Worth a thousand words…

I’m not a complete narcissist, so allow me to explain where these photographs come from. The Sony camcorder I’m documenting with has a feature called “Smile Shutter.” When enabled and while shooting video this feature identifies faces which are smiling and stores that image as a jpg. Pretty cool. Therefore the majority of these photographs were not intended to be photographs, but are rather frames of video clips.

Have a look…

8 Hours in Jakarta
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=730639928703&ownerId=87300034603

Odds & Ends…
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=708554028703&ownerId=87300034603

“No English Spoken Here”

If only there was a cameraman…

On Tuesday Oct 13th I got back on the bike. I had too. $5.00usd is a cheap price to pay for freedom on two wheels. I’d met a number of travelers that spoke very highly of a natural lake about 45 minutes west of Bukittinggi, Sumatra.

Up at 7am, consume the consistently simple breakfast de backpacker (toast and tea), and turn over $50,000 rupiah to my hostel owner in exchange for a 125 cc bike (i.e. scooter with gears…to get SBO-technical). Long sleeves, pants, boots, sunglasses, and helmet…I set off at 8am into a clue blue morning sky. The road is uneventful until you arrive at the gateway to the lake. Without warning the horizon reveals what you’ve been searching for. You stop at the highest overlook, park the bike, and gaze 1000ft down the mountain walls to the lake below. You survey the lake from the northern end to southern and can’t help but be impressed by the towering walls that rise up from the lake’s shoreline. The water is crystal, the rice fields a fluorescent green, and the sky a popping blue. It’s one hell of a view. What could be better? Perhaps the 44 hairpin turns that navigate the 8km down the mountainside to the lake below. You put it in 2nd gear, cover the brakes, and enjoy the decent. Not much else I’d rather be doing at 9am on a Tuesday. The road terminates at the waterline and a tiny village. Two options. One decision. I go right. The next hour would take me past rice paddies so green, so well cared for, so iconic, so picturesque, they’re almost comical. It’s a scene of such landscape beauty you’d think it fictitious if you saw it painted and hanging on the wall. All this on the back of a bike.

It’s at this point I try and tighten my chin strap…and it breaks off completely. The angle of the helmet’s visor is such that without a chin strap to hold in place, the wind would lift the helmet off at any real speed. Conclusion: I’ll have to go without a helmet for the return. Why write this? Why paint this picture for my poor mom? Because without this untimely incident, the following moment never takes place. And it’s the following moment that makes the day, week, month worthwhile.

I make my way to the far side of the lake. If the eastern road down to the lake drops you at 3 o’clock, I find myself at 9 o’clock. The road turns from asphalt to dirt. The concrete homes turn to thatch huts. It’s as if you rolled the hands of time back 50 years on this side. Google Maps would have you believe there is no road around the lake. There is. And suddenly you find yourself having one of those brief moments where everything just clicks. Every set of eyes you connect with convey the same message: haven’t seen the likes of your kind around here for quite some time. Yet every smile that inevitably creeps across the face says the same: but we’re glad you came to see us.

The sun shining down and the locals are out to catch a glimpse. And at that moment you look down, adjust your right mirror, and catch your own reflection: hair matted straight back by the wind like a dog out the window, 11 days of unshaven growth on your face, a forest green button down shirt flapping in the wind, and a look of concentration and focus hid behind your most treasured pair of sunglasses. I felt like Steve McQueen at that moment for absolutely no justifiable reason. And you think to yourself: I’m currently in my dream. Living my dream. And man what would I give to have a photo of this moment right now.

A dear friend once told me the story of a Latin colleague he worked with at Morgan Stanley in New York. The man, well into the middle chapter of his life, took my friend aside one day. He pulled open a drawer and retrieved a leather folder. Opening the folder he revealed a black and white photo of himself. The photo, symbolically capturing the embrace of his own youth, a youth long ago since passed, was that of him…standing atop a surfboard…riding a wave. We all have that picture we treasure (or will treasure) in a leather folder in a hidden place. On Tuesday morning…that momentary personal reflection caught in the mirror…that was my picture.

If only there was a cameraman…

On Wednesday October 14th. Travel day. Travel Day o’ Hell…Part II. With my lunch pail packed, the crusts of my PB&J cut off, my shoes tied with double loop-d-loops…I sat outside my hostel waiting for the school bus at 7:30pm. What arrived was sadly not the school bus. I had booked a seat on a transport from Bukittinggi in western Sumatra to Dumai on the eastern coast. It’s a funny and unsettling thing when the travel agent informs you that only two sets remain. “Which would you like? The middle seat in the front [leg to leg with the driver], or the window seat in the second row?” What is this, my Mom’s woody wagon from 1988? Is this thing on wheels or rails? Motor or animal power? I choose the window seat in the back figuring there is absolutely no upside to the front.

7:45pm and a mini-bus pulls up. I’m the last pickup. I toss my bag in the back and maneuver myself into the window seat. The scene: three men across in the front seat. And as Jake Manookin’s dorm room door used to read: No English Spoken Here. To my right are two old men. Again No English Spoken Here. To the rear, three teenage boys three across. No English Spoken Here. Sweet…10 hours…here we go.

About thirty minutes in several facts became evident. 1). The driver’s skill set will keep my heart race at normal levels. Was he really that much safer or am I just getting conditioned to this type of travel? 2). We would listen to music for the next 10 hours straight. No choice in the matter. When we get into the Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits portion of the journey, I fire off a text to my brother describing my surroundings and the musical accompaniment of MJ’s “Bad.” His reply: “You love your 2nd class 3rd world travel” to which I could only reply “Sadly in Sumatra 1st and 2nd class travel simply doesn’t exist.” And it doesn’t. If I was getting to Singapore I just had to deal with this.

About three hours in we stop at one of those all-too-familiar road stop dining halls. Central Sumatra. 11pm. No English Spoken Here. By this point I’m used to the looks. The curious gazes. I sit down at a large table filled with strange, curious, friendly Muslims. My driver the only ‘familiar’ face in the joint. Plates appear; I dig in with my hands, and annihilate four plates in a matter of minutes with the ease as if they were soft taco supremes from Taco Bell. As my rampage continues various men exchange words and share laughs…clearly all surrounding the large ginger giant very much out of place. It’s at this very moment that I realize I’m tired of Sumatra. I realize I haven’t had a decent conversation over a meal in days. Wait, I haven’t had any conversation whatsoever over a meal in days. I’m ready to get to Singapore. I’m ready to get on the backpacker trail again. I’m ready to get off the relatively un-beaten path.

We drive through the night. Nothing to see. Impossible to sleep. All you can do is let your mind wander and fantasize about the shower when you get to Singapore….

At 4am our bus pulls over. Words are exchanged between my driver and that of another mini-bus. Handshakes and hugs are exchanged and suddenly I’m being ushered to the other bus. Go with the flow of the Dharma River, right Bobby? The only seat on the new bus…middle…front row. No sleep will be had until I reach Dumai. 5am….5:15am…5:30am…the sky starts to brighten…haven’t slept…5:45am…where is this town…6:00am…6:15am…6:32am…Dumai. THANK THE LORD.

Fingers still tinted red with curry from dinner… awake for 22 hours…smelly…and in need of my toothbrush…I disembark in an oil town that serves no other purpose for the traveler than as a pass-though. There is no earthly reason to spend any more time in the grim city of Dumai then is necessary to buy a ticket and board a ferry…which is exactly the next challenge. Within minutes I’m handing over $200,000 rupiah to what seems like a trustworthy type and being issued a ticket for the 7am ferry to Batam, Indonesia. Minutes later I’m back in a new cramped bus heading off to the docks, the sky now completely bright and the streets alive with locals. Ten minutes later I’m walking down a gangplank to a beat-up double-decker ferry. Hells yeah! I board, find my seat, stow my bag and pop out to the rear deck for air. Oil tankers fill the background, deckhands hurling luggage and sacks of produce from the pier to the ferry fill the foreground. Its 8am and people are still coming boarding. I’m 12 hours in, snacking on local fruit, leaning on a railing, exchanging smiles with deckhands and babies below, and (to state the obvious) the only white guy in sight. It’s brilliant. It’s a moment.

