Selamat pagi, keluarga & teman-teman (family & friends):
On this segment of our adventure we came across a quote at the Bali airport, “Not all those who wander are lost” (J.R.R. Tolkien), and Maggie asked me if we were among the ‘lost’, which brought smiles to our faces as we relished this next leg of our itinerary.
Even though we don’t think we are among the lost, we did make a mid-course correction on our Java itinerary which ended up having us flying 3 times the distance we needed to go to Malang to avoid a series of trains/buses. It was during the Bali layover associated with this change that Maggie found her newest best friends in some Sumbawa islanders returning from their insurance company’s retreat in Malang. The 5 hour layover provided us plenty of time to socialize with Ratna and her associates. She was the only female in the group, a real bundle of energy with her head scarf on, giggling and hugging Maggie, having their picture taken together. It was quite the scene and reflective of what we have been experiencing with these lovely, open people. They excitedly invited us to visit the 200th anniversary of the eruption of their Mount Tambora.
Finally getting to Malang in the late afternoon, we took the fixed price taksi from this hole-in-the-wall “airport” where the luggage conveyer belt was all of 12 feet in length. You had to be pretty quick on your feet to grab your bags before cascading over the end. On the ride to our guest house we witnessed many tethered goats being readied for Sunday’s Muslim celebration of Eid Al-Adha, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. These goats will be slaughtered, with their meat being given to the poor.
Our 2 nights in Malang consisted of an amazing evening at Inggil rumah makan (literally, room for eating) and museum plus our quintessential general wandering about, noting the river flowing fairly rapidly through the center of town, bordered by closely knit communities of tentative housing providing the lifeblood of this city, all in close proximity to well-maintained civic edifices, providing a dramatic contrast.
Inggil’s was a cavernous facility, simply staged with wooden tables in the middle of the room for dining. The real “wow” was the amazing “Oriental” memorabilia found on the walls and along sides of the room: yellowed ads dating back 90 years, political newspaper clippings, vintage telephones, typewriters, radios and sewing machines, a collection of 1800 era paintings reflecting the local milieu, painted wood-carved likenesses of caricatured formal waiters, daggers, cobra fixtures and everything bamboo. It would serve as a stage set for a Charlie Chan or Bogie/Bacall movie. It only needed an opium den to top it off! The evening was topped off with a 5 piece band featuring a female singer wearing an arrangement of jasmine (picked that day from her garden) in the shape of a squid on her hair a la Billie Holliday, another touch taking us back in time.
On the road from Malang to Surabaya, we were once again presented with the “dance” in traffic, where movement is sinuous and measured, with polite horn honking to announce your presence, continuous near misses in slow motion with little use of turn signals and tailgating being the norm for passing on the many one lane roads we traveled…no road rage…just a universal understanding.
Upon arrival at the Hotel Majapahit we discovered that we walked into the 69th anniversary of the 1945 insurgency centered in Surabaya that brought independence to Indonesia after the end of WWII. It was then that the allies attempted to restore colonial rule after the surrender of the Japanese who had taken Indonesia from the Dutch during the war. It turned out that our hotel had an important role in all this, hence a heavy presence of both the Polisi and the military here. Upon learning this we wanted to visit the Heroes Monument, a lengthy stroll from our hotel. The museum was closed, but we were let into the fenced grounds to wander, reading the plaques on various statues of the insurgency leaders and eyeballing the confiscated allied weapons. Back at the Majapahit, we roamed around the ostentatious grounds, walking by Room 33 (Allies’ headquarters in 1945) many times, which seemed to be guarded by several stern-looking bodyguard types, who looked at us each time suspiciously, curious about our intentions. We were so tempted to move quickly toward that room, knock on the door, just to see if our imaginings were correct.
The next morning we headed for the island of Lombok, which is in the West Nusa Tenggara Province of Indonesia and part of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Presenting our tickets at the airport counter, the agent looked at us woefully and said that our 2:45 p.m. flight wasn’t happening due to military aircraft using the airport and that the earliest flight we could take would be 4:15. We whiled away the 4 hour wait at Starbucks, catching up in my journal, Maggie reading the English version of a local newspaper which contained her new favorite quote: “To insure success of the 7th Bali Democracy Forum, police announced they would not tolerate demonstrations or protests of any kind”! The glass is always ½ full and our leaving later than expected coincided with the setting of the sun, showcasing a number of volcanoes on eastern Java and Bali, with their billowing white smoke wafting away from their craters, changing to hues of red and eventually, leaving just their silhouettes.
