However, the Indonesian flying experience is not all dark clouds with silver linings that provide philosophical or spiritual epiphanies. Arriving in Mataram, Lombok was undoubtedly the best airport experience I have had and probably ever will have in the world. Walking along the runway into the terminal, a very nice man in broken English quite sincerely said, “Thank you for visiting Lombok.” This not being my first time traveling in a country where my white skin is an immediate indicator of wealth and ignorance toward local prices, I winced as I expected him to force me into a taxi cab, carry my bags demanding an exhortative tip, or try to sell me a dumbed-down tour package of the island. A brief discussion surprisingly revealed that he was simply a dentist returning from a business trip—a Lombok resident that was truly pleased to see a resurgence of tourist activity on his home island (the island’s economy has deteriorated as tourism wanes in Indonesia due to various factors including the Bali bombings of 2003). After this pleasant conversation, I stepped into the terminal and was dismayed at the fact that my bag had actually arrived at the baggage claim before I did. Unbelievable. I walked at a reasonable pace from the airplane to the baggage claim, and my bag had already magically arrived. I still don’t know how they did it. This is a country so notorious for delays and general temporal misunderstandings that they have a well-known phrase--jam karet--literally meaning ‘rubber time’ to describe this universal Indonesian tendency for tardiness.
One other baffling contradiction that works in great favor of the tourist is that, although no one checks your ID when you get your ticket and carry-on bag screening is occasionally deactivated, airport personnel are meticulous about making sure that the bag you take out of the airport matches your claim ticket. In other words, you may have to worry about a bomb or a knife or a gun on the airplane, but you certainly won’t have to worry about someone else making off with your bag at the baggage claim—a bag, mind you, that was delivered in an impeccably timely fashion. Turns out I have flown a half a dozen times since arriving in Lombok and I have never had an ID checked, yet also have not yet waited more than 3 minutes for my bag to arrive at the claim carousel. Once, the security guard looked at my friend Jane’s ticket, politely asked, “Are you Jane?” she simply responded affirmatively and walked on through. That's just a brief description of flying in Indonesia. Just ask me sometime if you want a detailed description of traveling by car, bus, boat, motorcycle, or on foot. All transport methods in this country are equally unique and idosyncratic.
As you may have guessed by now, I have been doing some traveling lately. For the past month my students and I were released from the Pesantren by the Ramadan holiday and I was given the opportunity to see some of the country. Unsurprisingly, I immediately gravitated toward the natural wonders, of which Indonesia is in no short supply. Basically, from Sept. 12th to Oct. 12th I was climbing mountains, relaxing on beaches, snorkeling, riding on boats, in cars, and on motorcycles, diving, reading, fishing, taking pictures, and spending some quality time with other American Fulbrighters. It was a predominately great experience, and here I will proceed to tell the story of the month in little detail with a great many pictures to support my travel tale. I have included a great many pictures because reading a list of where other people have been and what they have done is frequently only interesting to the person who is writing said list. Nevertheless, some of you may be genuinely curious about where I have gone and what I have done, so I have provided the following pictorial outline in the most interesting way possible, pausing only to delve deeper into my travel experience in order to relate stories that I believe are generally appealing and interesting to people other than myself.
Gunung Rinjani dominates the landscape of the small island of Lombok. First goal of the trip: get to the top.
Although it violates my self-image as an independent, self-sufficient, and mildly hardcore backpacker/mountain climber, we had a guide and porters for this 4 day hike. In retrospect, that was a very good thing because this mountain is steep and this national park is not developed enough to include switchbacks in the trail. The porters packed our food and some supplies, the most interesting of which was a live chicken. We were fascinated by this chicken, probably because the average American does not encounter live chickens in day-to-day life, and we always knew the location of the porters from the resounding ‘squaks’ of protest the chicken produced every fifth step. In general, here in Indonesia people are much more intimately familiar with the source of their food than we are in the United States. Later on in the journey, we saw pigs and goats scream in protest as they were tied to the roofs of buses. Rather than bringing a cooler with a frozen chicken breast on our three-day boat ride the captain simply brought 3 chickens and hand fed then every day (well, on the third day there was only one left to feed.) These and many other more grotesque scenes of blatant animal abuse were at first shocking to the American eye, because we live in a country where we can buy a Costco pack of 24 chicken breasts, 5 pounds of hot dogs, or two large packages of bacon. Here, if you want meat (which everyone does), you need to buy the animal, tie it down, take it home, raise it, kill it, and cook it. The concept of animal rights understandably does not cross the mind of someone raised in this culture. I must admit, animal rights began to seem a little absurd as I observed many markets and small towns where the humans were struggling to survive—with little regard for the animals.
Becky and I sympathize with the tied-down chicken that is soon to be dinner.
Summit sunrise: check.
First foray into freshwater fishing on the crater lake.
Pretty good view I guess.
Next stop: the beautiful beaches and relaxed party atmosphere of the Gili Islands.
Sunset over Gunung Rinjani--from the boat.
Goodbye Lombok. A three day ride on this boat took us to the land of Komodo Dragons. The boat ride was interspersed with stops for fishing and snorkeling.
There’s one!
Now we move on to a deserted island for 2 nights of camping and more (unsuccessful) fishing. This island was deserted, so we owned it for 3 days!
Off the boat and into the car for a drive through the mountainous and culturally rich center of Flores island.
The marketplace in Ruteng, Flores.
Traditional village, traditional crafts. Really, really traditional. This was a great experience.
A traditional woman pictured making traditional handicrafts in the traditional manner.
Two of the three different colored lakes of Gunung Kelimutu. Another summit sunrise.
Now onto Manado for a much-needed week of remaining stationary (traveling is exhausting) and diving every day!
Wonders from the underwater world.
Okay, that’s a good general pictoral recap of the travels. For many more pictures and commentaries please see my Webshots account.
After a month straight of traveling, I came back to Makassar and looked at the map of Indonesia, realizing that I have still only seen a very small percentage of the country. Although I came away with loads of fantastic pictures and great memories, I still have a strange feeling that I cannot even comprehend the potential for exploration this country has to offer.
The tiny boxes and arrows indicate areas I have explored so far.
1 comment:
Poop Dog, you talk like a ghettofabulous gangsta, but you write like a Fulbright scholar. LOVE the blog and the pics. Enter some of those diving pics into a contest.
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