If only there was a cameraman…

Its 8:30am, we throw off our lines, and motor out of the harbor. I find my seat and crash. Hard. The ferry from Dumai to Batam is 7 hours. Thankfully there are no potholes or blind turns on the Straits of Melaka that separated Indonesia from Malaysia. The 7 hours pass by like they were 2. On the final stretch I gaze out the window and see a skyline: Singapore. I immediately bolt to the top deck and fresh air. A burst of adrenaline fires through you. You’re almost there…

*This is what 20 hour of Sumatran land & sea travel + zero sleep will do to your face…

We park in the island of Batam, a mere 45 minutes from Singapore. I buy a one-way ticket to the birthplace of the Sling, inhale my last Bintang, throw down lunch, and am left with only $11usd worth of unused rupiah. You smile cuz you’re getting good at this. Clear customs, walk down another gangplank, kiss the ground (at this point who really cares?), say goodbye to Indonesia and board a ferry for mainland Asia. Its 4pm. The as-yet-incomplete travel days stretches to 20 hours.

The ferry is not crowded. I have the top side deck to myself. We motor out of port and head north, the Singapore skyline clear as day. The afternoon clouds have parted and the sun feels remarkable. The ferry is full throttle. Suddenly a deckhand appears beside you. He unties a rope, lowers a flag and raises another.

“What is that?”

“Immigration flag. We’re now in Singapore water.”

“How can you tell?”

He points to the port side and a tiny rocky island we’ve now just passed. It houses a small lighthouse and the marks the international boundary between the 3rd world and the 1st world.

You throw on your $2uds pair of shades bought on the street in Java. Your hair is completely matted back by the wind. You put your hands behind your head, tilt your head towards the sun, take a deep breath, and smile ear to freaking ear. And there it is. You’ve done it. You’ve done Indonesia. Talk about confidence building. What a moment in the afternoon sun.

If only there was a cameraman…

Welcome to Singapore: A Pleasant Place to Shop. I clear customs and find myself in a mall surrounded by every luxury and convenience that New York or LA or London could offer. I find my HSBC atm, withdraw new funny money, navigate the Singapore metro (might as well be the Uptown 6 train) to the eastern suburbs, flag a taxi for the last 2 kilometers, walk to the apartment gate, hit the buzzer…walk past the infinity lap pool and into a four-story, million-dollar apartment that will be my free home for the next 4 days (it’s good to know people that know people…Fred Clark. Taylor Hurt. You are The Man(s)).

It’s almost 6 o’clock when I drop my bag. 22 hours. Two mini-buses. Two ferries. Two metro lines. One taxi. One epic story.

Who needs a cameraman…

En Route…

Ten hour mini-bus ride to Dumai.

Eight hour ferry to Batam.

45 minute ferry to Singapore.

Stage 1 commences in T-minus 90 minutes…

Hello mainland Asia.

So long Indonesia. Its been real.

Its been…

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113857108228539669434.000475cd617df8978ac81&z=5

Trans-Sumatran Highway: A Game of Inches

It is a nearly impossible task to do justice to the complete and utter misery that was the last 24 hours of travel. Near impossible, but I’ll try to capture the suffering and discomfort. The 14 hour bus journey from hell from Danau Toba to Bukittinggi as described in bullet points…

• The Trans-Sumatran Highway is not a highway. Its just a road. In parts it wouldn’t qualify for even that title. The road, at least the 500km we drove, didn’t have a single straight stretch of track anywhere longer than 1km. Think about that. The best way I can describe it is to picture the twists and turns of the Pacific Coast Highway (Rt. 1) just north or south of San Francisco. Those hairpin turns high on the cliffs overlooking the beautiful Pacific and rocky death below. Now reduce the quality of the road by 50%. Narrow it from two lanes to one and a half. And surround it by jungle.
• The route: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=113857108228539669434.000475b602c895b6fb944&z=7
• The drivers have absolutely no concept of risk versus return. Speed is paramount and safety an afterthought. Close your eyes and imagine sitting in a Greyhound bus glued to the window as your bus driver navigates the PCH in a fullsize coach bus…at 50mph. I’m not embellishing here. The speed was horrifying. The driver was some demented hybrid of Mario Andretti and Evel Knievel.
• Due to the speed and “S” like nature of the road, all objects on the floor constantly shifted from left to right. Right to left. When brakes were needed: back to front. Upon immediate acceleration: front to back. Objects included but not limited to garage bags, trash bins, empty soda bottled, etc.
• I was the last row on the right side, positioned just in front of the john. The toilet was an Asian style squat toilet. As such there was a giant container of clean water used to flush. It took about an hour before the turns and speed got so fierce the water started splashing over the container sides and on the floor. “Dear God people, keep that door closed at all costs…”
• The bus left at 2pm. It broke by 3pm. By 5pm we were in valleys that time seemed to have forgot. Majestic rice fields going off into the distance only to disappear into the valley wall miles away. The beauty is nice but all you can think about is the fact that driving on the valley floor means you’ll inevitably have to climb out of the valley. And that means back into the hills…
• Any shotty cavity work preformed by any of my dentists over the years would have been exposed last night due to the ultra violent jarring of the bus as it flew over unsealed roads at 100kph for a cumulative total of between 8-10 hours. I felt like a astronaut on the launching pad. Face, torso, limbs…all jiggling nonstop. My jaw hurts just a tad today.
• Thankfully I had eaten a small breakfast. The poor chubby kid several rows up was not so lucky. The vomiting started at 5pm. By 9pm he was dry heaving (nothing left in his tank). By 1am he sounded like a dog whimpering. It was horrible. Thankfully no smell, and his pain did bring the slightest bit of comic relief.
• On that note: I couldn’t think of a worse punishment for a severely hungover individual than this bus. Forget jail time. Liquor someone up and lock them in the bathroom for 14 hours. Who needs capital punishment?
• We started in the northern hemisphere and terminated in the southern. At that latitude the sun goes down at 6:30pm like clockwork. I’ve never dreaded nightfall so bad. As the sun set in the mountains to the west…and hauling @ss through the jungle in a bullet on wheels with reckless abandon…I felt like Martin Sheen heading up the river in Apocalypse Now. I mean we’re headed like a bat out of hell into the dark jungle and we’re now 4-5 hours away from anything that resembles civilization. That was a very lonely sunset.
• I limited my water intake for several reasons. 1). I didn’t want it to come up. 2). It would inevitably mean I’d have to enter The Cave at some point. That moment finally came after sundown when I couldn’t hold it any longer. Miraculously the bus pulled over to pick someone up. I jumped at the (stationary) opportunity. Never have I peed so quickly, but as I’m heading down the homestretch I can hear the engines come alive. We take off and I brace myself. The door flies open. I zip and leap out of the cave as the latrine tsunami gathers force.
• Like the ride from Medan, people just pass. Its horrible. But its just what they do. I think 35 passes per hour over 14 hours is pretty accurate. That’s a good 500 passes. Each played out exactly the same:
  • Pre-pass: 1-5 honks. “Hey, car/taxi/bus/truck/motorbike…out of my way. Here I come ready or not…”
  • Lane shift.
  • Acceleration.
  • Mid-pass: 1-5 honks. “Hey, car/taxi/bus/truck/motorbike…you better slow down and let me back over because there is a massive truck coming at me at 100km and I need to get back in my lane in 3…2…1…”
  • Abrupt lane swerve.
  • Post-pass: 1 horn. “I beat you. Who’s next?”
  • Acceleration.
  • Repeat…for 14 unmerciful hours….
• To complete the surround-sound experience (vomiting monster to the front & latrine tsunami behind) the 60 year old man sleeping three seats across on the last row would produce a cough every 30 minutes with Old Faithful-like consistency. The sound was unlike anything I’d ever heard, but with each eruption I couldn’t help imagining a black cloud of bubonic-plague smoke come out as well.
• Oh yeah. They had no problem smoking on the bus. But really that was the least of the worries.
• At about 9pm the AC becomes a problem. Its too cold to sleep. Plus the overhead lights don’t work so you can’t read (my torch is in my bag, captured in the bowels of the bus). So really all you can do is watch the clock slowly tick by and count down the minutes until 6am. Talk about torture.
• At 9:30pm we pull into the obligatory middle of nowhere bus/diner stop. Numerous buses are parked. People everywhere. Its a scene. Kids running around. Merchants selling fruit. Old men chain smoking their lives away. And off walks a 6’1” giant. Kind of used to this by now. All eyes turn to me. I’m too tired to smile. I’m hungry. I walk in and sit down next to the mother and son seated across from me on the bus. I wave my hands and plates of rice, chicken, and tuna appear…along with a spoon and fork. Following the others I dig in and start shoveling food into my mouth…with my right hand. I polish off everything and win a few points from the onlookers. I walk outside and pull the old “hey little kid, watch me as I make this green handkerchief disappear” trick. Suddenly 15 adults are smiling and throwing me these puzzled smiles. And the little kids multiply like Gremlins after midnight. God those are fun moments.
• Back on the bus and a little prayer that the food doesn’t act up. Cuz if it were to come out (either way) its going to be the worst experience of my life.
• At 11pm the speakers come alive with music. You’ve got to be f’in joking me. Everyone is trying to sleep, but no one does a thing. No chance. I’m not dealing with this. Last straw. I walk to the front and wave my arms. A few minutes later the music stops.
• I catch the time at 11:46pm and think of Dave Rose & Company drunkenly raising beers as player introductions commence inside Raven Stadium (12:46pm EST Sunday afternoon). I look at my surroundings and smile.
• 12am to 4am were horrible. I must have tried 30 different configurations to find a comfortably sleeping position. No joy. I’m a zombie.
• 4am the bus stops. Someone says “Bukit” and I realize, wait, perhaps the hell is over? Are we really here (2 hours early)? We are. I get a taxi to a hostel. Wake up the guy, find a bed, and shut my eyes at 5am.
• No joke…at 5:01am the morning prayer calls begin BLASTING from the loudspeakers all over town. I can’t help but laugh. Ear plugs in. Slumber.
• Can’t wait to never do that again…….until next month (probably).