Our 6 night stay at Yuli’s Homestay on Lombok was planned to be a respite in our adventures, a lull before the nonstop activities of Sulawesi and the Raja Ampat islands, and it turned out to be just that, with one exception...the blaring loudspeakers from the Masjid next door to Yuli’s, reminiscent of our experience at Rumah Dharma. Other than that our time was spent relaxing poolside, conversing with other foreign travelers, wandering into the small seedy beachside town of Kuta on market day, a colorful gathering of women sitting on blankets, their nuts, fruits and vegetables laid out in front of them, and with horse-drawn carriages carting around locals and goods. We also found it refreshing to walk the Kuta beach brimming with families and naked children splashing, jumping off rock formations, laughing, waving, and yelling “hellos”.
One day really stands alone. Maggie and I rented a Honda scooter to ride an hour west to Selong Belanak beach. It’s important to note that we do not own any 2 wheeled vehicles. I last had a motorcycle 50 years ago, so it was a challenge for us and amusing for onlookers to watch Maggie and me on a single scooter taking off, weaving, stopping suddenly, lurching and every other kind of movement imaginable. We also had to remember to drive on the left, which is not too bad when you are on a straight road. It’s just in making turns in front of traffic that can cause hearts to fail. 400 meters later we pulled over to a dilapidated kiosk on the opposite side of the road (that was fun) to purchase a liter of gasoline, a unique process. A very old, wrinkled woman with a stern countenance took a meshed funnel and poured the liter into our tank. Now all we had to do was get back on the other side of the road!
Finally getting a handle on driving, we started enjoying this potentially hazardous journey, Maggie looking around at the birds, tobacco plantings, the fields filled with rice, water buffaloes and their attendant egrets, while I was riveted on my responsibility to achieve a safe arrival. At intervals, we had peeks of the Indian Ocean. Around one turn in the road was a monkey just a few feet on our left, squatting and munching on some leaves. We spent several hours on the beach, frolicking in the surf and walking this long beach, coming across a row of old, colorful fishing boats in various stages of disrepair, but still apparently functioning as they were equipped with flood lights and long-shafted motors. We culminated this magical day with a perfect body surfing moment, got on our machine and “scooted” back to Yuli’s. We left Lombok with fond memories, rejuvenated and glad to be away from our neighborhood masjid.
Moving on to the island of Sulawesi, 11th largest in the world and one of the 4 Greater Sunda islands, we landed in the capital city of Ujung Pandang, commonly known as Makassar. The last segment of this dispatch will be a recounting of our South Sulawesi experiences during our 1 night in Makassar and a 1 day excursion to Bira Beach.
We arrived at our “hotel”, which had been arranged by a 3rd party, after many stops by our taksi driver asking for directions to JL. Rambutan. That should have been our 1st clue that this accommodation might be suspect. When we found it, we were greeted by a Ugandan lady who spoke no English, nor much Bahasa that we could tell. We asked who we would speak to and she took us outside, pointing to the phone numbers on the street side of the gate, uttering the word “boss”. I called two of these numbers, getting messages in Bahasa to which I replied in English. Miraculously we received a call back from the “boss”, Marla. We complained about conditions here but not much came of it. We took a taksi to go to the Fort Rotterdam museum, however the taksi driver had no idea what we were talking about, which is ridiculous since this is an important landmark that all taksi drivers should know (think Space Needle in Seattle). We left his taksi in bewilderment and found it on our own. Turns out we could have walked there, it was that close to our place.
Fort Rotterdam was a 16th century fortress which was captured by the Dutch in the 17th century and, as a museum, provided us some interesting history of the island, it being a major trading center, which led to a makeup of 3 distinct ethnicities: Malay, Arabic and Chinese. After digesting as much as we had a tolerance for, we proceeded to our target for this night: the Pelabuhan Paotero, 15 minutes north via becak from our Losari beach location. This is an old harbor where the wooden and colorful Bugi (Phinisi) schooners load and unload their cargoes. Our interest in this was twofold: (1) we are being transported through the Raja Ampat islands on just such a schooner, the Ombak Putih, and (2) the character of this old world harbor which is home to the transportation of goods between all the thousands of small islands throughout Indonesia.
