2013_01_28 Bali! Kuta and Ubud

My Kuta Guest House, Bali Dwipa, off Gang Poppies, had Indonesian residents whose motorcycles filled the courtyard, and Italian surfer dudes there long-term, surely paying lost less than my $12/day. Across from my room was an ornate roofed platform with tables and chairs and TV, where breakfast was served, coffee or tea, sliced bananas on white toast, referred to as a waffle, and fruit. Extras like an egg cost extra. The friendly desk clerk put the plastic bag with my passport and US cash in the safe. He told me at the end of the alley to go right for a cheap meal at the warung, and for the beach; left for the bomb monument. I went right. Temples abound and even the guest houses look like temples. Every shop has little green squares of woven palm leaf on the ground, filled with flowers, rice and other offerings. Their upkeep and replacement is a daily duty. The chop chai (Chinese stir-fried veggies) was sold out so I continued past souvenir shops and women pleading "Massage, Madam?" I could have had three massages for the money wasted on the grandmother's bed. The streets were lousy with tall Europeans and Australians. I noticed numerous signs for Magic Mushrooms. What?

The strip of beach past a stone wall had hawkers too, of chairs, of drinks, of surfboards to rent. I got my feet wet in the sea. Since living in Florida, the ocean is no big deal, and what to do with your valuables while getting wet? I had the key to the padlock of my door to worry about. I found my way back to the guest house. The room was a little shabby but the bed was big and the ceiling fan worked fine. I had two chairs outside my door and a clothes-drying rack. I pulled out the Kindle Fire and got on wi-fi.

I went to the warung and had a meal of vegetables, tofu and rice. There was a display case of the foods for sale with a hanging curtain behind to keep the flies out, more or less. I had lime juice. I had papaya juice. I had a third. I headed in the other direction for the bomb site. World War II? No, indeed. A decade or more ago, a nightclub there had been bombed by terrorists and this memorial listed the names of the unfortunate victims from multiple countries. It took some time to figure out Indonesian for USA. Like the rest, I took photos of this tourist attraction.

From the broken English mistakes I heard, I learned something about Indonesian (one of over a hundred languages). There is no past or future tense, the clues to time are words like 'now' and 'tomorrow.' Likewise 'he' or 'she' do not exist. At first I misheard "Javanese" for "Japanese". But I didn't expend any energy learning any phrases.

At the bomb site a girl approached with me a tourism survey and I soon had two admirers marvelling at my age and quest. I snaked past the constant chorus of "Taxi, Madam? Transport?" to make a curve back toward the beach, enjoying a dollar ice cream cone on the way, and remembering when they cost ten cents in my youth. The rain began and I was glad of the gifted umbrella from Bogor gardens. It was a victory when I recognized the street to the beach.

My Scottish friend, Sylvie, whom I met at a filthy youth hostel in Fez, Morocco in the seventies, has been everywhere, even visiting me in Florida twice, and recommended a Hotel Sorga in Kuta. Before the noon check-out, I wended my way there, past a used book store stall! The place was magnificent, with a swimming pool and sumptuous breakfast but the room only nicer and I couldn't see dragging my suitcase there for one night. I browsed the book stall and promised to return with cash, eventually parting with fifteen dollars for three short story collections from a man who doesn't read English! 

I also noticed Warung Asia which had been written up by Lonely Planet. I dined there twice, the second time meeting Tobi, the Swiss German who had stayed at Indra's in Probolinggo. He was with two Malaysian girls he was couchsurfing with. He saw my beer and ordered one, too, then repaired to an ATM to pay their bill. Tobi told me he'd only paid for gas to the grandmother's, but spent a lot for lodgings near Mt. Bromo, in order to be there for the sunrise, though he split the bill with two others. He said half the men in Asia are gay. Tobi is very handsome and tall so it's no wonder. He had no hard feelings against Indra as I did. I emailed Indra about this encounter; he had been sending me capitalized rants alleging that I'd made his mother cry and calling me senile, all because I gave him a neutral reference on couchsurfing, feeling he was already in the tourism business. I could've given him a negative review!

I stopped in a friendly bar and decided to try the magic mushroom shake to the delight of the bar maids. Back in my room I had some familiar sensations from years past but nothing drastic. Many stalls advertise trips to Ubud, the famous town from Eat Pray Love and other parts of Bali, so I signed up to go to there for 50,000 ($5), the same my motorcycle taxi to Kuta cost me. That night I climbed the stairs of the guest house for more views of the city. There was a large ceremonial bed in the open. I took pictures of this curious place.

The next day a minivan came for me and a German, then stopped at other guest houses for a Dutch girl and a middle-aged American on her umpteenth trip to Bali. We took a perilous shortcut through a flooded rutted road, then past numerous roadside workplaces full of large statuary for sale. I was anxious about finding a place to stay, but a guest house owner in Ubud met the van and pulled my suitcase to his place, Tunjung Bangalows, a block away, $12 a night with breakfast and wifi. Up one flight to a beautiful room with a balcony overlooking the courtyard and family temple. I had a time getting online on my Kindle. A young Hispanic Austin Texan named Romeo solved my problem and we walked up the main road (Hanoman, for the monkey god?) for lunch together, past Komoda dragon statues. He was getting up at 3 am for a sunrise trip to a Bali crater and recommended visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.

Later I set off for dinner and met a Norwegian woman near a sign for the Yoga Barn. She was taking Yoga there daily and looking for an organic cafe on Hanoman, so I joined her. She manages waystations in Norway for hikers, who pay $100 a night for a bed and shower and two meals. She told me she had her cat put to sleep just before her trip. We were joined by a retired bearded Danish man living in Ubud who grumbled that his relatives never put him up or gave him a meal when he visited them, but expected the works here. We three walked towards a hanging bridge at the end of town. I took a peek at a Balinese performance going on, and we considered going into a jazz club for a beer but it looked too hot. At a classy restaurant by the river we split three large Bintang beers until the Norwegian woman said she was exhausted by talking so much English. The Dane and I drank up and headed our separate ways. I was unsure of my way and took a dollar motorcycle taxi back halfway there, puzzled when he stopped, because I didn't recognize the place in the dark. 

The next day I hit the supermarket for cheese, milk, bread and cream cheese, crazy things to be buying in Indonesia. I had that costly Australian muesli to use up. I walked past numerous statues of monkeys along the street to the Monkey Forest, where you can buy bananas at the entrance to feed the critters. I know from Morocco that monkeys are cunning thieves so I just watched. There are several temples, a graveyard, a place for cremation ceremonies and stunning river scenery and huge trees. Again I was approached by two tourism students and asked to be interviewed. Two monkeys were having sex nearby. The boy offered me a free motorcycle ride to the library and learning center, where I'd read that for a price they would refill your water bottles in an effort to thwart the flood of plastic. I couldn't resist buying another book of short stories. Though I had a map, I was confused how to get 'home'. I bought some satay (meat grilled on sticks) and then stopped at a humble warung with a fly curtain instead of a touristy restaurant for lunch. I almost took a taxi until the fellow showed me to a car. I eventually made it on foot.

Ubud is an arts village and the next day I walked out of town to ARMA, Agung Rai Museum of Art. Agung Rai is the artist-founder, and features the works of Walter Spier, a German, and Lempad, a Balinese who lived to be a hundred. It's a large beautiful complex with luxury villas that support the museum. With admission (double the price of my outdated Lonely Planet Bali booklet) was a free coffee or tea, and after enjoying a couple of galleries, I decided to have lunch there of spinach lasagna and enjoy several English editions of the Jakarta Post. A man who'd assisted me earlier in finding my way waited for me to explore more galleries to show me the children's dance rehearsal. He was the head of landscaping and took me around to the luxurious villas rented by the wealthy and we enjoyed tea and tempeh together. He lives in a village a few kilometers away with his father and wife and has traveled very little, finding everything he needs nearby. The visit took up the whole day. At night I returned to the organic Cafe again for samosa (Indian vegetable turnovers) and lime juice.