Get me to Singapore.

“Found one of your passports to Sumatra, I missed you by about a week at Fiji…”

What has transpired since Jakarta ? Much and little.

Wednesday October 7th:

Up early and time to do irreversible lung damage by simply breathing. Jakarta is more than just a “city.” The tag doesn’t do it justice. If it had ten 50-story buildings, it might as well had one hundred. Jakarta is (cue dramatic drums: bum bum buuuummmm)…a MEGACITY.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population

It apparently resides at #2 on the list of urban population centers after Tokyo and before New York .

I consume the lavish free breakfast at the hostel, tea and dry toast, and head for a cocktail at one of “The World’s Best Bar.” Its 8am. First off this “Best Bar” accolade was bestowed by Newsweek magazine, which I suppose is akin to having a group of MIT students choose and present the ESPY for Year’s Best NHL Goal.

I get a ride to the harbor a good 5 kilometers away. Means of transport: 2

1). A 3-wheeled black-smoke-belching motorized somethingorother that can only be described with a visual.

2). A taxi, which only became necessary when the above mentioned Mini-Dragon was not allowed on the express road.

I get out at the intersection of Hood & Slum and walk into Café Batavia. First customer…

The Café Batavia (http://www.cafebatavia.com/) might as well have walked off the set of Casablanca , hopped a tramp steamer from Morocco to Java, and changed its name from Rick’s to Batavia . The two story bar, dripping in old British naval charm, is just flat out cool. Built entirely from well polished teak wood, complete with those Panama-style ceiling fans, it’s the kind of place you walk into, grab a stool, and say to yourself “what century is it and what continent are we on?” I immediately fired off a text to the one person whose phone could actually receive it (Tom O’Neil). Every inch of wall real estate is covered in portraits. The original 007 next to Ronald Reagan next to a vintage BMW 1930 motorcycle print next to Mickey Rourke (what?) next to Sir Winston Churchill. And on and on.

I have a black coffee and a Borneo Sunrise (have one) and enjoy my moment of peace. Cuz when you walk out that door its back to Jakarta . On foot I head towards the harbor. I don’t know why. On the way I get offered a lift from a 55 years old on the back of his bicycle. When in Rome . I get to the harbor, look around, blight as far as the eye can see, make a 180 degree turn, and start off on foot to walk the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ? Kilometers back to city center. I take a picture every 30 minutes when my phone alarm goes off. One day those should find their way to the screen.

Same drill, different city. Loads of smiles and lots of “helllllo misssster.” There was ONE guy that didn’t smile when I made eye contact (he had mob written all over him, so I decided to let it go. Whatever, I’ll take my .999 batting average).

About noon I get back to the city center and Freedom Square . Freedom Square’s crowning attraction is the ultra phallic 450 foot National Monument in its center. It’s blatant. Through the park and pass the heavily fortified US Embassy. Its nice walking by and exchanging afternoon pleasantries in your native language. “Selamat sore” gets traded for “good afternoon” with the big American soldier carrying the big American gun in front of the big American security wall. God bless. USA ! USA ! USA !

I spend the early afternoon getting lost in a state-of-the-art shopping complex (i.e. MEGAMALL) that’s easily 4x as large as Towsontowne. In the city center, where space is at a premium, it shoots up 8 stories. I could still be wandering around 6 days later and not have checked off the upper floors. Other stuff happened and more stuff and another old guy gave me a lift and more stuff.

Two nights and one full day in Jakarta are all one needs. Jakarta : B- on the face. B+ on the body. Overall: B. Too much? Time to get out.

Thursday October 8th:

I pack. I shower. I eat toast. I throw on 30lbs and walk out the door. The walk from my hostel to Gambir train/bus station is rather nice. Only catch is you have to cross a main transportation artery, which might as well be the crocodile-filled Nile River . It takes time. Minutes go by and there is no normal stop in traffic. Then a gap opens and you dash, but then three bikes you never saw appear out of no where and force you to retreat. Its comedy. I get to Gambir, buy a $1usd bus ticket to the airport, and pray that the 4 hours I’ve given myself to make my 1pm flight is enough time in the Third World . It is. Bus takes 40 minutes, check-in takes 30, so I’m left with a healthy balance of time to consume as many Us Weekly, In Touch, Star, and People trash mags as I can. When you’re devoid of Americana Pop Culture for weeks on end, you can’t help but utterly consume the details surrounding the tragic death of…… Jessica Simpson’s dog.

Sumatra is the world’s 6th largest island, with a population a quarter of Java. Whenever tragic headlines caused by natural disasters mention Indonesia , they usually surround Sumatra . Be it earthquake ( Padang ) or tsunami (12.26.04), Sumatra is rough. There is no train network to speak of and the loose bus network relies entirely on an unforgiving stretch of two-lane highway that goes from its southern tip to its northern and known as (cue dramatic drums: bum bum buuuummmm)…THE TRANS-SUMATRAN HIGHWAY. More on that later. Why fly? To willingly subject yourself to a Jakarta – central Sumatra bus trip, given the laughably cheap cost of air travel, would be like hopping a hobo-filled freight train from Baltimore to Denver when Southwest was running $30 one-way specials. It’s a no-brainer.

So I fly the 2 hours up to Medan in northern Sumatra .

My 12 hours in Medan , Indo’s 3rd largest city, will forever be anchored to 4 memories:

1. Looking across the airport baggage claim area and realizing I had 10” on the 300 locals. It’s just a straight up awesome feeling. Either I’m growing or they’re shrinking.
2. Three orders of chicken tiki masala in Little India.
3. Losing to a chubby local in a one-on-one arcade car racing game. Big loss for America , as about a dozen people cheered us on.
4. Riding in a motorcycle sidecar ( Medan ’s form of local transport) in the pouring rain.

Friday October 9th:

I’m big on traffic safety. Sadly no one else is on the Trans-Sumatran Highway . I arranged a 5 hour ride ($6usd) through the hotel in a new Toyota SUV from Medan to Lake Toba . We were two hours late leaving, got a flat tire along the way, must have passed between 100-200 cars, and were not passed a single time. Thus I can say with complete certainty that we were the fastest car on the road. It was white knuckle the whole way.