We contracted with an old Indonesian becak driver to transport us for 50,000 Rupiah ($4.25 USD). We moved through congested traffic with heavy diesel trucks, massive fumes, passing Pelni Harbor which was busy with commercial container cargo, using modern port mobile cranes moving along their rails. We eventually pedaled onto a dirt road running through a dilapidated area, all along the way being reviewed by locals with some real curiosity. We smiled, waved; they reciprocated with smiling eyes. They probably felt bad for this poor old man pedaling these 2 adult westerners who each weigh more than the average Indonesian. He succeeded in meeting our goal to be at the docks by 5 p.m. for photography purposes, receiving an extra 20,000 Rupiah for his stellar work, at one point having to jump off his bicycle and run and push to get us over an area with broken concrete. Becak drivers are usually older folks; the young don’t care to work too hard. Sound familiar?
Our 1st glimpse of the docks conjured up a scene out of the 19th century: sweaty, lean and hard-muscled brown-skinned men toting huge loads on their backs. Two Bugi schooners docked alongside each other were being simultaneously loaded and unloaded. One vessel was unloading netted bags of red onions, via a sling, down to the dock, which were then carried individually to a truck manned by two workers, stacking bags to maximize their load, the other vessel was taking on 25 kg (55 pounds) bags of flour off a truck and into their hold, via 2 planks leading from the dock to the ship’s deck. One board was pretty solid, the other, not so much.
The one worker that stood out was a lean, sinewy, wispy-bearded, and handsome man with wise eyes and a stoic presence. He sported a head scarf, du-rag style, wrapped in a rakish manner. He would have been a pirate in another era. With his back turned to the truck, he was loaded up with 4 of these sacks (220 pounds, probably half again his weight) and he would walk slowly but firmly up these planks which would sag with the 370 pounds, walk over to the hold, turn, and fling the bags down below the deck.
I was so fascinated that I walked to the truck, had them hand me one of the bags, which I hefted and then put back. Well, next thing I knew, I had one bag on my back, walking with care as we still had 4 weeks to go, made it up the sagging planks to the hold and flipped it down to the two stevedores below. It was a hit with all the dockworkers and other onlookers...”Anglo tourist performs real work”! Anwar, my pirate hero, came over, slapped me on the back, calling me Marco Polo (not sure what that was all about). Turns out he’s in his 50’s, so I told him I was 70, cementing our bond. This is the kind of thing I dream about when we plan our style of traveling…getting up close and personal with the locals. Amidst all of this, Maggie took an exceptional amount of photos due to the variety of schooners, their shapes and colors and the ever changing lighting for great pictures!
The next morning we made the pilgrimage to Bira Beach on the Flores Sea via Tanah Beru where these wooden Phinisi (or Bugi, named after the Buginese people who build them) schooners are hand-crafted with skills honed over centuries of family passed-down teachings. Drawings are not used. We spent 30 minutes climbing around a large Phinisi-in-progress, after being invited up by the craftsmen. Up close now, we were struck by the beauty of the craftsmanship, lovingly caressing the wood, watching the workers watching us admiring their skills. Unfortunately, we could not ask any of the questions we had since they had no English skills, nor could we use our driver as a translator, as he also had no English skills. He was supposed to, though, since we were promised an “English-speaking guide” for an extra 600,000 Rupiah, just another snafu to deal with. We did get a group photo of these guys with Maggie which capped this extraordinary experience.
We walked down the beach and came across many more of these schooners, some smaller, all in various states, e.g., being repaired, built or merely mothballed. The last of this 1st run of snafus came shortly after we left Tanah Beru and landed at our hotel at Bira Beach. Seems we were scheduled for two rooms. We told them we sleep in the same bed, so didn’t need two. This was the second time this happened. It had happened in Makassar as well. This was all done through the same 3rd party, so we now started wondering what the rest of this weeklong “package” we had arranged would lead to. The next leg took us north 326 km from Makassar to Tana Toraja in the northernmost region of South Sulawesi, which was a rich enough adventure that it deserves its own dispatch!
Your faithful wanderers, Stan & Maggie