I had seen the beautifully painted and costumed ladies the other night and wanted to see a performance. I thought it might be $5 but it was $7.50. A man spotted me and gave me a free ride to the ATM to make the 7 pm performance. The whole audience was tourists to see Kechak and Fire Dance Trena Jenggala. A Philadelphian promoting the Australian open shared his printed synopsis of the action, from the Ramayana. First were dozens of bare-chested men chanting "cheese bread" seated in circles. Then two elaborately costumed women danced about the center with their wrists flexed and fingers pointed as the chanting continued and varied. Various costumed demons would appear and disappear. The lighting was too poor for my camera but the performance was fascinating, though inscrutable. Then two small girls backed by dozens of seated women performed similar dances, ending with faints. Finally a pile of coconut husks was ignited and a fellow appeared astride a hobby horse. Periodically he would stomp into the fire, and men would sweep the coals back to the center. That's entertainment! I finished the night with a late-night meal at a hole-in-the-wall family warung watching strange television.

My last day in Ubud I set off for the rest of the art museums. First I stopped at the Central Market, a dank warren of stalls, and bought silver earrings of Fatima's hands with amethyst for a princely $5. The woman waved my cash over her wares like temple incense for good luck. Then I found the royal palace, just a few small temples in a courtyard, and the water palace, more temples with pools. Someday you'll see the pictures! Then another museum of Balinese art in several buildings, with a kamelan xylophone I was invited to try, and to the free coffee or tea I added a spring roll and pumpkin soup. I walked downhill, map in hand, to the bridge I'd visited the first night and uphill towards the Neka museum. I passed two artists working en route, and one invited me in to see his UNICEF greeting cards and said his work was at all the museums.

Many buildings of galleries with Balinese art, a Dutch artist, the centenarian Lempad, a roomful of swords, but I was not done for the day. I took a motorcycle taxi back down the hill by the river and up to the Blanco Renaissance Museum, an outlandish complex of restaurant (free drink!), colorful live birds on display, and the works of Antonio Blanco, the Dali of Bali! An excellent draftsman who married a Balinese dancer, with collages of his erotic musings and luscious images of women that lose focus at the pubic area. No photos were permitted. It was the Liberace of art galleries, a big circular space with spiral staircases to an upper balcony, all to the glory of Antonia Blanco. His son is also a painter, and the great man's studio was on the tour as well as a feature film. He revered Michael Jackson.

I walked all the way back up to town, pausing to inquire the cost of a trip to Gili Islands. A slow boat was cheap but would take all day, a fast boat less than two hours, after an hour on the bus. In Kuta the man had said to call him for a round trip fare of $45. In Ubud I was quoted $65. Near the cafe a woman asked me not to let people know, but I could have it for $50. I ran home to get the money before she closed, but I really wanted to see if I could reach the guy in Kuta, or if my host could do better. But I couldn't find the card, or my host, or even the woman again! So I found another agent and bought the ticket, then back home, found the owners could've done it for $45. I went out again to the family hole-in-the-wall and met a blond Italian who loves parasailing and was trying to start up a business in Indonesia. His hostel cost half what mine did, but his things kept disappearing and there was no breakfast.

Because of the tides and rough seas, the journey to Gili Islands (Lombok) was in the morning, and the minivan would collect me around 7 am. Romeo had already left but l found a sweet note from him with his email. I left behind my red lungi from India I used as a towel (not included in Indonesia) after it split once when I bent over. Now why didn't I photograph the nice family that ran the guest house?

At the port I bought purple sweet potato chips for the boat ride, where they gave out sealed plastic glasses of water and sold soda and beer. We arrived on the beach and I was immediately greeted by 'Eric' who led me a few blocks inland to Kidi's Guest House, a row of four nice rooms with piazzas, breakfast and wifi for $11 a night. He didn't drag my suitcase through the sand but carried it on his shoulders! They were building a cell phone card store on the site, not more rooms, as I'd supposed. There was one mosque on the island nearby, no cars and no scooters. Bicycles and ponycarts were the only transport.

I decided to walk around the island, the biggest of the three Gili islands, not really knowing its size. I left the commercial strip of restaurants, snorkeling and dive shops behind to high end hotels and then cocoanut plantations. The occasional passing ponycart gave me direction. I saw a tree covered with lost or discarded flip-flops. At last I returned to the mosque and a hole in the wall for tea and cheap eats. One beachside establishment offered $3 movies with free popcorn, first Ted and then The Hunger Games. I wandered back and forth, realizing I was far behind on my blog and could always see those movies at home. In the end I dined at a native establishment and made friends with the restaurant cat.

I signed up for a snorkel trip to another Gili island and joined mostly French and Russians in a glass bottomed boat. A Russian girl hadn't gotten a life jacket on shore and wouldn't go into the water. We made four stops and had a 'free' lunch in the middle of the trip. Some people saw large swimming turtles at the first stop, one even an octupus. I had to ask someone to push me over the side. I saw basketball-sized turtles at the second stop. I wanted more than just tuna at the outdoor lunch, so I had to promise to pay the company after I got back home. I eavesdropped on a Frenchman telling an Italian woman he had found Islam. Jewelry hawkers made the rounds and I bought a plastic crescent moon with a star on a black string as a necklace.

Our third stop was popular with SCUBA divers, an old wreck where sharks liked to hang out. It must've been pretty deep, because I couldn't find it. The last stop was the best, when the captain handed out hunks of bread. We were very popular with the iridescent blue and yellow fish. But a lot of the sea ground looked like bleached cora and dead. I'd been given a booklet at the port about bioreef, a new reef restorative they are trying in Bali.

Between the two islands were rogue waves coming out of nowhere that surfers were enjoying. One of them joined our boat for the trip back. I found the office and time for my return trip the next day to Denpasar. Eric helped me with my luggage again and I gave him a dollar bill as well as change from the two nights' lodging.

The boatride, the hawkers, the minivan to the airport...I was surprised it was actually in Kuta. A thirty-something kid from Jogja had answered my couch request and this time I took him up on it. Jeffri picked me up at the airport with his motorcycle and took me back to his room. His cousin was getting married and he had to stay at his uncle's out of town, but promised to rise at 5 am so I'd make my 8 am flight.

Jeffri sells tickets to highpriced Balinese folk dance performances through hotel contacts. A Christian and a vegetarian, he has the skinniest body I held onto yet on a motorcycle. We drove off to dinner at a simple vegetarian place and he didn't finish his eggs or tea. I gave him a chocolate bar from his hometown and my Bali guidebook. A Japanese woman neighbor looked in. She too lives in a small room with a husband and three children! I asked Jeffri why he works in Bali; the money's better. He hopes to open his own vegetarian restaurant one day.

True to his word, he arrived at six from his uncle's and off we went to the airport. Once inside I discovered I was missing an earring, one of Fatima's hands from Ubud. Jeffri went back to the motorcycle parking lot and found it! It looked auspicious but my troubles were just beginning. My suitcase had torn on one end, and the check baggage people advised me to take it back and have plastic straps surround it for a dollar if not plastic sheeting all over it for $3. It was lucky I wasn't late for my flight.

Then customs in Jakarta informed me I had overstayed my visa and kept my passport. I arrived on the 23rd, was leaving on the 22nd, but according to their rules, that was more than a month. I had to pay $20. How do you define a month? The month's visa had cost me $25. When the same thing happened in Russia, $20 a day didn't hurt so when the month cost $200. But the taxi to the bank and back and to the border was another twenty. It's only money!

