Aug 2008

Ciluk

We have a new friend to introduce, Lutfi Handayani, or Ciluk (chee-LUKE) as she is nicknamed. Ciluk is a 22-year-old student studying English at the University of Yogyakarta, and she and her family hosted us for the three days we spent here. Yogyakarta (used to be Jogjakarta under the Dutch, and that’s how it’s pronounced) is the cultural capitol of the island of Java, and it’s a fascinating city, much more enjoyable than the big and stinky Jakarta. But for all that Yogya has to offer -- and it’s a lot -- by far the most rewarding experience of our visit here was getting to know Ciluk and her parents, and experiencing life with an average Indonesian family.

The Handayanis' kampung

The Handayanis live in a house in a middle-class kampung, or neighborhood, called Jagalan Landoksari (which means “neighborhood of Jagalan Street”) next to the river, across from the main part of downtown Yogya. The main part of their house is about 70 years old, and is built in the traditional Javanese style: four upright pillars holding up a pyramidal tile roof.

Mrs. Handayani's kitchen

The outdoor kitchen is off the main house and is connected to the new part -- their house was damaged in the 2006 earthquake that rocked Yogya, damaging many of the ancient monuments. The new section contains several bedrooms and a mandi, or bathroom (more about that in a moment) around a main room. The construction is completed, but it needs to be painted yet. Things take time here.

Breakfast in the new part of the house

Bathrooms take a little getting used to here. While you still run into the traditional Asian squat toilet here (usually with flies in a holding pattern if it’s at a road-side restaurant), most houses and newly constructed places have western sit-down models. Toilet paper, however, has yet to catch on: all Asian toilets have a hose with a sprayer connected to them. And while showers are becoming more common as well, the traditional Indonesian way to wash up is in a mandi, which is a small tank of water with a scoop.

A mandi

Quite simple: you scoop up some water and dump it over your head, and it exits via a drain in the floor. Once you get the hang of it, it’s rather nice -- especially since the room-temperature water feels great after a day in the hot Indonesian sun.

Ciluk’s father works at a local TV station, and her mother is renowned as the best cook in the kampung, so people often order food from her for special occasions. Her specialty is apeh, which are spongey white sweetcakes. Apeh are traditionally served to guests because they symbolize forgiveness, along with sweet sticky rice, which symbolizes friendship, and coconut milk -- which Ciluk couldn’t remember the reason behind. She has a younger brother named Nur who is in high school.

Mr. H, hard at work on his day off

Like 90% of the Indonesian population, the Handayanis are Muslim. Ciluk serves on several committees at their mosque, which is small and meets in a house for worship, and is currently trying to find property to build. When she graduates from the university, Ciluk hopes to find work in the tourism industry, and hosting visitors through CouchSurfing and showing them around Yogya is good training -- she’s an excellent guide.

"Gitcher motor runnin', get out on the highway..."

The day we arrived, Ciluk and her friend Fransisca showed us around the city on their motorbikes, which are the primary mode of transportation not only for students, but for probably 50% of the population of Indonesia, it would seem. The streets swarm with them, and zipping down the main street, Jalan Malioboro, on the back of one is equal parts exhilaration and terror.

Sisca

Sisca is from West Kalimantan, in the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, and her family are Dayak, the tribal people who traditionally live in longhouses. Like most of Kalimantan, they are Catholic. In both Kalimantan and Yogya, Muslims and Christians get along well, inviting each other over for Christmas and Ramadan celebrations.

The Kraton

Between visits to the Sultan’s palace (yes, Yogya still has a sultan) and the water gardens, we stopped at a warung, or road-side food stand, for some lunch -- in this case gado-gado, a bean sprout and vegetable salad with spicy peanut sauce, which turns up in a lot of Indonesian food.

Lunch at a warung

Warungs sprout up all over Indonesia, with several on any given street. The people who run them, mostly women, specialize in a certain dish, but might have several other things on offer, like deep fried tofu in the case of the one we stopped at.

