how deep that goes.

So many Buddhas!  These ones even have heads!

The top of the temple was a round, open platform surrounded by stupas. Each stupa housed a Buddha statue facing outwards. From the top, we could see two volcanoes and the Sleeping Buddha Mountain. If the carvings hadn’t dazzled me already, this would have done it.

It is amazing to me that this kind of massive structure can fall out of use, but that seems to be what happened. The history of the 11th-12th centuries in Java is bit unclear. In some instances, it looks like the Buddhist and Hindu kings were friendly, or at least that their disagreements were not about religion. In others, it seems like they clashed, or possibly clashed with the invading Muslims. Sometime around the end of the 10thcentury, the king living near Borobudur seems to have moved his capital to East Java. This is probably due to an increase in volcanic ash. From there, the stories of the place bega morphing from holiness to haunting. Several later stories of princes and kings tell of bad luck and illness following looting attempts or visiting Borobudur. While Sir Thomas Raffle was the governor of Java, he went on a tour and was told about the temple. Since then, Borobudur has been gaining accolades and recognition around the world.

We headed back down in time to jump in our bus and head on to Prambanan. We took a short detour to stop by another, much smaller, temple. Though we didn’t go into the temple, we did have some fun wandering the monastery and taking pictures of the monks cleaning the grounds.

Watching the volcano
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1-30 Puppets!!

Shadow puppet!

We spent our first day in Jogja just kind of wandering. We took a walk from the hotel into the main part of town, which involved yet another detour. (Jogja is hard to navigate and google maps does not apply.) After several hours of being hawked to, pounded by the sun and pressed by crowds, we were happy to duck into the state-run tourism office. It was quiet and air conditioned, and – best of all – it had information for a puppet show!

Ever since I got sick and we couldn’t go see a show in Bali, I’ve been on the hunt for a puppet show. I got directions to the venue and was ready to head back out into the crowd. Then Jason reminded me that we wanted to do a dawn tour of Borobudur. So, we bought tickets with a tour company for 4 am the next morning to go see Borobudur and Prambanan temples.

Each character had about a dozen puppets of various sizes.  Look close for the ridiculous detail in cutting and painting.

The puppet show started at 8 pm. We got there early to see the puppet makers working their magic. The puppets are ridiculously detailed. Each image is cut out of buffalo leather. Then the details are punched, cut and carved into it. The hems of clothes are punched with lines of dots along the edge, the patterns in fabric are cut with tiny arch blades that make flower petals when applied correctly. The detail is exquisite.

The full ensemble.

Once the cutting is done, they go on to be painted. Even though these are shadow puppets, the painting is as detailed as the rest of it. Each character has a set “style,” certain colors and hair styles go with certain images. The last layer of paint is gold, which is used for edge and details.

The performance itself was not what I was expecting. Coming from the tradtions of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, I’m used to lively puppets. When I think puppet show, I think of characters that dance and move and who’s gestures tell the story. The narration is a compliment to the story the characters are telling. This style of puppetry was almost the opposite.

The Wayan, or master puppeteer.

First, there is one puppeteer, who is also the narrator. Then, backing him up, are about a dozen musicians. Each scene starts with the appearance of the characters. Once they are “standing” on stage, they are fairly static. They had moveable arms, but with only one puppeteer, there was a minimum of movement. The scene progresses with conversation between the characters punctuated by singing and musical interludes. It was like a musical, minus the dancing part.

The show that we saw was meant for curious people. They were set up to allow seats both in front and behind the stage. I walked back and forth between the puppet side and the back stage side to get a chance to see how it all worked. The performers were professionals, up to and including whispered comments during the show. Even with those comments, I couldn’t detect a single missed beat or cue throughout the night. Then again, the whole thing was in the local Javanese language, so what do I know?

You can see the articulated joints and the detailed cut outs in the hair and clothes.

I really enjoyed seeing a Javanese puppet show. It is not a puppetry tradition I know or have experienced. I learned something, I saw art, what could be better?

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1-25 Jogja: The Lies of Google Maps and Pushy Rickshaw Drivers

The view from the train window.