I didn't like the rates at the money exchange - I had the cash in case I needed a visa in Malaysia (I didn't!) - so I was escorted out past customs to the bank machine. The screeners had wanted to seize the peanut butter I'd bought the night before but gave me a break. Lion Air wasn't serving anything on the flight. I had to drink my liter of water on the spot or forfeit it.

Then to leave Jakarta, I had to come up with another 150,000 for airport tax. It's a beautiful airport, entirely different from the dump I flew into from Abu Dhabi, but it seems a traveler cannot win. I'd like to use up all the currency in a country before leaving, but who can anticipate these extra expenses? Leaving Jakarta from the departure lounge, I noticed a black bag left behind. It was a camera with a large lens inside and no name. Last year my sister had left a videocamera on the flight to Florida. I gave it to the staff and hoped for good karma, and that the staff wouldn't keep it like someone on USAirways kept the other camera.

Some airports have places to leave your extra unused cash to charity.

For $77 from Denpasar to Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur there were no movies, no drinks, no frills, nothing for the stewardesses to do after the safety demonstration. Kuala Lumpur has a beautiful massive airport and there I lost my big green hat I'd shepherded so carefully. Jasmin Soo, my Chinese hostess, had given me good instructions. On the bus from the airport I asked a fellow picking his nose if he could call her for her exact address. Then I took a train to Masjid Jamek and changed for Cempaya and looked for the guardhouse at the complex of pink apartment buildings. I found her roomy flat on the third floor. Her two cats hid. She was recovering from a sweaty flu - teaching and tutoring exposes her to lots of germs - but we went out in her car for some Indian food. What a modern city downtown Kuala Lumpur is. Who needs Singapore?

2013_01_25 Probolinggo, Mount Broo and Kuta, Bali!‏

In Indonesia, everywhere you park your scooter, you must pay someone ten cents. Even before the store you patronize. Drivers across into oncoming traffic routinely in the frantic push to get ahead. Many people wear face masks against the pollution.  Glass bottles of petrol are for sale by the side of the road.

Nunu saw me to the bus to Probolinggo. Hawkers of food and drink come onto the bus all the time, ride a distance trying to sell ad then descend. Musicians board, too, with a ukele or guitar and hope for money with a brief serenade.

I texted my next host from the bus, Indra, a 20-year-old student of tourism in Jogja now on holiday at his family home in Probolinggo. He wanted to take me to his grandmother's village to see the rice paddies, coffee bamboo, sweet-making, how the real Indonesia lives. At the station I bought a coffee and a Jakarta Post. Indra had waited an hour and gone home, advised me to take a certain vehicle. I was besieged by touts wanting to know where I was going.

The Jakarta Post had great articles to read. As Astrid had told me, the authorities in Aceh, where the horrific tsunami was a few years ago, decreed women must not straddle motorcycles but sit side-saddle. The paper objected to this limiting dictum. A UPI feature outlined the unfolding threat of global heating, while elsewhere an article said that nineteen new coal-fired plants are being permitted in Indonesia. Plastic is everywhere, in every commercial transaction and all over the ground.

Indra appeared at the station with his motorcycle but no helmet for me, so I took a little yellow bus to his street and met his family. His father, a government worker, had been to Mecca and was now Imam and Hadj. There were large regal sofas in the living room and a framed picture of Mecca. His mother was beautiful, his younger sister smiling, his grandmother had a little store set up where I bought a toothbrush. I was given tea and a snack and gave them a chocolate bar from Jogja, and the red rice.

Indra showed me several beds in the back. A Swiss German's backpack was there; the backpacker had gone to Mount Bromo and was spending the night there for a dawn approach to the volcano. We discussed options for me to visit the mountain. He named a price I could hire a motorcycle to get to the village and then the volcano and back. He urged me to leave most of my luggage behind.

Indra called a motorcycle taxi and while we were waiting his father suggested Indra take me on the father's machine for the same price. I was to sleep at the village and see the mountain the next day. This seemed a better choice, so I packed a small bag and off we went, after the sister had deposited the father at his restaurant first.

It was a long flat ride through the city and then we began to climb. The road got very bad near the end. We arrived at the grandmother's house and about ten villagers showed up to see me. I smiled and took pictures, visited the neighbors, met the aunts and cousins and was given a sweet dessert of tapioca balls in palm sugar syrup. It was a day the whole village made this delight and shared it.

Indra's three year old cousin had a little whip and a cutout of a horse. At first I thought he was doing an Indonesian dance but later figured he was just playing cowboy. Indra had said I could get a healing massage from a local woman and she soon appeared. It wasn't much cheaper than the spa in Jogja, but lots more painful. I lay on the grandmother's bed and flower petals were rubbed into my skin. Halfway through I was led into the kitchen for an herbal tea and some incantations. She left to massage someone else but then returned to inflict more pain on my legs and feet. Another little ceremony in the kitchen and it was over. Indra told me to leave the money in a banana leaf. I thought it was $12.50 poorly spent. But I didn't feel I could take a stand, stranded in the middle of nowhere. I'll have a time getting used to American prices again.

I slept next to his grandmother and Indra woke me at 5 am with a cup of tea for the trip to the volcano. He said he had a migraine and his cousin would take me instead. We stopped to refuel and traveled another half hour to the base of the volcano. It was in a broad plain, the sand lake, with a small temple on it. The cousin stayed with the motorcycle in a parking lot. People were hawking food, drinks and ponies to ride up the hill. After conferring with Indra by phone, I agree to pay $2.50 for a ten minute ride that left me at a staircase to the top. It was crowded and sand had washed onto the steps.

There were many Europeans and Australians as well as Indonesians. At the narrow summit was a cloudy view of surrounding mountains and I soon headed back down the steps. It was an easy descent back to the cousin and the motorcycle. We stopped at the temple but it was locked. When we got back, the aunt's family was headed for the market with a crate of large long green beans.

I breakfasted on muesli and a carton of milk I had brought. Even in the village there was TV but all of it Muslim-focused. Indra took me for a walk along the surrounding rice paddies and we joined two men in a hut spraying pesticide in the water. Organic is too expensive.

Indra was beginning to irritate me, asking me every few minutes if I was tired. He was anxious to teach me 'A-ne' (delicious) the night before. Today I had had it and yelled back A-NE A-NE A-NE A-NE A-NE! at him after a great aunt had welcomed us with water and tiny bananas. We knocked spiked red fruit off the trees in the back yard and we ate the sweet white flesh around the seeds. Rambutan?

Time for a meal! There wasn't a warung (restaurant) in the village but a little store where I paid for a dozen loose eggs, a bottle of palm tree oil, and packaged snacks. His aunt cooked up scrambled eggs served with rice for the three of us.

I was thinking this kid was exploiting me. The massage had been painful and overpriced. I knew no villager could afford what I'd paid. And his father renting out his cycle at the price someone who made their living would? I didn't appreciate being treated like a child by a twenty-year-old. So I grinned and bore it and held on for the downhill trip back to town.

Indra left me for an hour at an internet store where I learned I'd been accepted by a couch in Denpasar, the capital of Bali. The other couchsurfer had called Indra and needing help finding his home. When I got back to the house, the Swiss German who had stayed at a hostel at Mount Bromo was taking a shower. I needed one desperately but the last transport to the bus station was leaving soon. I packed in a tizzy after a hurried bowl of soup and the two guys walked me up the street to the vehicle.

I'd have an hour to wait at the station. I could take a public bus or a luxury bus with air conditioning at twice the price. It was after six in the evening and the Swiss German had warned me not to fall asleep, I would be relieved of my belongings.  Suddenly there was a bus about to leave and I was on it. Hawkers and serenaders rode for a while. It seemed to be a local bus and far from full. I took the back seat where the open back door provided a breeze.

