30 Before 30: Our long trip! Bandung Indonesia (where I became a zoo animal)

May 31 2013 – Railay, Thailand to Bandung, Indonesia

Our flight out of Krabi, Thailand was at 7:55am, so we took a 5:50 boat to a waiting taxi to get to the airport at about 6:45.  Our driver was a woman my age named Gahn who spoke very good English and regaled us with some very frank stories/facts about the famed “lady-men” in Thailand.  For what it’s worth, there are a lot of them because it’s acceptable and they do have operations.  Finally, older white men sometimes prefer them to actual women because they cannot get pregnant.  I did not ask about these things, it was offered freely.  She also mentioned that the Israeli army comes in June and is very angry.  She was a hoot!

After a delayed arrival in Bandung and way too much time spent in immigration, we were finally back on Indonesian soil!!

Our first reminder of how much we love Indonesia and its prices in particular when we were quoted 50,000 Indonesian Rupiah for the taxi to our hotel, around $5.

The Jayakarta Hotel is in the north end of Bandung, in an area called Dago which is also home to the Dago Tea House.  From what I can tell it’s a cultural center with tea and a great view of the city.  They also had a restaurant, where we sat in our own private bamboo hut and had Mie Goreng (friend noodles, Indonesian style), gado-gado (mixed vegetables with peanut sauce), and sate ayam (chicken satay with peanut sauce).  We also each had a soda and tea.  It was all delicious, served in a wonderful environment, and cost us a total of $6.40. 

Mie Goren (friend noodles)

Sate Ayam (chicken satay)

June 1, 2013 – All day in Bandung

Before we ventured out for the day, we had one very important stop at the hotel before we headed out for our day of adventure: the most expensive coffee in the world.   Indonesia is famous for the most expensive coffee in the world, called Kopi Luwak.

This is going to sound disgusting so bear with me.  The coffee grows in Indonesia in a region also inhabited by a cat-like animal called the luwak.  The luwak has a penchant for coffee (which is not a bean like people think but actually the pit of a fruit) and gorges itself when it is in season.  Then, the animal digests and passes the pit of the fruit and excretes it.  Something about the enzymes in the luwak’s stomach makes the coffee taste amazing and the digested beans are what is used to make Kopi Luwak.  At our hotel, 100g of the coffee sold for $100, that’s $5,000/lb!  So of course we had to try a cup (we paid $3.50), and must admit, it was really good coffee, as long as you didn’t think about where it came from!

Riding in an Angkot, a form of public transportation that costs $.20/ride

After the coffee, we headed out for our day of exploring starting with a tour of the campus of ITB (Institut Teknologi Bandung), Indonesia’s equivalent of MIT, it’s top Technology University.  The campus was pretty and full of students studying and otherwise congregating. 

Thinking about what could have been (if his grandparents and dad hasn't emigrated to Holland then the US!)

Next, we wanted to head to a nearby mall, but instead stumbled upon the Bandung Zoo.  With an entrance fee of $1.50, we couldn’t pass it up.  The zoo was had pretty grounds, but the conditions for the animals were just horrendous.  The deer-like animals’ entire pen was like 6” deep of just mud.  Many of the animals were in cages that were about 3 sizes too small.  The zoo seemed like an afterthought for most of the people in it.  They seemed to use it more as a park where they put out blankets and ate as a family and if that happened to be near an elephant, so be it.  But what they did seem very interested in watching/taking not-so-covert pictures of was me.  I guess a white westerner with blonde hair is way more interesting than any of the animals.  And I was kind of used to that in Indonesia by now, but it kind of makes you feel like you’re in a zoo, and when you actually are….then it makes you feel like an animal, which is weird.

We did see some animals really close up, though, and even saw a real live Luwak (not producing coffee, though), so it was worth a stop!

A Luwak, the coffee popper!

Taylor handing a leaf to a monkey

Crocs!

Tiger sleeping with its tongue out!

Lions

Orang Utans - the name "orangutan" is a mash-up of the Indonesian words meaning "person of the forest"

From the zoo, we headed toward the famous Jeans Street.  It’s a street full of stores selling (you guessed it) jeans!  We weren’t really in market for jeans, but we did want to see the famed 20-ft statue of Rambo that tops one of the stores. 

