Goodbye Indonesia

Yes, I've thrown in the towel on Indonesia, and now that I've left the country I finally appreciate it (a bit).  Traveling in Java was difficult, and annoying and frustrating and honestly, the payoffs weren't that great.  You know when you've endured a shitty, overnight, 12+ hour developing country bus ride but then you get to see an amazing landscape or take a death-defying bike ride, so it's all worth it?  Yeah, well the amazing part just never really happened in Indonesia.  Maybe it was because I was there in the off/rainy season, but every volcano I tried to see or wanted to climb was closed or clouded over, every temple I visited was fogged in, and I just didn't click with Indonesians.  I attracted a lot of (unwanted) attention.  In Malang, my tour guide, Helmy, thought it was great to have a private, full-day English lesson with a real teacher, and one with "sexy" tattoos!  I didn't think it was so great, as I was the one paying for the English lesson, and you know how much energy it takes to make small talk all day in ESL!  Another time, I had a lovely waiter at one restaurant that started the conversation as all Indonesians do, with "Where do you come from?  Where are you staying?"  Since this is normal in Indonesia, I told him which hotel I was at and he promptly asked if he could come to my room later!  Ah, just because I'm wearing a tank top and I'm white doesn't mean I'm a hooker, thank you very much.  Perhaps I really just needed a friend to laugh with about these misadventures.

While I did avoid the local bus for further legs of my trip, kicking it up a notch with my door-to-door shuttle service to Solo was not without it's particular Indonesian charms.  I had yet to be introduced to the phenomenon of back alleys coming alive during the day with the hustle & bustle of a local neighborhood.  Arriving in Solo at 4am, the driver pulled up to an ominously dark back alley, the entrance to which was gated and deadbolted and told me this was the address of my guesthouse.  Without a cell phone or any skills in Indonesian, I frantically looked up the word "afraid" in my phrasebook, and kept repeating in English, "You can't leave me here!" while the driver promptly unloaded my bags and tried to take off.  Luckily the girl with us understood and let me use her phone to call the guesthouse and someone came to meet me.  I must admit, the idea of spending the night outside in an Indonesian alley had me a little frazzled, but the next morning I realized all was right in the world, though, as life in the alley went on as usual, bikes zipping through, chickens running around, teenage boys fixing up their motorbikes, ladies selling food.   Solo turned out to be a much nicer city than Malang, the people were friendly and apparently more accustomed to seeing a foreigner or two, and there was more to see and do.  But still, nothing had really clicked.

Things got better in Yogyakarta, as I knew they would.  I made friends, I tried curious Indonesian food from restaurants set up on the backs of a motorbikes, and I finally saw some sites worth writing home about.  The kraton (palace) in Yogya is spectacular, and it is home to a walled-in village of all the families that historically worked for the sultan.  I spend an entire day wandering through the alleys, running into living room karaoke sessions, children bike racing, and rows and rows of chirping birds.  The Taman Sari is the private swimming pools of the sultan and his harem of mistresses and was beautiful.  I ran into a guy on the street who offered to take me to Mt Merapi for $5 - the tour companies were selling the same trip for $15, so of course I said yes.  Mt Merapi is the volcano that has recently erupted and the surrounding countryside is a desolate, barren ground of volcanic ash and dead trees.  I should have known for a full-day $5 tour something was too good to be true, and yes, I spent the last 3 hours of my afternoon sitting at a motorbike repairshop in the middle of nowhere because our 1970s motorbike had broken down.  I also visited Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument in the world, and a UNESCO World Heritage site, but was more impressed with Prambanan, a Hindu temple also just outside the city.

I left Yogya with Carlos, a Colombian guy I'd made friends with, heading towards Jakarta with a stop at the Dieng Plateau, an area with Hindu temples, surrounded by volcanos and bubbling sulphur lakes.  Supposedly a beautiful place to visit.  Well, it was hell getting there on our own steam, one of the buses we rode in actually had a roof partially duct taped together and I watched the road whiz by underneath us through the rusted out holes in the floor.  Carlos said, and I quote "I've been more comfortable in toilets in India."  Furthermore, we ran into several different people who didn't want us to stay at their hotel, ride on their bus, eat in their restaurant... was it because we were bule, non-Muslim, not married?  We never figured it out, but it certainly wasn't pleasant to be blatantly discriminated against.  To top it all off, the Dieng Plateau was a big bust, the temples were small and crumbling, the volcanos clouded over, the bubbling sulfur lake surrounded by swarms of tourists.  Carlos and I had both had enough of Indonesia, but there was one last stop: Jakarta!

As the train rolled into Jakarta, we passed an extensive shanty town built up alongside the tracks.  Shacks built out of wood, metal, cardboard, tarps; fires burning between the tracks, chickens pecking around garbage piles, people cooking on open fires, naked babies running around, all against the backdrop of a bustling capital city.  Jakarta was actually the first place in Indonesia where I thought, "Wow. This is amazing."  Obviously for reasons other than natural beauty and endearing charm.  The smog hangs so thick in the air you can't get a clean breath and it's virtually impossible to find green space or any kind of quiet.  My first hotel was clean, at least, but as soon as I settled in for a snooze I realized there was a sewage trough running directly outside my window which, while slightly unpleasant, was not actually the straw that broke the camel's back on Indonesia. No, what took the cake was the 4am wake up call from the mosque next door (no matter where I stayed, there was a mosque next door), after which the streets wake up and erupt with the sounds of people yelling, ringing bells, honking car horns, screeching brakes, kids screaming, etc.  After a completely sleepless Jakarta night I told myself, "Screw it, I'm outta here!" (although I may have been thinking something more expletive)

Since I didn't run into a lot of other travellers in Java, I spent a lot of my time being introspective, and while reflection is lovely, I have enough time in my regular life to be introspective, and this trip was supposed to be a welcome distraction.  I've had so many ups and downs on this trip, sometimes within the same hour like when you arrive at a crowded bus station and you don't speak the language and everyone is yelling at you to get in their taxi, and you've got a 30lb backpack on, and the sweat is dripping off your nose, and the map you have doesn't make sense and besides no one in this country even knows how to read a map, but then you find a nice (or at least clean) guesthouse and wander down the streets and see a little kid, butt naked and fully soaped up running away from his mom who is trying to give him a cold-water, plastic bucket, side-of-the-road bath, and you just have to smile at this crazy world we live in.  Travelling alone, it can be scary thinking that you're the only one who's got your back, but it's also empowering.  I've learned that the down moments pass, always, and that's a relief.  But I've learned to really appreciate and savor the good moments because they too, can be just as fleeting.

Anyway, my only revenge was to go somewhere fun, so now I'm on the beaches in Thailand, drinking banana shakes, lounging in hammocks in raggae bars, scuba diving with sharks, working on my tan, and having way more fun!