I was just settling down horizontally when it was time to change buses. Every cramped seat was taken and I realized I had landed in hell. I kept looking back to see if my suitcase was still in the mountain of luggage in the back. There was even a motorcycle on the bus! I held onto my hat and fan, bag and backpack and tried to sleep.

At last we arrived onto the ferry to Bali and we could disembark. The bus engine ran the entire time! I watched the shore of Java recede and the lights of Bali approach, with many pre-emptive trips to the head in between. One doesn't seem to fill one's bladder much in the hot and humid climate.

The pre-dawn ride to Denpasar was long and dark and no doubt beautiful, there were no lights or towns along the road. I'd texted my upcoming hostess numerous times but 'failed message' spelled my doom. I might have gotten off a stop too early, for there were no hostels around the bus station, only long avenues and I had no choice but take a taxi to find a place to stay.

The station police set the price and I climbed in the car and waited while my driver tried to find a hotel for me. The first was around 100,000 or ten dollars, which didn't sound that bad, but he left me at a lovely one for 80,000, with Muslim TV, fan and shower. I cleaned up and settled down to snooze until check-out time, about five hours.

I thought I was near the proper bus station - I might as well head on to Ubud - and a kid offered to take me for a dollar. But it was more a transport hub for cars for hire. There was a van going to Ubud but we had to wait for it to fill. Some fellows drinking arak (out of Muslim territory now!) gave me a taste and let me know I could take a motorcycle taxi for $5 to crazy beachy Kuta, and I was off.

Temples, temples, and sidewalk offerings everywhere. Still in Indonesia, but vive la difference! Stalls began to look quite touristy when we stopped. I couldn't believe we'd even left Denpasar, I had seen no countryside. We were at the desk of a guesthouse for $12 a night including breakfast. I was, indeed, in Kuta!

--

ALexa

2013_01_24 Yogiakarta and Surubaya‏

Astrid is such a contrast to the Muslim schoolgirls. She longs to return to India. She earns her living translating and teaching. She is writing a novel based on her mother, who died of cancer. She is divorced from her Balinese husband. She's read books I have yet to get to. I saw three copies of Bill McKibbens' The End of Nature. I finished my second hand Dickens' Hard Times, a bound xerox, originally purchased in Ramallah, the West Bank. Astrid said pirated books are common in Asia. She showed me a collection of short stories in English and Indonesia written by herself and two friends, Abmi and Labodalih, called Tread Waver Soar. I read it that night. Magic realism lives!

The green mosque across the street had loudspeakers (Astrid was raised Catholic) and the neighbor's house (where chickens strutted) and Astrid's were the same color. We locked the kitchen door at night and left the light on to keep the rats at bay but could hear them scamper under the roof and above the woven palm ceiling. No need to conserve water. Tap water isn't drinkable but abundant. Astrid has 5 gallon jugs delivered for drinking water.

She and her friends hope to develop an organic farm. She took me to a tiny organic market in front of the vegetarian restaurant where her son goes to daycare. Among three or four vendors, I managed to buy bread, red rice, amaranth, dragonfruit, mangosteen, rambutan, puff chips, a cookie and non-alcoholic beer. We met co-author Abni and his East Timorese boyfriend, who returned to the house to bake a pumpkin birthday cake for the other short story authoress.

I set off for the temple complex Pramhasan. Astrid left me at a bus stop and I met a friendly family I saw again running the gauntlet of souvenir shops before the entrance. Cries of "Taxi, Madam?" besieged me. I stopped at a stall for snacks and coffee to get 'small money.' The plastic bag of hot coffee burst as soon as I turned to leave, and the replacement was not free. As the temple was a couple of kilometers away and I got a late start, I agreed to 'transport' and hopped on the back of a motorcycle. But the ride was short, so I got a slight refund. I don't learn, not having brought my student card, and paid many times over for my error, and didn't enjoy my 'free' coffee. I suppose visiting the Pyramids isn't cheap either. I rushed to the site, which was a number of small temples with steps to an inner room which sometimes held the statue of a god. It was wet and rainy and treacherous. Some nights the Ramayana is performed.

From the map I saw there were several other small temples in a line. No one else was bothering. I hurried past lush lawns and at the end found a huge lonely temple complex guarded by fierce stone dragons. It was eerie being so alone in such an ancient place.The sun was setting and the museum closed. I hurried back for the last bus, agreeing to another motorcycle ride. On the bus a girl helped me text Astrid of my impending arrival. I would be joining the birthday party. At the North Ring Road it turned out that this girl Uzzi had been a student of Astrid's at the university! Only using the bus because her motorcycle was in the shop.

At the party the baking boys were stretched out asleep, the hostess smoking green menthol Marlboros, and I tried a clove cigarette. There were sealed plastic glasses of water to drink, tea, juice, pumpkin cake, noodles, and chicken satay in peanut sauce from a street vendor. The talk was lively and hip.

Asabhumy, Astrid's son, has a way of falling asleep standing before his mother on the motorcycle. He always dons a face mask against the pollution as well as his helmet. Back at home I decided to watch Astrid's pre-release documentary by Josh Oppenheimer called The Act of Killing. Men my age cheerfully recount and reenact the days in 1965 when they were systematically murdering Communists and Chinese. A government minister praises the still extant paramilitary group for its patriotism. These men must have been teenaged thugs eager for action. Today they continue to shake down Chinese proprietors. In the final cut the crew will be disguised for their safety. Only at the end does the major killer have second thoughts and becomes nauseated at the rooftop scene of his crimes.

Astrid's neighborhood is an arts colony. We drove past surrounding rice fields with large sculptures in the open. We went to an art gallery with a display of photographs of costumed wandering performing gypsies, the last of their breed. There are water gypsies in Indonesia who live on boats and don't care to live on land. We went to a large shop on Marlborough Street where the owner performs in drag shows. Every local delicacy and handicraft is for sale on several floors. I bought soap and Rainforest tea, ginger candy and coffee, a palm fan and a large green straw hat I would lose at the airport in Kuala Lumpur. We went to a spa for massages and I had an underarm wax that hardly hurt. We took Bhumy to see The Hobbit in 3D after dinner in a Sumatran restaurant. Astrid gave me an extra phone that came with a translating job. By the end of my visit, Bhumy was no longer aiming his slingshot at me, said "Good night" and was calling me "Oma" (grandmother).

SURABAYA 

Astrid had taken me earlier to buy a train ticket and called a taxi to get me to my night train to Surabaya. Despite Kurt Weill's "Surabaya Johnny" running through my head, no one recommends this town on the way to Bali. I had two potential hosts, a young girl without Internet living in a rooming house, and a tour operator, Nunu, living two hours from the city. I was a little wary since he sent me a suggested itinerary for visiting Mount Bromo (Mount Merapi had erupted near Jogja two years ago, killing dozens) but did not insist. His friend (an employee), who spoke no English, met me outside the station with a van for the long ride to Nunu's home. Nunu has a roomy house down a slope from the street, with a row of single story apartments he rents out to one side. A maid served us tea; his wife works for the government in the environmental sector. In a side courtyard he has a caged mynah bird and a rooster under palm netting. I was afraid it would be sacrificed for my dinner.

Nunu is ever sweating and smoking. After his strapping twelve-year-old son Alif returned from school, we four set off for a botanical garden nearby, then a tea plantation up the mountain. We saw the packing house and shopped and satisfied Alif's appetite with chicken meatball soup. Nunu's son speaks English well. His wife welcomed us home with no English whatsoever, and presented me with a lovely black batik sarong and a red batik blouse. They took photos. I shared a chocolate bar from Jogja but they already had plenty of red rice, which they cooked for me. The rooster was a pet, no worries! I slept in Alif's room.