That’s all I care to say about it. When we got to Toba I got my bag, walked to the driver, extended my hand, looked him in the eye, and said very slowly:

“You drive like an asshole. You are not very bright. You drive to fast. You are going to die soon.”

At best he might have recognized “asshole” and “die.” At best.

Myself and Pea, a 33 year old German with a cute lisp who shared the drive from Medan , take a $0.70usd ferry to an island (Tuk Tuk) in the middle of the largest lake in SE Asia and set ourselves up at the “nicest resort on the island” for $6usd a night.

I play chess for two straight days, drink tea, and decompress with a great view after a week that included:

* One 17-hour bus ride.
* One 1-hour ferry ride (from claustrophobic hell).
* One 100km motorbike ride.
* One 9 hour train ride.
* The world’s 2nd largest city.
* One 2-hour plane ride.
* One 5 hour taxi ride (from hell).

Decompression is now over. At noon today I take the one-hour ferry back to the mainland and pick up the 15 hour bus to Bukittinggi, where I’ll spend two nights, before taking the 5 hour bus to Pekanbaru, before taking the 6 hour ferry to Pulau Batam, where I’ll catch the 30 minute ferry to a tiny slice of the First World: SINGAPORE.

Oh, and the only seat available on the 15 hour bus ride from hell: next to the john. Singapore sounds pretty nice right about now.

Appreciate the positive feedback from folks. Thanks for reading.

Jakarta ~ like a rush of blood to the head

The Rolling Stone packed up their gear (at least until Brown Sugar goes on stage next Saturday night), Kiefer Sutherland judo-chopped his way to free Bintangs, and my mild hangover drifted away on Sunday…

Monday: It’s a new day. Heck, it’s a new week. What better way to experience some world-renown central Java Buddhist temple then by…yup, motorbike. Borobudur is ranked as one of the top three “must see” temples in Southeast Asia (the others being Cambodia’s Ankor Wat & Myanmar’s Bagan ((both of which should be checked off by January 15^th))).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur

~Worth mentioning that I’ve clearly established allegiance to wikipedia as my quick reference of choice. Not to be cited in the bibliography for your junior thesis, but certainly gets the job done here. ~

Borobudur is 42 “clicks” (c’mon, who doesn’t want to use that term?) from Yogyakarta. With a 9am Monday departure in my mental logbook, I rent a bike from the local ‘guy’ on Sunday night.

Motorbike 101:

Scooter (without gears) – a basic moped (a la what the-want-to-be-trendy-kids in San Fran and every newlywed on the island of Bermuda ride). You need a basic understanding of gravity, the ability to have ridden a bike (successfully) at least once as a child, and a grasp of traffic safety to successful operate a scooter.

Scooter (with gears) – take the basic scooter and throw in 4 gears. This takes the incredibly easy job of operating a scooter and throws a twist. The gears are operated by the left foot peddle (push down to increase, pull up to decrease) but there is NO clutch. Simply shift gears as speed change requires. These tend to have slightly more power, and require a tad more concentration.

Motorbikes – these are the same as motorcycles in the US. Consist of five gears BUT require the use of a clutch.

Having gotten comfortable on Bali with third world traffic flow, I felt ready for a scooter with gears. One World Heritage site and 60 miles later, I felt very comfortable with gears. Bike aside, Borobudur was impressive. Not sure what else to say about it. They built it before I was born, before my older brother was born, before the 1919 White Sox scandal, before George Pickett got drunk at Gettysburg and started making bad decisions, before John Hancock put his ego an on important US document, before that kid from Apocalypto narrowly escaped being beheaded in Mel’s Period Vehicle (MPV for short…how’s that Spence?), and certainly before William Wallace kicked English ass in another MPV. In short: it’s old. Glad I went, but as I circled the temple clockwise (as you do with Buddhist temples…or so I’ve learned) I was more focused on the trip back. I mean its not every day a white kid from the mean streets of Homeland finds himself at traffic stops in central Java alongside non-English-speaking Muslims. But then you smile, they smile, everyone smiles, and the light turns green. If I’ve had one of those moments, I’ve had three dozen. Getting off track here but I continue to be impressed with how incredibly friendly the Indonesian people are. If only more Americans were like random Muslim motorcyclists in central Java our country might be……

I get back to Yogy by 3pm into the afternoon light. Great feeling. It’s just a short day trip but a rewarding sense of accomplishment all the same. I decide to cruise around the town a bit and find myself in the bird market near the Sultan’s Palace. A guy shows me around and I immediately break out the camera. And I could have bought the following:

1. Birds (every kind you can imagine)
2. Owls ( I guess they’re birds but never seen one up close)
3. Rabbits (for the loose change in my pants I could have sent everyone reading this three lucky rabbits feet)
4. Snakes (“Asps…very dangerous.”)
5. Spiders (I don’t like spiders. This will become a recurring theme in Asia I’m sure).
6. Squirrels (I asked about the dead one and he said it was “sleeping.”)
7. Roosters (The dirt was still blood red from the 8am cock fight that occurs… every morning.)
8. Puppies (“For eating?” I ask. No reply.)
9. And the crown jewel of the market for the low low low price of $500,000 rupiah ($50usd)…….a Komodo dragon. True story.

I go home, drink a well deserved Bintang, eat chix noodles ($1.50usd), a burger ($1.80usd), and decide on a tuna sandwich for desert ($1.50usd). This expensive meal to go with my bike ($5.00usd) and room ($8.00usd). Pick and choose your battles. Yogy: preserve cash. Thailand: spend cash.

I pack and hit the hay. Three nights in Yogyakarta. Perfect.

Tuesday October 6^th:

8am: Check out of hostel. Call parents. Eat banana pancakes. Drink coffee.

9am: Board executive train to Jakarta.

10am: Read entire chapter on Myanmar in Lonely Planet and get extremely excited.

11am: Read entire chapter on Malaysia in Lonely Planet and get moderately excited.

12pm: Decide the crying children are enough and search my bag for something absent in my life since Sept 8^th: music. The ipod still works and I flash back to the States as summer playlist after summer playlist drown out the screaming babies that have apparently just now discovered their own teeth.

1pm: I order noodles for lunch.

1:30pm: I try and pay for my $1.50usd noodles only to discover my $100,000 rupiah note is too large to be broken by my stewardess. Solution: order more noodles at $1.50usd a pop until they can break my incredibly large $10usd-equivilant note. I mean, I like noodles. Noodles taste good. Seems like a sensible solution. It works…after three rounds.

2:00pm: That feeling starts to set in. Minor what ifs start deep in your gut.

2:30pm: I call a hostel and lock in a room for the night. The what ifs disappear.

3:00pm: The rice paddies give way to concrete…

3:30pm: The concrete gives way to more concrete…

3:45pm: More concrete gives way to concrete and smog…

4:00pm: The concrete and smog gives way to the suburbs.

4:15pm: All that gives way to Gambir train station and my arrival into central Jakarta.

On the ground Jakarta comes at you like a rush of blood to the head. It’s safe to say I liked this place immediately. It’s the same frenetic orgy of noise and color and motion and energy you’re greeted with when you take that escalator from the depths of Penn Station and hit the sidewalk at 34^th and Seventh Ave. The horns, the bikes, the taxis, the motorized rickshaws: they’re everywhere and they move at a clip that you either love…or you hate. It’s like NYC. It’s either too much, or perfect. Commercial high rises create a ring around the city center. They’re bright and colorful and towering. Something very refreshing about seeing a fifty story building again. The pace of traffic in Jakarta makes Denpasar look like Blakehurst (that Blakeburst). After finding my hotel inconveniently located on the other side of a major artery…I waited for 6 minutes before finding a suitable gap in traffic flow to Frogger my way across the street. 6 minutes! I noted the time since it became comical after 3. The people you pass on the street have that look. That look of focus that every New Yorker wears with pride. Yet unlike New Yorkers, when you catch an eye and throw a smile…it comes back immediately. People piss on Jakarta. Probably for good reasons that I’ll discover tomorrow. However I liked this place from the moment I left the train platform for no reason other than it’s big and bold and loud. In a country where beauty and tranquility are prized commodities, Jakarta is a badly needed lung-full of cigarette and exhaust smoke. Badly needed for no reason other than its’ stark contrast to the limited cocktails and sunset postcard impression that most tourists have of Indonesia after a 10 day stay in paradise. Sure Bali is Indo. But Jakarta IS Indo.