Being huge archaeology buffs, the other highlight of our visit was taking trips to Borobudur, the huge Buddhist temple, and Prambanan, the Hindu temple complex, both of which were built in the 9th century. At Prambanan, they perform a Javanese ballet of the Ramayana, the traditional Hindu epic, that is amazing.

Sunset at the Buddhist temple Borobudur

The Hindu temple Prambanan

Rama and Sita, heroes of the Ramayana Ballet at Prambanan

We also nearly gassed ourselves in the noxious sulfurous smoke at the volcanic Dieng plateau. If there is a Mordor on Earth, this is it. Great fun.

Stinky sulfurous fumes over Dieng

Don't fall in!

But all of that history and natural wonder paled in comparison to making some friends we will not forget.

As I write this it is 4:22am, and I’m sitting on a train from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, to Yogyakarta, its spiritual and artistic capital. The train is not exactly luxurious, but not too bad -- we have a reasonably comfortable padded seat, and while it is not air con, there are fans (which have not been running since we left Jakarta) and the breeze from the windows is nice. This train is “bisnis” class; there are much more comfortable “eksekutif” class trains, but they were full and I wasn’t about to pay a scalper 350,000 rupiahs (about $35) for a ticket that cost 200,000 and risk that it wasn’t valid.

But then, there are also the “ekonomi” class trains that are hard benches packed to the gills, so I’ll take the little bit of luxury we got -- anyway, an overnight train ride for only $10 isn’t too bad. We are the only Westerners on this train. There is a family of four in the seat ahead of us, with the mother sitting on the floor so her two little kids can lay down on the bench. A couple rows ahead, a girl in a Muslim headscarf is checking on her cage full of mice. The girl in the seat opposite us, who is dressed in a fashionable jean jacket with a black pattent leather handbag, is busily sending text messages.

The most annoying thing is the vendors who crowd aboard at every major stop. The aisle suddenly fills with people chanting their wares: “Ayam” (chicken), “Es” (crushed ice with coconut milk and syrup), “Dodol” (a caramel-like candy that will pull out fillings), and of course “Nasi Goreng” (fried rice). They make it really hard to sleep, and if they notice you even looking anywhere near them they stick what they’re selling in your face. One keeps chanting “Bap mie, bap mie, bap mie” and I want to say, “Yeah, c’mere and I’ll bop you one, alright...”

Jakarta, the "Big Durian"

Dwight’s driver dropped us off in Jakarta where we intended to catch the train to Yogya yesterday, but as it was full we decided to spend the night at a hostel in the backpackers’ ghetto, a street called Jalan Jaksa. Every major tourist city in Asia has a street like this with cheap hotels, restaurants serving burgers and banana pancakes, travel agencies, and bars with cheap beer that attract a lot of scruffy, dreadlocked Western kids. They’re kind of fun, though the hostels aren’t very nice: our room at the Bloem Steen Homestay, which cost us a whopping $7, was just a bed and a table with a fan, and one tiny window.

Bloem Steen -- good thing we brought mosquito netting!

The shower and toilet were shared with the whole floor and flip-flops are a must. I know that most people would find staying in a place like this totally revolting, and maybe someday we will too, but for now I still enjoy them as long as they don’t feature a bar. If there’s a bar, it always means loud music late into the night and that is where I draw my line.

Jakarta is not exactly an attractive place. It’s a massive city of shiny glass skyscrapers and barely-held-together hovels. It’s called “The Big Durian,” after the Southeast Asian fruit that looks like a spiky watermelon and stinks like rotting flesh. But inside, it has a custardy flesh that some people think is heavenly. I haven’t tried it yet so I have no opinion, but I can see the comparison. We spent the day wandering around Kota, the old Dutch colonial area, looking at colorful Indonesian schooners in the harbor, and sipping iced cappuccino under the ceiling fans at the Cafe Batavia, Jakarta’s original expat bar, feeling very Somerset Maugham-ish.

Kota, the Dutch colonial area

Sunda Kelapa harbor

Sunda Kelapa harbor -- that orange thing is a bajaj, a noisy two-cylinder motor scooter taxi

We also spent some time exploring the tiny back alleys, being chased by laughing kids, and attempted to talk with a friendly woman named Nona who was washing her clothes in a tub under cages of birds. Smiles and “Hello Mister!”s everywhere.