The next day we headed back to Surabaya on a couple of buses. Nunu rises at 5 am to pray and nodded off on the bus. He keeps a motorcycle at the station for getting around the city. He took me to the House of Sampoerna, a free museum and operating factory from the Chinese family that founded this clove cigarette company. Nunu waited, smoking, for me as I toured; the other twenty-year-old Surabayan, Diajeng, would join me on the free "Heritage" bus tour in the afternoon. No photos were allowed on the second floor, where you could overlook the immense workroom with hundreds of yellow and red uniformed employees seated rolling and packing the cigarettes by hand. Nearby about six women were doing the same jobs. I felt I was watching a speeded-up film. Their hands moved faster than you could see. I was glad these people had work, but no matter what their speed, they could not keep up with the demand for cigarettes. And so much energy expended for so little!

Diajeng missed the bus. I sat with a French fellow looking for a job in Jakarta, a Malaysian father and son, and Indonesian women. First we passed the red bridge, old Dutch colonial buildings and then stopped at an elaborate Chinese temple. The female tourguide explained the fake paper money they burned for good luck. In no time at all the tour was over and I met Nunu and Diajeng, who had never been to the cigarette museum before. Nor had she spoken to a native English speaker. She gave me a small notebook from her job, selling wedding dresses. The museum has big cut-outs of Marilyn and Charlie Chaplin at the entrance for some reason. The Malaysian father and son spoke with Nunu and I saw my first electronic cigarette. The son said the initial expense was high, but they are common. I took a picture.

We three set off for a typical Surabayan meal in a shed nearby. I was happy to treat. There was fish satay on sticks, rice and vegetables. Only I drank the broth. Then it was off to Tiger or Lion Airlines to get my ticket from Denpasar to Kuala Lumpur. We had booked online the night before when I realized my visa expired before the chosen date! After a stop at a bank machine and the news that because of an approaching holiday, the fare was 100,000 higher, Nunu negotiated the purchase. Though they looked at my visa, they spoke no English, and didn't see that I would still be overstaying it though I thought I was leaving a day early. The receipt was a faded copy that didn't look like a ticket, but Nunu assured me it would work.

We met his wife on an air-conditioned bus for the trip back. There were music videos on a monitor for a time, but everyone fell asleep. His wife was very fond of me despite the language gap. I would be taking a bus the next day to Probolinggo where Indra wanted to show me his grandmother's village and Mount Bromo before I finally left for Bali. I didn't sleep a wink that night!

2013_01_22 Jakarta - Part 2

 

I left Starbucks and caught the bus which was elevated high above the street with aluminum walkways. Note to self: when boarding a bus in an unfamiliar area, find out the name of the bus stop! Hours later I would come to grief when I guessed Setiabudi. Wrong. Meanwhile I made friends with (goes without saying a Muslim) woman who, when I told her I was going to take the train to the botanical gardens in Bogor, told me they would be closed by the time I got there, so instead I headed for another train station to book a seat to Yogyakarta. The ticket agent said the trains were sold out for the next few days...the holidays again! I went to the bank machine for cash and there was a ticket available a day earlier than I'd been told...but it was not to be! Damn confusing 24 hour clock!

 Meanwhile I had the day to kill with few attractions. Back on the 35 cent bus I met a tiny Muslim woman who without benefit of English shepherded me to the National Museum. I stopped for a street snack before entering, then learned it would close in fifteen minutes.  Admitted free, I dashed through the rooms eyeing porcelain and pottery on the run. Not a fan of ethnography, I was nonetheless interested to learn Indonesia had once had a land bridge with aboriginal Australia and I could rather see the resultant melding of facial features. Ushered out by the guards, I saw the National Monument in a large park across the boulevard. Finding an entrance took some walking. The park radiates around the spire, like Washington DC's National Monument, except it's crowned by a giant torch. Speaking of DC,  Barack Hussein Obama went to elementary school In this city and somewhere there's a statue of him as a boy. 

Families and vendors were out in the park in full force, flying kites, renting tandem bicycles and horse and carriage, selling food and T-shirts, hats and postcards. I bought hot soup with chicken meatballs (in a plastic bag!) and saved a ball for a starving cat but couldn't interest any. A man and two girls on a triple bicycle waved gaily at me and I photographed them. I saw two Europeans, a rare sight, and spoke with them; Dutch, one of them blind. I need a big hat against the sun. I lost the one I had when the Russian police took me off the train at the Estonian border.

I headed back for TiTi's boarding house but there was no Starbucks at the Setiabudi stop. Maybe I just needed to walk to the next stop? Luckily I had noted a couple of landmarks but it was getting dark. The crowded streets were lined with motorcycles seeking fares but I was resistant. They watched me go back and forth in confusion. I asked a woman for help, another joined in and finally they figured I would have to take a certain minivan and then a bus to get where I was going, nearly an hour away!  In the minivan a young woman architect, scarfed, befriended me and saw me to the second bus and rode with me out of her way. I hoped she'd see me home from Starbucks but her mother was awaiting her. 

I asked a security guard about the landmark Bank Ekonomi I'd noted that morning - everything looked different in the dark - when I finally saw it it was miraculous but I still didn't know the way. I asked three girls and they told me to wait ten minutes.  They returned on three scooters and I said they must be rich.They answered, they work far from where they live. But they didn't know the area. The leader drove off and returned with a motorcycle taxi. The young man would take me for a dollar, though he had to stop and ask directions. But then I recognized the building's painted stripe.  It wasn't two minutes away. I grinned at the driver until he returned half a dollar.

The next night I saw him again but he couldn't take me, it wasn't his turn to use the motorcycle but by then I could find it on my own. Then I regretted having been so cheap the night before - he had to wait his turn and the fare had been so measly. How the people survive hawking their snacks and drinks when dozens of others are too I cannot imagine.

The friendly guys in the lobby knew TiTi worked late. I wanted to take her out to dinner but I was hungry now. And there was a tiny restaurant practically next door where I feasted on rice, tofu egg and chicken for a little more than a dollar. Later TiTi told me taking her to dinner was not necessary. She just liked to host. I was turned in by the time she returned from her SCUBA meeting.


I set off again for Bogor botanical gardens, a 45 minute train ride from Kota that became an hour and a half. I made a friend on the train but didn't want to join her for lunch at KFC, instead mounting a tiny shuttle to the gardens. An elegant entrance, a map, a zoo...the bamboo grove had me wondering about the term "bamboozled." I was suddenly a celebrity posing for pictures. Once I reciprocated and shot the group of grinning Muslim schoolgirls, fatally putting down the trusty 50-cent fan I'd carried all through Europe. When I realized this at a rest stop, two sisters gave me one of their umbrellas against the sun. There were statues and bridges, a Mexican garden, a mosque, an orchid garden, streams, bridges and a memorial to the governor's wife who died of malaria. (I take malaria pills daily, unnecessarily.) I bought durian ice cream. The fruit stinks but tastes fine. I made my way back to the bus and the city and TiTi's - bought food from the restaurant and had the lobby guys call me a taxi for my ten o'clock train leaving at 20:00. I had a fit when the taxi driver insisted on a posted minimum of 30000 when the fare was 18500. Later I realized it was three dollars not thirty. But I'd missed my $36 train (triple priced for the holiday!) since 20:00 is 8 pm, not 10 pm, if you take a moment to think about it. I'm rather glad not to have a companion to lambaste me for my stupidity.


A sympathetic woman staffer said after I bought a replacement ticket they could let me sleep in the nursery at the station for the next train at 0800. This was an upstairs room with metal seating. Porters slept outside on the floor but there was no key for the lock. A guard escorted me to a 24 hour mini-mart next door. Though pricey, for a dollar I got small cardboard cartons of sweet mung bean juice and kiwi juice. Good news - they would put me in a meeting room to sleep. It was air conditioned with sofas, TV and video I never touched, and a bathroom!