If the following encounter this afternoon is a preview of this city’s flavor, tomorrow should be interesting:

In Maryland you steam a crab first. This sends the crab to the Big Clambake in the sky. You then take off the ‘zipper’, remove the shell, lungs, legs, and dig in to the cavity. Walking down a main drag three hours ago a huge wok caught my eye. In it: crab shells. The size and shape of those found in the Cheasapeake Bay. My eyes then drift several feet away to the executioner’s table where the above-mentioned procedure is traded for another: place live crab on chopping block, rip off shell, chop crab into halves, chop off legs, chop crab into halves again, throw quartered and still twitching crab into wok. Cook and serve. *I wonder if given a choice which death most crabs would choose: a quick Drawn & Quartering or the slow Sauna of Death? It’s a tough call.

If I wasn’t dead thirsty for a Bintang I’d have stopped. Tomorrow…

Kiefer Sutherland, The Rolling Stones, & Central Java

It’s the little things…

1. I have three open cuts on the crown of my head that get reopened every 2-3 days. Why? I’m 6’1’’ in a country built for 5’8’’. I’m learning, yet the curve has been painful…literally.
2. Potato chips. I love them. I eat them. I consider myself somewhat of a potato chip conosour. I do not support however Lays decision to introduce the “salmon flavored” potato chip. It’s just weird. Weird and disappointing. Especially when its 2am, you’ve had a few pints, you’re hungry and you grab what you think is a plain bag of chips from the market…open bag…insert chip into mouth…and…wtf???
3. Bus toilets. Just an open hole in the floor to the street.
4. Cost of petrol. To fill up a motorbike: $1.00usd. Range: 100miles. How can those economics work?
5. Cash registers. Frankly they don’t exist. Not in upscale clothing stores, supermarkets, petrol stations, etc. There is simply a drawer. An unlocked drawer. An unlocked drawer that houses a disheveled stack of rupiah. Does anyone steal in this country?
6. Garuda. It’s a company. Or a corporation. Or a monopoly. Or an empire. Or something. All I know is I flew Garuda Airlines from Lombok to Bali. I ate a bag of “Leo” chips produced by…Garuda. I danced at a club last night in a hotel named…Garuda. I’ll get to the bottom of this.
7. Pride. It may be premature to make generalizations about the Indonesian people as I’ve only explored a limited part of this great country thus far, but from what I’ve witnessed Indonesians are an incredibly industrious people and take great pride in the little things. They wake up every morning around 6am. Not because the commute requires it, but because the dirt street in front of their home, business, stall needs…sweeping. They sweep the dirt and make sure that what they have (which isn’t anything by western standards) is neat, clean, and meticulous. Lawns and gardens are manicured with the utmost attention to detail. Granted those lawns may be 10 square feet and surrounded by what we would consider blight on either side, but to the owner of that patch of grass appearance and upkeep are paramount in the daily routine.
8. No smile given has not been returned.
9. I haven’t once felt I’ve gotten the ‘tourist markup’ on street food.  I’m sure I have, but when you buy a meal on the street…and all eyes suddenly fix on you…and the locals begin giddily talking amongst themselves…you just know they could charge you 10x the local rate and you’re going to pay whatever they quote. Why? Cuz I’m the guy who sticks out like a sore thumb. And guys that stick out like sore thumbs don’t haggle over street food prices (you haggle over the purchase of material objects…sunglasses, paintings, children, etc). But after they take extra special care in preparing your lunch, hand it to you, and say “$3,000 rupiah” ($0.30uds)…you feel comforted that these people are truly honest and consistent and not in the business of ripping off the Yankee tourist.
10. Street nudity. Sitting shotgun and watching the world pass by on the way to Rinjani, a man in his mid-30s stands absolutely naked (no shoes) on the side of the road. He looks at me as I pass him by at 80kph and doesn’t move. Just hanging out. Because that’s normal for a 10am on a Monday morning.

Friday October 2^nd: The Day Things Really Begin.

Fitz, feeling under the weather and not too jazzed about the idea of Java and earthquake-prone Sumatra, decides to stay in Bali until meeting friends in Singapore on October 16^th. I, feeling fine and ready to see Indonesia, book the bus from Denpasar, Bali to Yogyakarta, Java. I spend the morning on the internet and packing the bag. At 2pm I get a lift, for $3usd, on a bike up to Ubung terminal. I arrive, find my bus, and set in for the long haul. Bus leaves at 3:20pm. It’s not crowded but the guy across the aisle has a puppy in a cardboard box. The bus: a Greyhound-style western bus except the seats went way the hell back. Not to mention the whole leg-rest thing in front of you. It was like flying business class…except you’re in a bus…and there is a puppy in a box across from you. But just like business class. And what does that mean? It means you can actually sleep on the third world red-eye bus.

All is well as I’ve got two seats to myself and am very content watching the Bali landscape fly by out the window when suddenly…

The TV comes alive. Feature film: “War Without End.” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386863/

The most obscure and worst acted war movie ever produced. And who thought that would be a good idea to pop in the box? Good news the DVD dies after 30 minutes. Bad news it goes from bad to worse. Next up in business class: Indonesian karaoke love songs. Honestly. The words to the songs appear on the screen as a random Indo couple suggestively chase one another around a pool. I tune it out.

Three hours later we pull into the port town of Gilimanuk on the western tip of Bali. Across the water is Java. The bus stops. The driver says something I don’t understand. No one speaks English. About two-thirds of the passengers get off. Having no clue what’s going on other than a belief that this bus is in fact going to Yogyakarta, I decide not to disembark. What proceeds next is not good. The bus turns around and they back the bus down a ramp and onto the ferry. All is well. The ferry is wide enough to handle three buses of this size across its width (3, 2, 1 across). Our bus is the first one on and gets ‘parked’ in slot 1. All is well. Then another bus gets parked next to us (in slot 2). I’m sitting in my seat glued to the window marveling at this parking job. The bus stops and it dawns on me that it’s so close (literally 12” away…no exaggeration) that our two exits are now completely blocked…and useless. All is not well. At this same time another bus backs in front of us. We’re now completely walled in. Ocean to the right. Ocean to the rear. Bus to the left. Bus to the front. It’s now dark outside. It’s dark inside. The drivers are smoking cigarettes and talking quickly. Suddenly a chemical reaction starts to take place inside my body the likes of which I’d never experienced before. The likes of which I can’t control. It’s a reaction I hope I never feel again. I realize for the first time in my life I’m having a claustrophobia-induced panic. My heart starts racing. My fingers start to tingle. My legs are going numb. What is happening? It’s the realization that suddenly I can’t get off this bus even if I want to. Even if I started yelling at the drivers there is no way for them to move the bus in front of us. I start to freak out. Quietly freak out. I start looking for blunt objects to use to break the glass incase this ferry sinks. I’m caged. My mind is racing. Pulse is quickening. Things are getting worse. I’m really starting to panic.

It’s a very strange thing. I’ve never had an issue being stuffed in the window seat for 5 hours crossing America from 30,000 feet. But now, for the first time, I can understand how people have trouble with airplanes.

I stand up and walk to the bathroom. I look in the mirror and tell myself that getting worked up will only worsen the problem. Control your body. Control your heart rate. This is a mind over matter problem, and the solution is upstairs. At the same time this is a physical problem that can only be resolved with the passage of time. One hour to be exact… when they ‘unlock’ me in Java. I go back to my seat and immediately open Blind Side. I COMPLETELY immerse myself in Michael Lewis’ description of an interview the NCAA conducts with Michael Oher. Word for word. Line for line. I’m focused. Anything to get my mind off my situation. The ferry departs. I cool down. The ferry arrives. I’m cool. The bus disembarks. I can breathe again. Lesson learned? You bet. I fall asleep.

