Asia Trip, Week 3

Ok, so we left off as Taylor and I were departing Bali via bus to return to Surabaya only to hop right on a plane to Jakarta for a conference that Taylor had to go to. I believe I left you hanging on the last post with something like "and that's when it got interesting...." Well, it was interesting because I feared for my life (really) for the next 12 hours. For starters, “highways” in Indonesia are largely 2 lanes (1 lane in each direction) with no dividing line. They wind through the mountains and are extremely steep and curvy. Finally, drivers pass each other with little to no concern for oncoming traffic and often you feel the bus weaving back and forth at frightening speeds. I think they must go like 70mph through these roads too, it’s insane. It wasn’t so scary until one time we were asleep and I literally felt the back of the bus, which is where we were sitting, slide OFF THE ROAD. The sides of the road are basically the side of a mountain so we dipped noticeably and the driver had to steer wildly and basically head perpendicular to the direction of traffic to pull the back of the bus back onto the road. After that, I could hardly sleep for fear that we would die on this roller-coaster/bus ride.

Then it got worse. We stopped at a rest stop at about 2am for food. When we were getting back on the bus, I noticed that it said Malang on the front. Malang is about 2 hours south of Surabaya and NOT where we needed to be going to catch our 10am plane to Jakarta. Taylor asked a fellow passenger who confirmed that we were going to Malang. He then told the bus operator that we had been told the bus would go to Surabaya and he basically just said “yes, yes, it will after Malang” Taylor doubted that this was true, and this was confirmed when about 15 minutes later we pulled over next to another bus (for a different company altogether) who was stopped to get their food. He told us and 3 other men on the bus that we would have to switch to that bus to get to Surabaya. Then, we saw him pay the driver of the other bus to take us. Evidently, they had lied and put us on the wrong bus and this was the solution.

So…we did arrive in Surabaya on time and headed straight to a hotel that Taylor knew of so that we could shower before our flight to Jakarta. We paid $10 to shower in one of their rooms, grabbed some breakfast at McDonalds, and went to the airport. We were dog-tired because we had barely slept on the roller/coaster bus, but we were on time! Just to clarify, we were going to Jakarta for a conference for the Fulbright program, which is the program through which Taylor is in Indonesia. The conference began Friday evening and lasted through Sunday morning and I decided to come to since I couldn’t bear to waste any of our time.

Our flight to Jakarta was delayed some, but I did get to meet some of the fellow Fulbrighters (all female of course). We arrived in Jakarta and had time to go find a hotel for Taylor and I to stay in before he had to head to a 4pm-6pm meeting. We checked in to the Novotel (the same brand as our favorite place in Surabaya) and he headed to his meeting. I went to the gym for the first time in weeks, it felt good! By the time I showered, Taylor was back and we grabbed some dinner and hung out before hitting the sack early.

The next day, Taylor left first thing, leaving me all alone for a day in Jakarta. I decided to be brave and try to do some sightseeing, so I got in a cab and went to the “Monas” which is basically the central monument in Jakarta. I first went to the National Museum and spend an hour or so reading about Indonesian history, then I went to the monument itself.

A couple pictures:
The museum
Me in front of the Monas

Since this was the first time that I had been out without Taylor, it was also the first time I experienced men shouting “I love you, Mister!” at me everywhere I went (they have a little trouble with pronouns since they don’t have gendered pronouns here). I even had a gaggle of about 15 Indonesian boys ask if they could have a photo with me (and look VERY excited) when I said sure.

I walked around that area a little bit, taking pictures to prove to Taylor that I had in fact ventured out and then headed back to the hotel. That afternoon, I got a manicure and pedicure and hung out by the pool, waiting for Taylor to return. He returned at around 5pm but had to leave again at 6:30 to go to a dinner. While he was at dinner, I went to an internet place and started working on transcribing this fair tale and also grabbed some dinner in the hotel lounge. By that time, Taylor had returned and we decided to just hang out at the hotel for another night. Taylor was also very sick, which factored into our decision to be lame.

On Sunday, Taylor had another meeting, so I stayed at the hotel again until he returned. His cousin who lives in Jakarta also came by with her son and nephew so that they could meet me. They were really nice and gave me a package to bring back for her sister who lives in the U.S. (and therefore I lied when asked "has anyone given you anything and asked you to carry it with you on the plane today?).

We left for the airport and arrived back in Surabaya that evening. Of course we went straight to the Hotel Novotel to check in. We decided to go to dinner and a movie that night and saw the movie "Yes Man" with Jim Carey. It was a decent movie, but Taylor's favorite part was that one of the actors from Flight of the Concords was in it. I swear, Taylor loves that show so much that this actor could literally do no wrong in the movie. He was in hysterics every time he was on the screen. That's one thing I love about Taylor, he has a great sense of humor.