The station also had a free Internet station I made use of that night and the next morning. I had no trouble rising and shining but felt slightly nauseous before the train to Yogiakarta arrived. I shared the car's front seat with a man working in the Middle East before a monitor which showed low quality films like The Santa Clause.  We could order meals...Nasi goreng was brought to our seats.  I didn't have the 'small money' for coffee and my seatmate treated me. I told myself the comfortable motel-like meeting room and the rice paddy scenery in daylight were worth the extra $35 my stupidity cost.

I had couchsurfed for an emergency couch in Jogja (as Yogiakarta is referred to) and CatCat had responded she would even meet me at the station at 3:30 in the morning, having a party that night. When my disaster became clear, the train personnel had allowed me to call TiTi, who had left for her parent's home, and CatCat, who wouldn't find me on the train. In Jogja the next afternoon there was a downpour when CatCat found me. She wore a big orange rubber poncho I instantly coveted, stashed my suitcase at her feet on the motorcycle, paid the station parking, ten cents, and whisked me through the wet streets clutching her tiny belly. After a half hour we reached her little high-ceilinged house she'd artfully designed herself. Leather sofa, big flat satellite TV,  huge bed we would share, bathroom and kitchen. She made jasmine tea and shared addictive salty banana chips and strange fruit.

CatCat has two jobs, one at a bank and the other managing a high end seafood restaurant, Jimbaran, written up in Lonely Planet. She had loved a Turk but his family was too conservative to accept her. She has an older French boyfriend and the option of a free trip to Paris but without money to shop, she's not that interested. She is petite and glamourous and sometimes rolls her Rs alarmingly. She had to work in the restaurant that night so she rode me a few blocks to the main street where I could get some chop chai (spelled cap cai) or Chinese stir-fry for eighty cents at a stall with tables. I got hot orange to drink. CatCat's neighbor was there and would walk me home after praying at a mosque we'd passed. There were small condiment bottles and I liked the sweet thick soy sauce. I almost set off alone but the woman finally reappeared. Considering how lost I got subsequently I was foolhardy to consider proceeding without a guide. I had a pleasant evening channel surfing between National Geographic and Asia's Next Top Model until CatCat returned.

The next day en moto she showed me her restaurant and a nearby Italian one where I might spend New Year's Eve. She dropped me off at a shopping mall on the main drag, Marlborough Street. There I found a supermarket and foolishly bought imported Australian muesli at a hefty ten bucks, milk, cheese and bread. Dining at a little basement warung (restaurant), I was approached by two scarf-clad college girls asking to interview me for an assignment. Their friend recorded it on a phone and then they were helping me find an internet cafe. But first a man urged us  to see a batik exhibit nearby and we crossed the street and climbed the stairs to a gallery of batik paintings for sale. I was given jasmine tea and admired the paintings but wasn't in the market. When we got back outside, the heavens had opened.

Two of us dashed across the street under my umbrella and waited for a break in the weather; I gave money to a sidewalk musician and the other girl joined us, having rented the use of an umbrella! The internet cafe boasted the most expensive coffee in the world, so I demurred. Instead we found a hole in the wall at a much cheaper price and I started on my blog for an hour as the girls surfed nearby. Then one suggested she take me home on her scooter while her friend waited.

First we went to CatCat's Jimbaran Restaurant for directions to her house. We spent the next hour trying to find it. I hadn't realized that morning I'd have to recognize the way. It was a miracle when a boy at a food stall finally led us there on his scooter. I rewarded him and the student marveled at the stylish home of a single woman, especially all the refrigerator magnets.

She had to get back to rescue her waiting friend.

I set off for another chop chai meal and then my troubles began. I spent an hour retracing the two alleys from the street, past the mosque and coming to dead ends. At last I found a family group and a young woman took me under her wing. I tried to describe my hostess and after a phone call was led to the door. I'd gone right and left every time instead of left and right!

CatCat drove me to a spot where I could get a bus to Boroburu, a huge ancient circular temple in the countryside. As soon as I arrived, the heavens opened, and I ordered a meal of fish and rice, resisting the guides who descended on the bus passengers. When the rain abated, I walked the kilometer to Boroburu. Indonesians pay 30,000 to enter ($3), foreigners 190,000 with a free coffee or tea.(If I'd had my Hocking College ID with me, it would have been half price.) Friendly Japanese tourists smiled at my fury. Umbrellas aloft, we headed for the giant stone mandala with stairs and many levels to walk around and admire the carvings along the walls. I shot mossy images of headless Buddhas and friezes of princes and elephants. I had to rush to include a couple of other nearby sites before the last bus to Jogja, a good forty minute ride. There was a gauntlet of food and souvenir stalls to negotiate before I acceded to a bicycle rickshaw driver's offer to take me to two minor temples with more reasonable admission prices. The lady who sold me the ticket to the first hounded me with her wares. The second was serene with guards in a tiny office. My driver hailed a passing bus for Yogya and I was headed home.
 

The girls showed up the next day - the video their friend shot was inaudible. I let them use my camera to repeat the exercise but then somehow locked up the result so they couldn't download it. CatCat returned and, being a former teacher, coached them on their questions and performances, making herself late to work. Then we three went to the chop chai place and they treated me, after earlier running out for chicken meatball soup, too. I began to pack my things and they finally left. CatCat's sister and family were visiting the next day, so she had reserved a place for me at Edu Hostel in the center. I would be able to see the sights at last!

CatCat showed up with a driver and vehicle from Jimbaran. First she stopped at the police station to arrange a dinner party. Then I was at the large, modern hostel, with free Internet computers in the lobby and mostly Indonesian guests. They could only accommodate me two nights, breakfast included, for a high season price of $9 a night. But a couchsurfing hostess had seen my request and showed up the next morning to show me the sights. I stayed in a room with one German and four Indonesian girls. I didn't appreciate being hailed as 'grandma' by an Indonesian youth in the hall. Breakfast on the roof was rice, egg, puff crackers and coffee or tea.

Alone with a map, I found Marlborough Street again but not the shopping center I knew. In a multi-story market I found shoes like CatCat's for $3.50, but no rain ponchos. A fellow engaged me in chat and I tried jackfruit in his restaurant, with tofu, rice, and a disgusting fatty object that was beef skin. I found a shortcut back to the hostel, and in an alley on the way, a used book shop. Eureka! Best American Short Stories 2005. Also a book by playwright Sebastian Stuart. My husband Jack had directed me in his Sebastians's trailer comedy, "Smoking Newports and Eating French Fries." A rickshaw offered to take me back to the hostel for ten thousand rupiahs (a dollar) but I thought he was charging ten times that amount and more than the room I preferred walking anyway. My second night I was alone in the room.

Astrid, my second Jogja hostess, is a part-Chinese single mother from Bogor near Jakarta, a writer, translater, organic food enthusiast and huge contrast to the Muslim schoolgirls. She whisked me off on her motorcycle to the Kraton, or palace, in the center of Jogja (Yogiakarta). There was a gamelan performance with women singing, and ornate buildings with photographs and artifacts from sultans past and present. The current sultan has five grown daughters so what happens next? Circumcision ceremonies are performed at the age of fourteen, a fact some European visitors couldn't stop questioning. A woman was hawking a curved fan that turned into a hat, and I parted with two dollars for sun protection. Then it was off to a tasty lunch in an elegant place. Astrid introduced me to a cold concoction with floating gelatin greens in it.

