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 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.
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").
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