A back street in a kampung -- or neighborhood. Nona is sitting there with her friends.

But a day is about all you can squeeze out of Jakarta, really, and we are off to meet Ciluk and her family, who are hosting us in Yogya.

Note: added pics to the last post, so go back and look at them for a laugh...

We had an amazing experience on Sunday. We went to church with my Uncle Dwight at El Shaddai, the Pentecostal church that he attends when he is here in Indonesia. It was fascinating to worship with other believers even though we don’t speak the language at all.

The church has about 50 members, and meets in an upstairs room at a shopping center. There were only about 20 of us this Sunday; one man played the keyboard while Pastor Frankie’s wife did the overhead with the words to the songs. When Pastor Frankie preached, he would read scripture passages in Indonesian first, and then would read them again in English for our benefit, which was very nice. However, he only preached in Indonesian, so we had to imagine what the sermon was about based on the Bible passages.

What we especially meaningful for us, though, was singing along with the words, even though we didn’t understand what we were singing -- we didn’t need to, it was OK to just know that we were worshipping in our spirits with other believers. Kind of reminded me of the passage in Romans where it says that the Spirit intercedes for us beyond words when we don’t know what to pray. I didn’t need to know what exactly I was singing to the Lord, I could just sing and praise him.

Several of the songs were familiar tunes, and I knew what we were singing. One in particular caught me: in Indonesian, the opening words are “Yesus, kami puja.” It is a simple song that we used to sing often at Eastbrook years ago:

YESUS KAMI PUJA, KAMI SEMBAH S'BAGAI RAJA
BERDIRI DI TENGAH KAMI, DITINGGIKAN DAN DIPUJI
SEMBAH DAN PUJI P'NUHI TAHTA-MU
SEMBAH DAN PUJI P'NUHI TAHTA-MU
SEMBAH DAN PUJI P'NUHI TAHTA-MU
YESUS TUHAN ADALAH RAJA

Jesus, we enthrone You, we proclaim you our king
Standing here in the midst of us, we lift you up with our praise
And as we worship, build a throne
And as we worship, build a throne
And as we worship, build a throne
Come, Lord Jesus, and take Your place

We spent three days in Bogor with Dwight, Sam, Alex, Miranda & Jess. Since we had not seen our cousins since they were very young, it was really nice to get to know them better. We were reminded again how important family is -- whether it is our personal family or the church family.

Dwight and Jess, Miranda, and Alex

Wow. We are in Asia. I can hardly believe it. Feels very odd to be in a continent we've never been to before.

We arrived yesterday in Jakarta after a really long couple of flights: 3 hrs to LA, 13 to Taipei, and 5 to Jakarta. (There will be a post about the Taipei airport coming, but I don't have the pictures here at the internet cafe.) But we made it, as did our bags, and were met at the airport by my cousin Sam, and my uncle Dwight arrived about 45 minutes later. We drove, through some of the hairiest traffic I've ever seen, out to their house in Bogor, in the mountains south of the city. Very nice place.

Sam, incidentally, is about to turn twenty and has stolen from me the honor of Most Successful Actor In The Winkler Family. He's an extremely good-looking young man and got "discovered" when he was asked to be on an Indonesian reality TV show by a friend. That wound up turning into a gig on an Indonesian soap opera in which he plays "Dodi," a rich kid who is the friend of a main character. So he is frequently off filming until 4am, but he was gracious enough to take a little vacation time to spend with his "wannabe" cousin. *snicker*

Bogor Botanical Gardens

Today, after sleeping for about twelve hours straight, Lynn and I visited the very famous (President Bush came here on his last Asian trip) Bogor Botanical Gardens while Dwight took his daughters Alex and Miranda shopping for new clothes. The gardens are incredibly beautiful, but the most interesting thing was the attention that we drew as westerners. I read in my guidebook that the Indonesian people are extremely friendly and warm to visitors, but I wasn't quite prepared.