Next, we motored me to the water palace, a complex of temple-like buildings where the sultan could observe his ladies bathing and take his pick for the evening. We stopped for juice in a sweet offbeat cafe; lime is my favorite. Then it was off to her Yoga class, in a lovely Indian restaurant run by Europeans. The Yoga teacher was a French girl, teaching in English. We followed our stretches with a meal of masala dosa and lassis, She delivered me to the hostel and would be back the next morning for me. Her neighbor babysat her four-year-old son, Bhumy ("Earth").

2013_01_14 Jakarta - Part 1 Revised

Editor's note:

I originally received a post about Jakarta on 14 January; then I received a  "revised version" a couple of days later.  From an 8 January facebook entry I understand she has moved on to Bali.

And, after reading the headlines today about major flooding in Jakarta, I'm VERY glad Alexa isn't there any more
Well, on January 24th I received a 3rd version of this post.. as  I understand it, I was to replace everything previously  posted as Jakarta - Part 1..
Done on 27 January

-------------------- corrected revised post about leaving turkey  Jakarta ---------------------------

My last day in Turkey the sisters took me to the local hair salon. I got a five dollar haircut just like my sister Amy's.  Melek had her eyebrows plucked by a fast moving white string ..."threading." They still share their childhood bed. One prefers the Turkish toilet the other the European. The washing machine lives in the bathroom as it does throughout Europe. There are no clothes dryers but metal racks. Drinking water is delivered. One night the tap was dry but water was restored within a day.

Melek took the bus with me to the metro to the airport on her way to a farewell visit with friends before her new job in a new city. A man helped me lug my suitcase; costly Turkish airlines dominated the airport. A Nigerian in line with me for passport control seemed miffed I wasn't including Africa in my travels.

The flight on Etihad airline (competitor with Emir Air but belonging to the same family) featured a personal entertainment center on the back of the seat in front: movies television music or games.  I watched Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones put sex back in their marriage...a bicycle messenger's Manhattan adventures ...Dexter...more forgetable movies until a late night arrival in Abu Dhabi and a 6 hour layover until the 2 a.m. flight to Jakarta, Indonesia. Saw no bargains at the Duty Free and the dozens of free computers didn't work that well. The second flight much like the first, a rabid search for entertainment and little sleep. We were told to lower our shades against the sun. I wondered how such a huge plane full of people and luggage could ever get off the ground.

I talked my neighbors out of their uneaten yogurts which kept me fed along with my Turkish sandwich later in bewildering Indonesia but got very anxious about declaring food and money on my visa form. A stewardess advised me to be honest. I listed my various foodstuffs and their value. In the end they never even looked at my declaration. DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS and explicit warnings against attempted bribery grace Jakarta's airport walls. It was hot! I paid $25 for a thirty day visa. Then the taxi vultures descended on me. First I had to get Indonesian rupiah from the bank machine. One dollar is worth almost 10000 rupiahs. I settled on a driver willing to take me to my couch for 170000. Noticed right away the steering wheel was on the right and traffic flow on the left. How did that happen?   The ride lasted well over an hour with tolls, traffic, long lights and enough motorcycles for Bike Week in Daytona Beach. He got out of the cab half a dozen times to confer with people over the address and finally paid a motorcyclist to guide us to the door. I paid him 180000 and it felt like $180. I was generous, a dollar tip. A little Malaysian woman was expecting me...I thought at first she was my couch hostess and embraced her. We left our shoes on the cement before the entrance. She pointed out her room and led me down a bright windowless corridor to my own.

My hostess Icha was spending her holiday at her parents'. I wouldn't see her for days but she did have a good supply of English books, an air conditioner, a bathroom...there was a small kitchen around the corner with a drinking water dispenser, hot and cold. It was the 23rd of December I was exhausted, the rooming house was deserted and the maid spoke no English.

I took the two Istanbul snowglobes from Icha's boyfriend out of my luggage and started my hand laundry. I noticed instead of toilet paper there was a handheld water sprayer attached to the toilet tank for hygiene. In Europe there had been small trashcans in every toilet for used paper. Welcome to Asia, land of the clean but wet bottoms!

Icha had a TV with poor reception of poorer programming. I'd kept asking the maid "Internet cafe?" She gave me keys to the room and led me outside into the sweltering busy street where a mis-step could land you in a ditch past staring eyes and humble stalls to Snapy, a spiffy business with uniformed attendants, rows of computers and free snacks and hot drinks. Computer use was about a dollar an hour. I had gotten pretty far in my Istanbul letter - oh how I missed the Turkish sisters! when the maid appeared to escort me home. It  was getting dark. We passed an open air fish restaurant under tarpaulins. My watch battery had stopped. I had a long miserable sleep feeling deeply sorry for myself waking up on Christmas Eve. I had no map of the city, no idea where to go, a prisoner in the little room. I had finished Isabel Allende's short story collection The Tales of Eva Luna and left it for Dilek or Melek to enjoy. Now I began Lady Chatterley's Lover and found it quite different from the version I read in Sarajevo, John Thomas and Lady Jane. I finished it by Christmas night.

I didn't expect what I took to be a Moslem country to set any store by the Christmas holiday but everyone was travelling, train prices tripled and Snapy was closed for 'Natale.' Disappointed, I bought several dimes' worth of street snacks. Then before the house I saw a woman with a cart full of produce and bought a package with carrots celery onion cabbage and tomatoes so I could at least make some soup. Tofu was in plastic too. I'd finished my brown rice and sesame butter from Turkey. The maid was cooking for her sons and husband and more visiting family including a 5year old girl having a birthday. There was a rice cooker full of white rice and she urged some on me as I made my soup. There was a large TV claiming their attention. The men all smoked.

I read Dwight Adam's ("A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") Thanks for the Fish. Also a book claiming happiness lirs in living like the French, shopping for fresh food every day and looking smart. And much of "Around The World in Eighty Days" (Shirley McLaine was so miscast) and spent another sleepless night when Icha arrived from her family holiday exhausted. She washed and put on a special costume with no opening for her feet and performed the Moslem prayer. I sat on the bed embarrassed, not knowing where to look. I left her to rest and dashed off to Snapi Internet again and when I returned she had left for work in children's programming.

So I took a bus to the center for thirty five cents. The bus stops are metal cages in the middle of the street with ramps to elevated side openings to the middle of the bus. An attendant decides how many people may board. Younger people automatically surrender their seats to their elders if they are women. At the terminus Kota I noticed Mandiri Museum across the street. Mandiri ("Independence") banks are everywhere. The 'museum' is a five storey old time bank with safes and safe deposit boxes in the basement, displays of early computers and telephones and five floors of offices and meeting rooms and mannequins from the fifties doing banking business.  I dozed off in the hot courtyard with caged birds, wild cats and large trees with huge jackfruits. The street outside was so full of traffic I didn't want to walk them aside from buying fruits and snacks from the vendors everywhere.

I went back to Icha's and took her out for a fish dinner at the tent. I ordered an avocado drink, a rich sugary concoction that lasted me days. I decided to leave that night for my other Jakarta couch with TiTi and took a taxi to Setiabudi and a boarding house down an alley behind commercial high rises. A friendly group of males were watching a Henry Potter movie in the lobby. TiTi came down from her fourth floor room and hoisted my suitcase. She'd been hiking recently and changed her clothes to pray. She took clothes to work to pray in too. There were shared bathrooms on each floor with large square ceramic tanks continually being filled and plastic dippers for ablutions. She shared her slippers which did not enter the room. "Lazy," she paid the concierge to clean her room twice a week. Once I forgot and wore the slippers into the bedroom.  She was upset because she prayed there and paid the concierge to clean the floor again. The call to prayer punctuated the days and nights with loudspeakers in every neighborhood.

Like Icha she worked overtime for free. There was a kitchen TiTi never used and a porch for hanging laundry against a skyline of highrises. I stepped out at dawn to take a picture and saw my first rat. TiTi slept on a yoga mat and left for work at dawn. I gave her keys to the concierge and Antoinette, a telemarketing supervisor, walked me through several allies to a shopping center with a Santa statue and a Starbucks for me to catch up on email. I needed a mobile to log on but an employee shared his authorization.