We took a train from Jember, in the southeast corner of Java, to Jogjakarta (Jogja) in the central south of Java. Of course, the train route ran through Surabaya, in the northeast corner, which meant we did a nice big V of train rides. It was fun to see the beautiful countryside and the train was comfortable. Even Jason had enough legroom.

We arrived in Jogja a bit after 10 pm. We’d booked a hostel that google maps told us was near the train station, specifically so that we could walk from the train station to the hostel and back to the train station 2 days later. We set off, after refusing several taxis and rickshaws, by following the map on Jason’s phone.

Half an hour later, we were in the right area. So, we start looking around for the hotel. We see a few swank hotels, cheek-by-jowl with some super run down places, but nothing in the sweet spot of “cheap,” “safe,” and “clean.” We keep walking, thinking maybe the addresses are just a little off. Since we are carrying our hiking bags and looking a wee bit lost, we have become prime targets for rickshaw drivers. (Seriously, they are like vulture around carrion when they see people carrying baggage.)

We politely and firmly declined several more offers and continued walking. We pass a gentleman in a parking lot. We keep walking. The gentleman from the parking lot jumps on his rickshaw, bikes down the block and swings around so that he meets us at the corner. He starts asking where we are going and saying, “cheap, cheap” more times than a hungry baby bird. Since we are now lost, we figured we should at least ask directions. He looks at the address and starts shaking his head. It is, “Long way. Long way. No walking. Long way.” When we didn’t immediately agree to his offer, he started in on a different line, “Cheap place, very close. I take you. Very close. Very cheap. My brother give you good price.”

We were walking around in there, except darker. 

Now, had he said something that translated to, “Are you lost? Can I help point you in the right direction or give you a ride?” We might have said, “Umm, yes please. We are lost.” And then when he said, “That’s is very far away, you are better off getting a ride. Or maybe you’d like to go someplace closer, its cheap and clean. My brother runs it,” I might have believed him. But since his come on was, “cheap, cheap” and “You come. You ride,” you can’t blame me for being skeptical of his motives.

We said politely no, and then more forcefully no and then we just walked away. We headed back up the block where the rest of the vultures were napping in their rickshaws. Like sharks smelling blood, they started hawking, too. We ignored them and kept moving.

The foyer of the hotel.  We made it eventually.

After a few more minutes and an attempted phone call to the hotel, we ducked into a parking lot with a security guard. We showed the address to the security guard and asked direction. He hadn’t a clue, but it gave us a minute of breathing space and another chance to call. Still no answer at the hotel.

We left the parking lot and walked into one of the swank hotels. (One of the less swank, I might point out.) We asked at the hotel desk where our hotel was. He pulled out and map and pointed to the other end of the city. We asked him to call a taxi.

The taxi came and very politely asked where we were going. We showed him the address, he nodded and took us straight there, without any hassling.

Maybe I should be more trusting of strangers when they tell me that the hotel is “Long way. No walking. Long way.” But I can’t help but think it is a conflict of interests when someone who has been hawking hard then tells me the only option is in his rickshaw.

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1-24 Ringing in the New Year with Guinness in Jember, Indonesia

We spent New Year in a hotel bar in Indonesia. This might sound like we spent it alone, having not ventured out, in fact it was quite the opposite.

Late night, or is that early morning? in the rain, like you do on the New Year’s

We left our hotel to find a taxi in the rain. After fifteen minutes, we determined that there were an insufficient number of taxis on the road, at which point we went back to our hotel and asked them to call a taxi. Fifteen minutes after that, we were in a taxi with a “broken meter.” In Indonesia, taxi drivers tell you the meter is broken so they can over charge. This is particularly used against tourists. Lucky for us, we were going to meet our two PCV friends. That meant, they could argue with the taxi driver in Bahasa, making it much less likely we’d get scammed. We hoped.

After a wrong turn and a phone call to the PCVs which got passed to the driver, we found them. They then noticed that the meter wasn’t working, which caused a bit of an argument. The PCV in the back with us quietly muttered, “If we get out and give him money, just jump out.” The driver and the PCV in the front seat reached an agreement and we continued on our way.

We were planning on going to a club, because why not. We arrived at the club doors and it looked swanky. We sent the best dressed of us in to scope out the scene. He came back out 60 seconds later and jumped back in the taxi. It had a $10 cover fee and a dress code. Not our kind of place. (A $10 cover fee is steep for Indonesia. We were both eating entire meals for $6-8.)