At 11pm I’m awakened by the driver handing me a red ticket. Everyone else is getting off. The bus is stopped. I think we’re meant to feed. I step from the bus and into the night. This is Java. I follow the crowd. First to the bathroom. Then to a large hall. I’m groggy from the 2 hour sleep, but this is not the time for reinvention. I follow the pack. I exchange the red ticket, pick up a plate, and spoon rice and something else onto my plate. I grab a tea and find a seat. Few things are setting in now.

A). Having been asleep since we landed on Java I have NO idea where we are. None.

B). I’m at least 6” and 30 pounds larger than everyone else in the room. 5 rows by 5 columns of tables,  4 people to a table– I’m the only white person in a packed bus stop dining hall at 11pm in no-where Java on a Monday night. Bus stops are sketchy in America. Bus stops are sketchy in Indonesia. Amen to consistency. Not the time to break out a camera, but totally the time to break out a camera…but not this time will I break out the camera.

We re-board and business class takes off into the night. We roll into Yogyakarta at 8am. Long distance transit while backpacking is a curious and great thing. There are two consistent emotions I’ve found: excitement & apprehension. When you take off, or pull out, or sail away…you’re excited for all you’ll see during the ride. Excited to read. Excited to write. Excited to reflect. When you land, or pull in, or sail in…you’re apprehensive about a million things. How will I get from the station to the city? What if there are no taxis? How far would it be to walk? What if the people are hostile? What if the hostels are booked full? How long will it rain? The arrival produces a lot of ‘what if’s’. I’ve got a few of those rolling into Yogi…

After five minutes the ‘what if’s’ find me on the back of a motorbike heading across town to the Sosrowijayan district. The lift costs me $3usd. I find a great room (on the ground floor of a one story building, mind you) for ten bucks.

Yogyakarta (pronounced JOE-JA-karta) is the central of political and intellectual thought in Java. It’s a university town of about half a million. It’s clean and organized and young. The main drag is bursting with street activity on this Saturday morning. Showered and clean I take the alley from my place out into the morning sun. People everywhere. Bikes everywhere. Commerce everywhere. As it’s a university town I now feel like I’ve now got 10” and 45lbs on the tiny youth teeming everywhere.

I buy a pair of new shades for $2usd and park it. Within minutes a group of six 14-year olds timidly approach me. The shy female leader of the pack laughs and asks very slowly “May I ask you questions?” To which I reply by standing up, putting my hands over my head like a bear, growl, and yell “BEAT IT!” ~OK they didn’t happen.~ All they want to do is practice their English and so we do for the next 10 minutes while one of them holds a camera phone up and tapes everything I say. 60% of the Indonesian population is under the age of 35 (or so I was told by Kiefer Sutherland). The youth is learning English everywhere. It’s like the group of four boys who swam up to me in the water off Gili Trawangan and asked to practice their English. They’re just curious and want to learn, so I speak slowly and incorporate a great deal of hand gesturing. But you can’t help but laugh when they ask something like “How is your life?” How do you answer that? Um, good. “Why is life good?” Um, well…

I’ve often said while traveling in this nature that ‘you can’t make a wrong turn.’ Figuratively speaking of course. What I mean is that whatever ‘turn’ you inevitably make will lead you to something or someone new, something or someone intriguing, and something or someone you’ve never seen or met before. When it’s ALL new to you it really doesn’t matter which exit you take, cuz all exits lead to the same discovery. That said some turns are better than others. I made a good turn last night about 8pm. Having wandered the street life after dark for long enough I was in need of a tall, cold Bintang. A sign for a billiards hall caught my eye on a passing street…so I make a turn. The hall is closed but the bar next store is open. I walk towards the window and come across a Dutch guy having a beer at a table by himself. If he wasn’t a spitting image of Kiefer Sutherland, my name isn’t Tony Almeida. I sit down and we shoot the breeze. Two tall Bintangs later we decide to change venue. Kiefer Sutherland and I head back to the backpacker ‘hood and into a bar called…Bintang…where we proceed to order…Bintang. We saddle up to two Dutch girls I’d met earlier that day. We’re seated right next to a small outdoor stage where a few people are setting up a drum set. Little do we know at the time that we’d just taken front row seats to the Rolling Stones.

About 4 tall Bintangs later, Bintang is packed. Standing room only, yet I’m seated with two attractive Dutch nurses and Kiefer Sutherland. And out walks a tight-leather-pants-wearing, long-hair-waving, Indonesian knock-off of Mick Jagger. Lead guitarist (Keith Richards) looks like a dead ringer for strong safety Troy Polamalu. Ronny Woods is EXTREMELY talented on backup guitar, and Charlie Watts is (predictably) shy in the back. No exaggeration: these guys rocked. The playlist:

• Only Rock ‘n Roll
• Angie
• Start Me Up
• (some Chuck Berry song)
• Like a Rolling Stone
• Beast of Burden
• Sympathy for the Devil (at my request to Mick during a break)
• Foxy Lady (splash in a little Hendrix)
• Let It Roll (The Doors)
• Get Your Kicks on Route 66
• Sweet Child of Mine (the place was rocking)
• Satisfaction

The place closes at midnight and the owner, who’d taken a liking to us, takes us to the club at the Garuda Hotel. Cover charge is waved and we hit the dance floor. And I’m faintly confident it was the first time (in the history of Indonesia) that someone has put a beer bottle on the floor, made a circle around it, and hopped around it for 20 seconds (i.e. every wedding dance floor I’ve ever been on). I bore and go home.

Java: It’s more than just coffee.

Rinjani

I last chimed in from the tiny sand spit of Gili T. It rocked. And to elaborate on its ‘rockness’ allow me to paint a picture…then share a picture. This 21 year old (whose name escapes me ~ no surprise there) spoke no English (to me at least) but had complete mastery of Gun ‘N Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” chord for chord and could get by just fine in any American restaurant if using only the word’s to U2’s “One.” Thankfully I capture both stirring renditions on video. *On that note you’ll see that all the pictures are of pretty budget quality. The Sony camera I’m shooting with also takes pictures, but as you can tell photography was an afterthought in the design room.

Right. So we leave Gili Trawangan Monday morning. Fitz is feeling about 65% and climbing. Perfect time to completely destroy any forward progress in the wellness department by camping for three days. Up at 6:30am. On the boat dock by 7am. In a wooden skiff and heading across the open water to Lombok by 7:10am. This skiff ride lasted no more than 20 minutes but it was enough to completely soak all of us in salt and realize that anything goes in third world travel. This “vessel” wouldn’t be allowed to ferry garbage to New Jersey let along transport human cargo in the states. This was not life or death – you could swim to one of the nearby Gili islands, but if this thing went down all my stuff is ending up at the bottom of the Lombok Strait…with no one to cry to.

“But sir! My camera is ruined!”

“Tough.”

As I wrote earlier I’d been gunning for this mountain the last week. You sit there on Gili T and just look at it all the bloody time.

Sunrise: its there.

Midday: its there.

Sunset: its there.

We make it to Lombok by 7:30am. Car picks us up and shuttles us to Senaru (start of the trail) about an hour away in eastern Lombok. There were two French couples along with Chops and I.

Younger couple: French dude one (FD1) & French gal one (FG1)

Older couple: French dude two (FD2) & French gal two (FG2)

Very nice people. FD2/FG2 spoke no English and I’m pretty sure FG2 and I never had so much as a non-verbal exchange (i.e. smile, head nod, etc) over the three days. FD1 and FG1 spoke a bit more English. Enough for me to learn that the French get 8 weeks of vacation and essentially can’t be fired by their employers…or something close. Also, after graduating university they have the choice of either working for the French government abroad for a year or going into the French military…or something close. FD1 was a very nice fellow in his mid 30s so I resisted from taking him Yard on this ‘slow pitch’ of a comment regarding the mythical French military.

So you drive into Senaru and this beast of a mountain rises above you.

Day 1:

We’re on the trail by 10am after some banana pancakes and an introduction to our 20 year old guide “Jimmy.” Nice kid. Can smoke a cigarette at 10,000 feet like no one’s business.