We went back and went to bed and got up at a decent time the next day to enjoy the pool a little more before embarking on our next adventure. Taylor had been wanting to go to this Safari about an hour from his house. Since you can't really rent a car in Indonesia, we had to hire a driver to take us to the Safari and then on to Taylor's village. We left with the driver at around 1pm and got to the safari at about 3. It had been pouring rain until right before we got there, but luckily it cleared up, so that was nice.

Now, something you have to understand about Indonesia is that they have very little gonvernmental oversight of most things, including wild animal safaris, apparently. So, this Safari is actually one that you drive through in a car. We paid the admission and started driving. The first couple animals we saw were sort of just wantering on their own on the mountainside. There were llamas, some grizzly bears, and some deer-like creatures. After a few minutes, we came to a gate that opened as we approached and closed behind us. And then we realized that we were in a giant cage...with the tigers!

Seriously, you look our and there are HUGE tigers just chilling 10 or 15 feet from the car. Now, it was a Monday and fairly rainy, so we were actually the only car anywhere around, so the tigers appeared slightly interested in us. Although, not interested enough to stop one tiger from trying to mate with another, sparking a violent little confrontation with another jealous suitor and some very loud growling and aggressive posturing. It was pretty cool. We took a bunch of pictures and decided to move on before the tigers turned their collective aggression on us!

The next cage we entered belonged to....the lions. And these lions were't your Toledo or Bronx zoo sleepy lions. They were playful, active, HUGE, maned, and eventually very territorial. We watched the lions from just a few yards away as they chased one another around, climed on some large fallen trees, etc. Eventually, after a few minutes, one of the male lions with a mane noticed that our vehicle had been encroaching on their territory for some time. Apparently, this was a problem because it wasn't long before about 4 other lions ran up and started to approach the car. Now, Taylor and I had been sitting next to each window in the back seat since there were lions on both sides. But as they started to approach us, our driver started to move, the lions started to chase us, and suddenly I was on Taylor's lap in the exact center of the back seat, as far as we could get from the windows and we were driving about 25 miles an hour with 3 lions in hot pursuit! It was absolutely crazy, I've never seen anything like it (and I hope I don't ever again!). It became clear, however, that they were just interested in getting us off their property because as we neared the exit gate, the lions backed off and we escaped without a scratch on our car. Whew!

The rest of the Safari was pretty interesting, but not nearly as eventful as being chased by a pride of lions. Toward the end of the park, you get to what they call the "baby zoo" where you can pay $1 each to have your picture taken with a lion cub, tiger cubs, and an orangutan. Here's me and Taylor with them:




I don't know why, but I got scared when the time came and I only did the orangutan. It was pretty sweet though!

We left the safari and got a ride back to Taylor's village where we stayed at the Hotel Sativa again. We headed up to Taylor's village the next day (Tuesday) so that we could do some cleaning around his house and spend one last day in his village.

We got to Taylor's village in the early afternoon. He had been gone about a week and a half, and somehow is power had stopped working. Seizing any opportunity to be around Taylor and in his house, many, many villagers came over to help rectify the electricity situation. Of course we were thankful because Taylor would never have been able to do it himself. Of course his neighbors also showed no intention of leaving once the problem was fixed! About 15 people remained hovering outside his house while we started to unpack from our trip and clean. I started to sweep, and Taylor suggested that I go sweep in the front room where people could see me. I think he was hoping that they would realize we were busy and that our activities wouldn't be very exciting to watch. Instead, three of his neighbor women decided that we weren't doing it right and proceeded to go to their houses, gather up cleaning supplies, and come back and commandeer the operation. They were probably there about 45 minutes and they cleaned his house top to bottom, doing a much better job than I ever could have done. In fact, every time I tried to help, they took the tools from me and told me to go rest. I have never seen anything like it. Taylor felt so bad that he paid them with American snacks that his parents had send for them before sending them on their way. Since the floor was wet, we just hung out in his room for a while to let it dry.

Taylor got in touch with his co-teacher and found out that I couldn't stay at his school because they had some guests there. I'm also not allowed to stay in his house, so we decided to go back to the hotel Sativa for the night. Luckily, the car at the hotel remembered where Taylor lived and they were willing to come back and get us since it was pouring rain and getting late by the time we found this out. We went down to the hotel and got some dinner before laying down to watch the inauguration on TV (it was on at midnight, live).

On Wednesday, we woke up and packed up all my things to head to Surabaya for my flight back on Thursday :( I couldn't believe that my trip was almost over...In fact, I have to be honest, I'm not going to recount the rest of the trip because it makes me too sad to think about leaving, and it's not that interesting anyway!