Our next stop was the old European center of Bandung (from when Indonesia was a Dutch colony), and a street called Braga, where we found a cart selling lumpiah, an eggroll-like Indonesian dish that Taylor’s Oma (Grandma) used to make and that his dad still makes.  We got two to go and ate them on a sidewalk.

On our way to eat our lumpiah, we were approached by a group of female students from a nearby Islamic school who were practicing their English on “tourists” (white people).  They could not have picked a better tourist, because Taylor does a great job indulging students who are practicing their English.  After many photos and questions, we were on our way.

Taylor's fans!

After eating our lumpiah and answering our questions from students, we hopped a cab back up near our hotel to catch an Indonesian Anklung performance.  I didn’t know what to expect, so I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the performance, but boy was I surprised.  The performance started with some more modern Indonesian music accompanied by a shadow puppet show, which is very traditional Indonesian.  Then, were were a couple of dancing performances.

Finally, they transitioned into the Anklung portion of the program.  The Anklung is an instrument that really isn’t like any other.  It is comprised of many pieces of wooden tubes hung from a contraption.  Each set of tubes is set to a different tone (note) and you shake them in a particular order to create a melody.   They even passed out anklungs for everyone in the crowd and we were able to play together.  Each of our anklungs was set to a different tune in the “Do, Re, Mi” scale.  They taught us how to make the anklung make its sound and then taught us hand signals based on the tone assigned to our anklung.

Finally, we played some simple and some more complex songs as a group.  It was really fun!  The performace ended with an audience participation section where the adorable little kids who were involved in the performance each came into the crowd and picked someone to take onto the stage and participate in the dance.  Of course being white, I was chosen by an adorable little Indonesian girl who took me through the dance.  She was the consummate professional and was able to teach me all the moves even though we did not speak the same language.  Such a doll.

After the show, we realized that we still needed to arrange our transportation to Yogykarta, where we were planning to go the next day.  After consulting the Lonely Planet and realizing that bus and train options take 10+ hours, we voted for air travel to save precious time.  Also, one-way tickets in Indonesia are really very affordable, less than $50 each on average.  In Indonesia, you can book flights the day of in most cases by visiting a travel agency.  After finding a great site that listed all flights in Indonesia, we realized that there was no way we were getting to Yogykarta on Sunday.  There’s just one flight at 6:20am and since we didn’t even have a hotel reserved, we didn’t feel comfortable getting there so early with nowhere to go.  So, we decided to fly to Surabaya, where Taylor lived in Indonesia.

However, since you can’t book online with most Indonesian airlines, we had to wait until Sunday and go to the airport ticket counters to do it.

At our hotel that night, there was an Indonesian wedding.  It was beautiful.  Here are a couple of photos:

June 2, 2013 - Bandung to Surabaya

We woke up early and headed straight to the airport to buy plane tickets!  Flights to Surabaya, Yogykarta and Bali procured, we headed out for our next adventure: Abu Domba.

Abu Domba is a ram fight that takes place on Sundays and is a favorite pastime of seemingly every man in Bandung.  It took a couple of tries for our cab driver to ask the right person and locate the random trail through some trees off of a main road and into the Abu Domba park.  We knew we were in the right place as soon as we enered because we were greeted by row upon row of huge rams with semi-circle shaped horns, stately faces, and the biggest, lowest-hanging balls I have ever seen on an animal.  Also unlike other animals one might see in Indonesia, these rams appeared well-fed and cared-for, almost as if they were family pets of their owners.  Pets that then get sent into a ring to butt heads with another bull for the entertainment of hundreds of Indonesian men, all of them smoking like chimneys.  Seriously, we were in a park, but so many people were smoking that it felt (and smelled) like a crowded bar (remember when bars allowed smoking??). 

Stately ram

And they're off!

After Abu Domba, we headed back to our hotel where it was time to check out.  Since our flight wasn’t until 7:55pm, we spent the rest of the day relaxing by the Hotel Jayakarta pool and sneaking in a quick workout.

The Jayakarta Pool

Then, we headed to the airport for our flight to Surabaya.

After a delayed flight and a brief scare that we were at the wrong gate and had missed it, we arrived in Surabaya at around 10pm.  We were greeted by the familiar and uniquely-Surabaya experience of having literally hundreds of Indonesians crowded immediately outside the arrivals hall.  It is really overwhelming and is as if every arriving passenger’s entire extended family comes to greet them at the airport.

One of the things I love most about Indonesian bathrooms (there are many, jk!).

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