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
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