Our Loyal Fans

Nearly every time we passed someone and smiled, they wanted to stop and talk to us. "Hello!!! How are you!!! Where are you from!!!" It was kind of infectious, and I found myself intentionally smiling at people as we passed just to see if they would talk to us. Sometimes the girls just giggled. We were pretty sure we heard one group taking pictures of us from behind as we walked up the trail. Lynn said, "I hope I don't have something on my butt..."

Lynn the rock star

One young man who was leading a group of tourism industry students wanted to know, "McCain, or Obama?" We smiled and confessed "McCain," and he laughed as he said, "I like Obama! He is from Indonesia!" Another family came up to us as we looked at the lotus pond, and wanted to pose for pictures with us. Seems kind of funny; we can just imagine them showing them... "And here we are with some white people we saw at the botanical gardens!"

We're going to have to learn to deal with the papparrazzi, I guess...

I went through a phase in junior high where I was really into John Denver. To this day, I really cannot account for this brief foray into the world of country music, but I suppose it probably has something to do with my guitar lessons at the time -- John Denver recorded songs that were easy to play for a beginning guitarist, and I think they probably fit well into my pubescent vocal range. I learned ‘em all... “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” “Annie’s Song” (I fantasized about singing that schmaltzy song to the girl I had a major crush on -- blech!), “Take Me Home Country Roads.”

And, of course, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

I refuse to write a blog post entitled “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” despite the fact that almost everyone does (sorry April, no offense), because I passionately despise John Denver and I really hate that song. Never mind that I am in fact in the middle of leaving on a jet plane (a Continental Boeing 737, to be specific), currently somewhere between Houston and Los Angeles, though I can’t tell exactly where because we are currently enveloped in cottony clouds stained peach by the sunset, which is quite beautiful.

(The above photo was taken after said clouds had dispersed...)

The experience of flying is really quite amazing and would be a lot of fun if it didn’t require you to deal with airport traffic, airports, airline employees (some of whom are of course very nice), airline seats, airline food, and other airline passengers.

So anyway, ignoring the paradoxical leaving on a jet plane without Leaving on a Jet Plane, we are now officially On Our Trip. And that’s sort of hard to believe, partially because when you spend so long planning something big and then it finally happens, it feels sort of surreal. It’s also partially because the past six months, and past ten days especially, have been so stressful. I had initially wanted to have the four days in Houston before we left to just leisurely prepare ourselves mentally. Of course, that didn’t happen because we were so busy scurrying around making our final trip preparations that didn’t happen last week because we were so busy rushing through packing up all our belongings, which didn’t happen earlier because of the play, with which I was behind because... *deep breath* ...of getting the house ready to sell, and blah blah blah.

Stress. It can really get to you after a while. So this morning, to de-stress and get in the mood for Asia, we went and got Thai-style massages down in the city. Houston has a huge population of nearly every variety of Asian, and it’s a great city for massages. So after an hour of being kneaded, elbowed, punched, wrenched and stretched in every direction in most excruciating fashion (Thai massage is very, shall we say, active), we are on our way and feeling wonderfully loosey-goosey.

But only physically. Mentally, I’m still as tight as my neck was before the massage. I have so many trips under my belt now that I don’t sweat travel at all, even to places that I have never been before. Normally. This trip, on the other hand, has me more nervous than I can ever remember being. It isn’t that I’m not excited about it, because I am, and I would be fine with visiting any of these countries individually. But going on the road for four-and-a-half months has logistical issues that the normal vacation of a week or so doesn’t present. We have planned very carefully, but I feel like a lot of the prep was rushed, and I just have the sneaking suspicion that something kind of got away from us.

In a way, I’m expecting Asia to stretch us just like the little Thai woman (and how can such small people be so incredibly strong?) who worked me over this morning. There are going to be bigger challenges than anything we’ve encountered in our previous travel experiences -- less familiar cultures and languages, more bizarre food and probably more intimate communion with the toilets of Asia. And just like my massage today, I figure we’ll probably come back sore for a while. But I expect we’ll come through it stronger and more flexible than before we left.