TO BE CONTINUED
Photo from facebook.. Farel Fahrezy Spensus, Alexa Ross and Ida Yoel

2013_01_02 Oh My Gosh... Turkey

My dream of visiting the faraway moonscape cave-hotel area of Cappadocio area must be deferred, It's a long long bus ride, Turkey's a big country, and a simple act like trying to buy a plane ticket on your debit card can have disastrous consequences.

Arriving in MASSIVE Istanbul to the commuter train station before six in the morning after a nightmare succession of trains and buses was a mini-disaster itself, since it was too early for either the ticket booth or toilets to be open. But the cats everywhere in the station weren't worried. The German couple set off for their hostel, I accosted strange men with my dilemma, and blessings be, one of them, though speaking no English, drove the train and invited me to sit in his compartment for a free ride to the bus transfer station.

I had directions to Bosphorus City, a brand new luxury development 90 minutes from the center. I detrained at Bakerkoy and sought a toilet (opening in one hour) and a bus ticket and was directed to 98i (so many buses, minivans, trambuses, trams in Istanbul!) and before the hour was up climbed a hill to the security booth of Bosphorus City.

My California hostess, Amber, was expecting me. Her Spanish husband of a few months, a pilot for a private airline for the wealthy, was in Russia. If Amber is lucky, he will be off for Xmas so they can visit his family in Spain. Meanwhile, she had all the books and maps and information for Istanbul. And spent her days putting together another digital wedding photo album after the first hard drive fried.

Her complex has waterways, restaurants, gyms and markets. And cats! I joined her on a couple of her daily workouts and cooked in her kitchen. Istanbul is huge and getting bigger, that's where the jobs are, if you can stomach  hours-long commutes within the city. She was expecting a second Couchsurfer, a Korean raised in Brazil, studying in Iowa, named Henry. Henry and I went out with Amber's map to explore Sultanahmet, the district where the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, the Grand Bazaar, Topkapi Palace and the underground Basilica are found.

My lost camera was coming to my second Istanbul couch, in the home of two Turkish sisters. But Henry had his camera busy, and I was asked to take many shots of him giving gangland signs in front of historic mosques and palaces. The Blue Mosque is free and open to visitors. But first you must remove your shoes and put them in a plastic bag for your few minutes inside. PLASTIC! The Mosque has stained glass windows and large chandeliers, a courtyard and many faucets for washing the feet before prayer. 

For 25 Turkish lira ($1 is 1.5 lira) you may enter Hagia Sofia, once a cathedral, still bearing mosaics of Jesus and his family and followers, but with large gold Arabic lettering hanging from the ceillings. We climbed the worn and ancient steps to the gallery, past where the empress did her prayers. Henry asked to be my couchsurfing friend so I hope he'll share some of his dozens of snaps with me.

Next we visited the underground Basilica, an impressive Roman aquaduct, so well-lit you could spy the catfish in the water (what do they eat?). There was a large sculpture of Medusa's head; admission was only 10 lire. Then we walked uphill to the Topkapi palace (Istanbul is quite hilly) but Amber said the inside wasn't worth the price. They charge for the inner courtyards, the harem and the treasury. It must all be online! We were tired of shelling out. I saved it for another day.

We met a couple, a Bulgarian Turk (European-looking) on leave from the army, and his Thailand galfriend, and with he found a reasonable eating place in this tourist neighborhood to enjoy a meal together. Our plans to visit a nargile, or hookah-smoking tea house, fizzled so Henry and I set off for the Grand Bazaar, a warren of covered streets with all the carpets, jewelry, Turkish delights and knick-knacks you could ask for. Henry recognized a stone fountain in an intersection from my favorite show, The Amazing Race. He teased the storekeepers but eventually bought a couple of scarves, an Istanbul shot-glass, and a fez hat.

The night before, I had started my 'contest' with Flightfox for the cheapest fare to Jakarta (I should have chosen Bali!). The Times had written about this company, which takes a commission, but saves you money. After our day in the center, I returned to find an excellent price for Istanbul-Abu Dhabi-Jakarta, but that option had sold out by the time I logged on. Lesson learned! So paying $70 more, I tried to book but my Visa debit card was rejected and I resorted to MasterCard. And then my Visa card worked no more! My bank had suspected fraudulent activity and stopped it. It would take a phone call to the states to get it active again. After my struggles in Poland to call the states, I was desperate. But lovely Amber had the answer, Free Call, and thanks to her internet savvy I was able to resolve the problem eventually in minutes.

I headed off to my second couch, along the same bus line, the top floor apartment home of two charming sisters in their twenties, Dilek and Melek, who was cooking a sumptuous meal to enjoy in front of the TV. Dexter! Conan! Movies! The younger, Melek, was giving up her waitressing job in a Kurdish cafe, to be the engineer in a cheese factory, moving a couple of hours away. Dilek, who invited me, would take over her job. She had previously worked on the Bosphorus City project, but hoped to join European Volunteer Services. They made a big fuss over their cat, Fa-de ("Mouse"). They grew up in this large apartment (I had their parents' bed, now living by the sea) and the big dining room was closed off. Heating is costly but necessary. We enjoyed television in English - a rare but addicting treat. Western shows with smoking had an interesting phenomenon. A glittery flower, looking like a firecracker, covered any cigar or cigarette displayed! Istanbul had a snow that stayed. All I needed was to slip and fall!

Dilek took me to Taksim, the long famous street for nightlife, to meet the Indonesian boyfriend of my next hostess in Jakarta. She went to Melek's cafe to work and the student and I sat over tea, then walked the street (always a demonstration going on) down winding medieval alleys to the trambus on the Galata bridge, accompanying me to my last stop and giving me two Istanbul snowglobes for his girlfriend in Jakarta.

I had used Dilek's address for my camera to arrive from Bucharest by UPS. After several attempts, and phone calls. I have it, but the bill was steep - about a hundred dollars! Yet when I forgot it in Tallinn, it came to Riga for 5 euros. I plugged her in and she was still ticking!

I had my yogurt and muesli for breakfast, but soon joined their more interesting meal of omelet, olives, cheese, tapinade, bread, jams, tahini and endless glasses of tea. I set off alone by bus and trambus (avoids highway traffic!) to see the Topkapi (closed) and got befriended ("I am not a guide!") by a carpet shop owner who treated me to hot apple juice, had minions diplay his wares and then delivered me to a travel agency to discuss a trip to Cappadocio. Walking back from the trambus in the dark I got lost, but a passing Turkish air marshall, despite speaking no English, called Dilek and walked me to the right street. The kindness of strangers! I let myself in and the cat ignored me until the sisters returned. They had to pay fortunes for copies of Melek's medical records and bank statements for her new job.

Dilek, Melek and I all went together to the modern art museum on its free day and enjoyed paintings and videos, then the ferry across the Bosphorus to the Asia side where I found a 50-yeat-old used book with maps of Indochina. Chilly, we returned to the Spice Bazaar and then back to Taksim for a kebab meal in a restaurant on the 4th floor of the building where her cafe is. It's a floor below. We met her young Kurdish bosses, brothers. The troubles have been going on too long and bloody. Kurds seem to live in several countries with no autonomy.

My last day in town we went to their salon. I had a haircut and look more like sister Amy now, Melek had her eyebrows done with a fast-moving white string. She rode with me to the metro to the airport the next morning. I was terribly anxious my sandwich for the Abu Dhabi layover would be confiscated. Shedding jeans, boots and jacket in the airport restroom, I left the warm security of the sisters for the great unknown, Southeast Asia!