Finishing Jakarta

It was August 11, a Saturday, so Ali didn't have to work, We all slept in, well, except for Ali's roomate Jen who headed down to the pool in the building complex and got cornered by a Philipino guy making moves on her. Properly slimed out she came back up and sought solace in our chill crew. JoJo and Ali headed to the gym, Ali had to go to her tennis lesson and JoJo had an ultimate tournament to play after getting back to the states so doing some weight training was definitely in the program. Nick and I went for a dive through the rabbit hole.

From the 34th floor you can see the posh swimming pool and tennis courts of the "Bule Ghetto" comlex. There's a wall... on the other side the real Jakarta begins. Ali told us about the little door over by the Ojek stand so Nick and I went to explore. The area looked poor and run down from above but once you hit the ground there and saw it from up close the houses were actually put together pretty well. What made it look slum-ish from above were the tiny streets. This was just an illusion. The narrow walkways between the houses were really quaint and most of the people smiled at us and many tried to communicate a little bit. There was one set of women down an alley that motioned for us to come closer. They smiled and giggled and mimed a fat belly and pointed inside the house. Ten seconds later an obese little kid wearing an undershirt gets pushed through the doorway, looks at us, and proceeds to force his way back into the house. Terrified. They all laugh. I guess we got to see the village freak. Luck Nick and I.

The Indonesians have a different cultural standard in pointing out peoples' physical. faults. It's ok to point out how much weight someone's put on in the past year. It's ok to push the fat little kid with some sort of metabolism problem through the doorway for us to gawk at. I guess it's kinda like in Latin America. You can call your fat friend Gordo and it's not a big deal. In the US you'd have someone crying.

We came upon a graveyard. The first thing I noticed was the pile of garbage in the corner. Yes, one corner of the graveyard was landfill... in fact some of the headstones had a hill behind it... the garbage had piled up so high on the graves that the headstones were actually containment walls for the garbage pile. Hmmm... respectful? The other thing I noticed were all the goats. They were just chilling, munching on garbage. It was a natural environment for them, being the natural climbers that they are. They ever-so photogenically posed on the gravestones. Cute. Especially when the little kids are eating newspaper.

In the afternoon Nick chilled at the house while we went shopping at a mall. Very strange environment. All the regular international luxury brands. We bought some batik shirts... ours were only about $20 a piece though there were some $300 intricate silk options. The Indnesians wear batik as someone like me might wear a tuxedo. To a westerner's eye it looks like a Hawaiian shirt, for them it's a highly formal outfit that they wear to weddings and such. Hard to get over :) I also bought 100g of fried fish skin. After carrying it around for over 2 weeks it was to get thrown away. Oh well.

That evening Ali invited us to dinner at a sweet restaurant. I forgot the name because I'm a sucker, but it's owned by a guy who has a great collection of antiques. Legend has it that he wanted to display his collection to the world so he opened a chain of restaurants,... each with a different theme. Once I get the photos up they hopefully speak for themselves.

On Sunday, August 12 we flew back to Bali. We got up at nine, chilled by the pool a bit, made some food with the perishables and made our way to the airport. Ali and Jen were alsos coming 'cause they were flying to language training in Yogyakarta. Pulling into the airport we saw a Krispy Kreme and a few Dunkin' Donuts. What gives? Ali explained it to us.

Some years ago a Dunkin' Donuts opened at Gambir railroad station in Jakarta and thrived for several reasons. Indonesians like fried food,... that's the reason KFC is also a natural fit and can be found on just about every corner. Ayam Goreng. Fried Chicken. The other reason that the Dunkin' Donuts kicked ass was that there's a tradition to bring food snacks back when you've been traveling somewhere. The train station location is a spectacular place to put the donut shop... the people fan out all over Java from there. Now everyone wants donuts. Heck, people probably demand them when their friends travel to the city. People at the donut shops at the airport bought massive quantities. Dozens at a time. Well, 10's at a time. Dozens are not an Indonesian concept.

We walked to the Krispy Kreme and it was shut so we had to settle for a Dunkin' Donuts. I was never a big fan of Dunkin' Donuts, though I do like their bagles. I got two different fruit filled ones and couldn't finish the second one. Kinda mealy/doughy. Meh. Maybe I should have tried the Durian flavoured one.

Our plane was an hour late. We had an uneventful flight to Bali and were picked at the airport and taken to Lady Bamboo Villas in Ubud. I have been in touch with them for almost 2 weeks trying to book a room there. They wanted a deposit transferred to their German bank account. Ugh. Uhm. Or maybe a deposit in person. Because our father was staying there and I kept dragging things out they took us in even though I hadsn't been able to pay the deposit.. that was very nice of them, to bend their policy a bit.

The ride to Ubud laster a bit over and hour. We checked in and crashed out pretty hard.

On Monday, August 13 I was sick. Yay, Johanna's birthday. I slept badly the night before. Proibably had fever. I skipped breakfast and had to get up at noon to change rooms. I had to change rooms twice because in order for the Lady Bamboo Villas to accept our booking without deposit they figured it would be OK to shuffle me aeround a bit to fill up different vacancies. I was fine with that.

I slept more that afternoon and was ready to eat for dinner. I chilled out chatting with Lambert, the owner of the place until midnight.

Tuesday, August 14 I was feeling a good deal better again. I got to try a Lady Bamboo breakfast. It kicks ass. They have a bread machine and bake their own whole wheat bread every night. The coffee comes out in a French press. I guess that's what you pay a higher rate for... a kick ass included breakfast. I dig it. Though it's not financially sustainable.

Johanna went for a run... continuing her exercise so that she'd be ready for the Ultimate tournament. Nick and I went for a nice rice paddy hike in the North. There are lots of artists that have their little houses along the farm paths. I reckon enough tourists pass through and but their goods that it's profitable. I guess they may also sell things to retailers in the town, but then they don't get the same profit margin. Rice paddy hike with are galleries. Cute.

There was town called Petulu to the Northeast where all the herons that live in the rice fields congregate to sleep and nest. They end up there every night and it's become a well trodden tourist excursion from Ubud to go to up there for sunset to watch all the herons congregate. It was a nice walk up... all of us went. Parent-folk. Joachim. Mechthild. Everybody.

It was Nicks birthday... we didn't do anything super special. Just had a dinner at Lady Bamboo.. they cook really well there. It was hard to explore town when we're all taken care of there.. no reason to leave :) I think we watched "Pan's Labyrinth" that evening. Johanna and Nick had a TV in their luxury room.