The trail starts at about 1,900 feet. Seven hours later you’ve just climbed 6,500 grueling feet of elevation change from the forest ~ to the jungle ~ to the grassy slopes underneath the volcanic rim. That climb was no joke. A). I haven’t done anything in a long while to prepare me for something like that, and B). Gili T is still lingering in my system. However just as the clock hits 4pm you start to see a ridgeline…and you know that camp is near. The incline (a no-joke 45 degrees) suddenly flattens into a razor’s edge and you find yourself standing on the rim of the volcano’s caldera (see Earthquakes & Volcanoes). The pain you’re feeling immediately turns to complete awe, your jaw drops, and you utter a few expletives (as I did). Words are cheap. Pictures are not:

You feel very small. We set up camp (er, the porters set up camp), we make dinner (er, the porters make dinner), and you watch a sunset that makes you believe in a higher power. After dark a very cool thing happens: you realize the black line trickling down from the cone of the very-much-active volcano in the middle of the lake (btw, there’s an active volcano) isn’t just running mascara…its lava. Yup, people. That’s right. There is real lava running down the side of a real volcano inside a real volcanic crater. It’s almost laughable. Where are we? Middle Earth. And to make things even cooler, the volcano (Gunung Baru) makes noise. Every 10 to 15 minutes Baru makes a sound that last for 10 to 15 seconds ~ its best described as ten 747 jumbo jets taking off from JFK at the same time. Come on. How cool is that?

So after having dinner of rice and rice and more rice, and one more look at the lava ….you crash. Not go to bed, mind you…but crash. You’re legs are burning and you realize this Rinjani trek is no longer just for S&Gs.

Day 2:

I set my alarm and get up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise. It’s completely and utterly absurd. Not a surprise. It’s also a ‘blue bird day on the mountain’ and the cloudless sky is as blue as ______ (something very blue). Breakfast had, you now begin to hike down the side of the caldera and towards the lake…and the active volcano trickling “liquid hot magma.” It’s about 8am. Its during the hike down (hike is kind of a misnomer here, more rock climbing than anything else – Pops, think the Baranco Wall on Kilimanjaro) that it occurred to me that if Rinjani were a national park located in the lower 48 states…it would easily fall in the top three in terms of must-see. The views are just out of this world. I couldn’t stop shooting video and stills:

You get to the lake after about 2 hours down and now you’re standing toe to toe with this lava flow (separated by the crater lake). We have lunch and do nothing for 3 hours. You’re tired. Very tired. And dirty. And your legs hurt. You smell. You realize you’re probably just capable of pulling this trek off in your current physical shape but MAN is it going to be a b*tch. You realize all this. And you also realize that you’re at the crater lake (6,500 feet)…which means you’re now going to hike (in the next 19 brutal hours) from 6,500 to the summit: 12,221. Do the math. This time you let out an inner expletive.

After lunch you go to these hot springs near the lake. I mention it for no other reason than to enhance the look and feel of ‘dirty.’ You think it a wise idea to submerge yourself in sulfuric hot springs to wash off the grime of the last few days. Instead you come out with this red tint on you which makes you look like an Ompa Lumpa.

Jimmy tells us the afternoon will be 3 hours up to the ridgeline and Camp 2. It starts off easy enough and then turns near vertical. No joke. Straight up hill. More climbing than hiking. It flat out sucked. You did get to cross these rickety old bridges straight out of Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, so it had that going for it.

Few things happened that afternoon to me however.

1). I turned Asian.

2). I put on some weight…in my face.

The afternoon sucked and you find a new level of tired, but you get to the ridgeline and camp. Camp. Camp is perched on a cliff. Our tent is the closest to the ledge. You don’t want to sleep walk this night.

(Both shots from the morning after.)

There’s another ridiculous sunset but you’re really too tired to care. Too tired to move. Too tired to think about the fact that the hardest part actually starts in 8 hours…

Day 3:

The cell phone alarm goes off at 2:30am. You already have on every piece of clothing. It’s cold and it’s only going to get colder. You get outside and exchange few words with the others. I’m keeping my No-Hitter alive and don’t even look at FD2 and FG2. We leave camp at 3am sharp. You climb a steep wall for the first hour then the ridge flattens out. Here you look down into the lava-spewing cone of Baru. Its pitch black above (no moon) and this thing is oozing lava. There might as well been little hobbits running around. Totally Mt. Doom. Everyone has a torch (aka flash light). The cool kids have a head lamp. Somehow the Indo cell phone picks service back up and I call Mom and Dad at 3:30pm eastern standard time. Great conversation. Brief.

Climbing to the summit of a volcano in the middle of the night is a very strange thing. I’m no expert but this was my second go at this type of thing and about 2 hours in I find myself saying “this is torture.” And it really is. Its fun to talk and write about it when it’s over but at the time there is nothing even remotely enjoyable about being layered in clothing, caked in volcanic dirt, sleep deprived, and heading into the worst surface known to man: scree. Scree is a combination of sand and rock…but more sand than rock. You take one step and slide back ½. Repeat. It’s horrible. But you’ve got to deal with it to get to the top. I dealt with about an hour of scree. It’s an hour I’ll never do again. 200 meters below the summit the sun crosses the horizon.

You finally get to the top and enjoy the view.

I can’t call this a victory. Rinjani kicked my ass. But I got to its roof…and back down (8,600 feet down in 5 hours) in one piece safe and sound. That’s a victory unto its own.

I was tired of being on the mountain and hiked down with the porters…at porters pace…and had some time to kill before France and Devin showed up at the trailhead. No English was spoken. None needed. I can make a handkerchief disappear into thin air…and that was all it took to win over these little nuggets:

We all meet up and take a van (#1) back to Senaru. By this point I’m used to traveling in cars without doors, so the fact that two porters are hanging on the back of the van doesn’t really raise an eye. Not a laughing matter but the porter seated directly across from me…only had one eye. We get our bags and into another car (#2). Destination: Mataram airport. About an hour into the ride we pull over and switch into the driver’s friend’s car (#3). Its moments like this that the third world amuses you and pisses you off. But without these types of incidents I wouldn’t be allowed to utter phases like: “Half now…half when we get to Mataram.” Coming off the summit of Rinjani, covered in three days of Earth, and having exchanges like that: it felt very Doctor Jones-esque.

We buy one-way tickets from Mataram to Denpasar, Bali ($37usd). We’re the nastiest people on board. It’s comical. No further explanation needed. The 30 minute flight between islands is in a normal 777 aircraft. The type of plane you’d cross the US in. We took off…the stewardesses served tea…we landed. Thirty minutes. Strange. Taxi from the airport to the villa to the shower to the bed. Slumber & bliss.

Like I said to Fitz: Some days are great and some days are epic. Wednesday was epic.

I leave for Java tomorrow.

Destination: Yogykarta.

Means: 15 bus ride.

Backpacking starts tomorrow.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles…..and Ships

In the next 72 hours we’ll hike to a 3726 meter summit and sleep on the side of a slightly active volcano (the same volcano that’s been dominating my horizon the last 5 days and taunting me). This island is a huge draw for diving. The extend of my time in the water has been limited at best – its just too perfect above the waterline. Everyone comes and dives and gets certified andsnorkel, and bla and bla and bla. I strut by the diving schools and immediately turn my head 180 degrees east and fix in on Gunung Rinjani.

Its the second tallest volcano in Indonesia….and if you ever took ‘Earthquakes and Volcanoes’ (aka ‘Shake ‘n Bake’ — aaka ‘easy jock course 101’) with Thomas Manley (aka P_ _ _ _ Manley) for an easy J-Term ‘B+’ you’d know Indonesia has just a few volcanoes. Anyway, Rinjani…big volcano.

So at dawn on Tuesday morning, while you guys are cracking beers and getting into Monday Night Football, I’ll be watching the sun rise from the summit of a volcano. Not a bad view. Just ask Thomas O’Neil Jr.

PLANES:
After three days on the mountain we get a ride to Mataram airport on Lombok (Scott: this is where the rubber band planes come in). Thirty minute flight from Lombok to Denpasar, Bali. Its twice as cheap to fly one-way ($27usd) between the islands then it was to take the 2.5 hour ferry (which we did). Get into Bali at 8pm and crash with our old cook Lilis.