Chow time!  The low tables were standard for street food stalls.

We continued on, at no additional fee from the scammy taxi driver, to a slightly less swanky hotel. The month before, the PCVs had found cheap drinks there. They had increased their prices for the evening, so it was $3 for a giant bottle of Guinness, instead of $2. The PCVs were disappointed. We were delighted to have Guinness.

We spent the next three hours drinking Guinness and discussing politics, corrupt governments, educational policy, the importance of fiction, and other such weighty topics. I also got a serving of banana fritters topped with chocolate sauce and parmesan cheese. I know it sounds weird, but I promise, it worked.

A few minutes to midnight, we started a countdown on Jason’s phone. At 20 seconds to midnight, our companions interrupted the band to get the countdown going. Since we were the only ones in the bar, that wasn’t really a problem. We toasted the New Year with double shots of Johnny Walker.

Sorry it is blurry.  Long exposure + Alcohol = Difficult.

The bar was trying to close, so we decided to leave and go find some food. We ended up at a park of some sort that had wonderful patios lined with food stalls. It took a few tries, but we found one that suited our PCV friends and ordered food. Indonesian food is perfect drunk food and fairly vegetarian friendly. I had fried noodles with veggies and egg.

We walked from there back to our hotel. We got in at two in the morning, like one should on New Year. I woke up with a minor hangover, which was justly deserved. Luckily, it didn’t last long since we were on a train from Jember to Surabaya to Jogjakarta at 10:30 in the morning.

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1-25 Peace Corps Indonesia

Getting from the bus stop to his house.  (Jason is in front.)

While in Indonesia, we spent a night at another PCV’s site. While we were visiting, he had another PCV visiting as well. The four of us stayed up way too late chatting about life in Peace Corps, how similar and different our lives were and all the food we missed eating.

Let’s start with some differences. The most obvious was his housing. He lived in a house with a family, in which they lived downstairs and he lived on the second floor. Please note: there was a second floor. The house had indoor plumbing, a gas stove, running water, electricity, glass windows and internet. He was required to give a portion of his living allowance to his family each month, for which in return they fed him and payed the bills.

He worked in a school about half an hour away and biked to and from work each day. He had a set schedule at school which had him there every day for most of the day.

Visiting the nearest town was a 30 minute bike ride and a 15 minute bus ride away. Getting to the capital and the PC office was a 30 minute bike ride and a 4 hour bus ride. The whole thing could be accomplished for less than $20.

Shot from the second floor.  Look at all the buildings!

And that’s about where the differences stopped.

When we went for a walk, we got a lot of “tourist” comments. Things like “You from?” shouted from behind us, (meaning “Where are you from?” and often used as a greeting/conversation started with outsiders). Because, you know, waiting until someone walks completely past you is a good time to start a conversation with them.

We bumped into one of his students on the road. Not like we were walking someplace that the PCV was well-known and ran into someone he knows from there. No, we were in an area the PCV had never visited in his town. The student immediately recognized the PCV and stopped to say hi. They chatted for five minutes before we moved on.

We shared a common sense of disbelief, frustration and confusion over some of the local customs. Even though the cultures are wildly different, the emotional response of being outside your culture is the same. We swapped a ton of stories about the intensity of cultural activities, everything from funerals to butchering animals to church holidays.

Transport, fun in every country.  Also, bananas seem to be rampant.

The laid back attitude that comes from an overwhelming amount of confusion. Its not that we don’t want to know what going on, its that we’ve accepted that we might never know what’s going on. So instead, we just roll with it. Now is time to butcher a pig? Ok. Now is time to take a nap in the middle of the floor? Ok. Now is time to take off shoes and pray in the temple? Ok. Now is time to teach class? Ok. Now is time to wait for the bus? We’re still waiting for the bus? You mean the bus isn’t coming today? Ok.

Overall, it was striking how our lives paralleled theirs. Though the culture and trappings of life are different, the things we took away from Peace Corps were very much the same. Our attitudes, our hopes for our communities and our love for our country were all similar.

The other major theme of similarity? TexMex is amazing and how have other places not caught on?

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