AUTOMOBILES:
We spend the day in Bali ditching all the stuff we packed we don’t need. Why? Cause the holiday is over. Its time to start getting dirty. Fitz knows it. I know it. Fitz is ready for it. I’m ready for it. Repack and have Toya (best driver on the island) drive us the 3 hours out to the western tip of the island, home to the transit town of Gilimanuk – staging point for our assault on Java. Spend the night there and up at 6am….why?…

SHIPS:
…to catch the hour-long ferry from Gilimanuk (Bali) to Ketapang (Java). Then procure some mode of transportation to get us the hour south to Banyuwangi. At which point…

TRAINS:
…we navigate the local train station…and get ourselves on the 5 hour train…to some town I can’t remember the name of…where we sleep for the night…then wake up real early at dawn………and see It: Bromo….

I’ll be back online when I’m back online….

Thanks for reading.

Volcanoes Rock!

Its official now: There is no greater place on Mother Earth (other than the lower section – behind the “Move Those Chains” guys – at Ravens Stadium for a 1:00pm kick-off with the sun shining) than the tiny sand bar island of Gili Trawangan, Indonesia. Yesterday: you’re dead tired for the previous day’s 22 hours of consciousness, and a healthy dose of “island good times,” so you turn out “crap” on the internet, rest, buy soap, read a book, relish the realization that there is no where on the island where NOT wearing a shirt is looked upon in even the faintest glow of negative. The sun sets on the western and untouched side of this sand patch at 6:30pm-ish. Why? Cause these are the tropics. Cancer to the north and Capricorn to the south. But this more than the tropics. This is the Equator. With the Earth’s Belt a mere several hundred miles to our north…the sun first touches Gili T at 6:22am (as I witnessed this morning) when it rises above the crater line of the ever looming 3,726m tall active volcano on the adjacent eastern island of Lombok: Gunung Rinjani. And twelve hours later it goes to sleep in another volcano. This time to the west and into the island of Bali. Its tallest peak: the dormant 3,142m tall volcano of Gunung Agung ends the sun’s run for the day. To see both (as I will in about 2 hours) is the reward for learning that Bali is an island of hustle and bustle. Three million trying to make a go. Whether it by the land or rupiah, everyone and everything is in constant motion. Different story all together on Gili T. Different story? Different medium. This place moves at a pace that makes Tortola look like Chicago. And then you have to remind yourself this isn’t some sweet little island resort place in the middle of the Lesser Antilles. This is Indonesia. 200,000,000 Muslims scattered across more islands that women Clooney has bedded. This is Indonesia. The land of surfing lore and radical extremists. And we haven’t even scratches its surface. Back to being tired…

The sun makes its way down and you sit in little huts on the beach, resting perfectly on a mountain of cushions and pillows that have the appearance of having witnessed a thing or two. You eat chicken soup and inhale a pizza. A bottle of water is a requisite. Few words are spoken since you can’t take your eyes off the sight in front of you. The crater rim of Rinjani towering above you on an island…three islands away. And we make up our minds: we will climb it. The tab comes and you laugh for being charged $2.50 for the best bowl of chix noodle soup you’ve ever had. We leave by 6:30pm so we can make sure to get seats….er, pillows on the floor at the island movie theater. Open air movie theater of course. Max capacity: about 35, spread 5 across over 7 or eight rows. Shirt: optional. Sandals: optional. Audience: international. Subtitles: incoherent assemblage of the English lexicon.

Spoken:
-Phil, how are we going to get the tiger out of the bathroom?
-Why the hell are you asking me? I’m not the one with a hospital tag on my arm.

Subtitled:
-Phil, tiger no friendly in bed2room.
– Ask us where? No emergency shirt found.

Movie: The Hangover. After being forced to order something off the menu (in exchange for the viewing pleasure) I decide on 2 scoops of vanilla to go with one of strawberry: $2.50usd. That’s what they call the price of admission. In bed by 9pm.

Ring tone (changed to “Destiny”) acting as alarm clock, goes off at 6:00am. The fan is off (power is never on in the morning), the door is open (neither one of us shut it), and Fitz is sawing logs on the other side of the room. I grab my camera and hit the as-yet-un-SWEPT-dirt-STREET and head the 200 meters to the beach. A few couples slowly walk, hand in hand, down the main highway (single lane dirt road) that sits not more than 100 feet from the water…those hundred feet representing a golden white sand oasis. The sky is getting light but no sunrise yet. Not a cloud in the sky so the unobstructed views to Rinjani make you rub your eyes. This is Indonesia. That’s a volcano. This is going to be the best sunrise I’ve ever seen. Good time for the camera: set up the tripod, get the view I want locked in the viewfinder, hit record, grab a seat, and enjoy the next 15 minutes as the sun breaches the ragged crater rim that acts as the horizon. Not a bad way to start a day. Hey look at that. Its 6:45pm on Thursday evening in Pennsylvania. Think I’ll call a girl who has a thing for McDonald’s nuggets in a city park, an addiction to Ray Laymontague (or Ray LaymontAN if you want to get it right), and a talent for choreographing naps. At 9am you speak with a man whose name is “Black.” He’s introduced as “Black” and then introduces himself as “Black.” We’re in our due diligence stage of assessing the feasibility of climbing to the 3,700m summit of Gunung Rinjani. We discuss the duration: 3 days and two nights on the mountain. We discuss the route: Boat to Lombok. Transport to the village of Senaru. Itinerary: Day One: Senaru to the crater rim. Roughly 4,500 feet of vertical climb over 5-6 hours. Camp at the rim. Day Two: Hike down into the crater and camp at the hot springs. Day Three: Hike back to the crater line and down to Senaru.
“Wait, why can’t we climb to the summit?”
“Because the mountain is alive.”
Apparently the baby volcanic cone (Gunung Baru) inside the crater is making some noise. As such you aren’t allowed to climb to the summit because of the gas. Closed for 3 months. That’s if all this checks out (other organizers – ok, one…and he barely spoke English – corroborated this apparent fact). Cost: $80usd…each. We’ll come back to this development in time….

Down to the beach. Having finished High Fidelity (hey Small, don’t turn into the protagonist. He reads skinny), I trade the book at the local book swap. This hut doubles as the internet resource and can sell you toilet paper as well. I locate the Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring guide in a deep bookshelf in the back that time seems to have forgotten. Lonely Planets are essentially the backpackers and travelers guide to the world. They are the proverbial Road Bible. I carry the 2008 edition in my bag. So what did I discover on the shelf that time forgot, in the store that time forgot, on the island that time is yet to discover: Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring…publishing date: 1985! You can ship home all the Balinese wood carvings you want. All the artwork you can carry. Me? I’ll take a vintage 24 year old road-worn bible. Trade? No. This is a treasure you buy. I trade High Fidelity for Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side. If you’ve never read Liar’s Poker, or Money Ball, or Panic then you don’t know that the most talented author on the planet at making true stories, of potentially dense material topics, leap off the page is…..Michael Lewis. Sitting on the beach logging my first real ‘beach day,’ captivated by the story of the Baltimore Raven’s Michael Oher, life is tough to beat. A leggy blonde (of clear Nordic decent evident by the few exchanges she shares with her clearly Nordic boyfriend) to my right, the ocean in the foreground, a cloudless Rinjani in the background….this is paradise found. When the sun gets to about 2 o’clock I change positions, not by adjusting a chair, but by walking to the other side of the island. Here you find five Dutch stunners lounging in about 2 feet of stagnant water, Bali in the distance, white sand under your feet, blue sky dominating everything else. It’s hot so you of course wade out and join five Dutch stunners. The usual small talk exchanged, they gaze in astonishment or envy or disgust when I answer I’m traveling open-ended. It’s the perfect scene. Placid water protected by a reef. A volcanic island on the horizon. A deserted white sand beach and attractive company. But back to Michael Oher…Blind Side: get the book and read it.

When the equatorial sun finally burns through the multiple layers of SPF 30 you decide to head back to ‘civilization’ (a hefty 20 minutes over a sand road), find a beer, and share. This island is like Byron Bay, NSW, and Australia. People come for three days…and leave 3 months later. Except the world knows of Bryon Bay. The world, but a handful of lucky folks, is thankfully still unwise to the magic of Gili Trawangan. But all that will change in time I’m sure…

Not today and not tomorrow, but get here soon….