Off to Java

Tuesday August 7 was a hard traveling day. Johanna and Nick and I got from Lipah Bay on Bali to Bandung, Java.

We woke up at Tresna Yoga, passed on breakpast, and paid the guy who barely understood what we were saying for our stay. Wayan was there to pick us up before the pre-arranged 6:30 am. 6:30 was very conservative for the 11:40 flight. It was gonna be a three hour ride to the airport but it only ended up taking two hours. Wayan had a tape deck so we even got to listen to some so-so pop music. Should have brought my tape adapter. Maybe I'll make that happen in Australia. Dave did a good job sitting in my living room coaching me in my packing and we decided that nixing the tape adapter would be ok. Nah. Now I want one, and it's not that big. Music is too important. I'm also really looking for mini speakers. It sucks not being able to listen to music in your room.

We got to the airport super early, well before 9:00am. We rolled over to the Adam Air counter and I checked in to make sure all was OK and where we should go. It turns out our 11:40 flight was cancelled and we could leave on the 10:05. uhm. oops. So much for a chill breakfast. Glad we planned extra time. We went through the security screening where bags were X-Rayed and all that. This was before we even checked bags. There was never a second screening. It was totaly cool to bring meat-cleavers and five liter bottles of sketchy liquids on the plane. My bad joke was that this is a Muslim country so what is there to be afraid of. Bad taste. Sorry. Checking our bags, they checked my passport to see that I matched my credit card. Johanna and Nick never had to produce and ID. As long as you have a ticket it seems effectively transferrable to anyone you might like to give it to. After checking our bag they handed us three cups of Pop Mie, effectively Cup-O-Noodle. We were to hold them until we got on the plane. Halfway through the flight they took the cups from us, wrote our seat numbers on them, and redistributed them, filled with hot water. Budget airline indeed.

Waiting for our flight we had to get some food into Johanna - Stat. She's a grumpy one without her breakfast. We scored some awesome croissants and some dried mystery fruit. It wasn't super nourishing but it got us through.

The fight was 1:45 hours long. The plane wasn't a scary prop plane, it was a proper modern jet. They kept the cockpit door open for half the flight. It was nice to be able to see out the front a bit and it was nice to see a society not crippled by fear. I guess there's no need to worry if you don't have hijacking in your recent history. They've got enough volcanoes and tsunamis to deal with here. Nick was sitting on the Java side of the plane and was witness to a volcano eruption. It all seemed to be slow motion but from the ground it was probably quite violent. A large cloud of gray smoke shot out of one of the volcanoes and rose thousands of feet in the air above it. We read about it in the papers a few days later.

In Jakarta we were suddenly in Muslim Land. Bali is pretty isolated. They've held onto their own brand while the rest of Indonesia seems to have been engulfed in Islam. Womens' headscarves were everywhere. Men wore long pants more religiously than on Bali. It was definitely a different feel. We had been warned that at 4:30am every day we'd be woken up by the Call to Prayer blasting over the megaphones at the mosques. Sure, 4:30 was a good estimates. Some days it was at 3:45. It goes on for about half an hour, maybe more, one mosque competing with the neighboring one. Misitors from the Middle East have said that this is a gross bastardization of what goes on back home. One was said to complain that he could hardly concentrate on his prayers during Ramadan because the Call to Prayer was too loud. "I'm praying already. I'm awake. I'm awake. Chill out." I reckon the Indonesians have a higher tolerance for noise. I found it hard to deal with and find it especially disconcerting for the Non-Muslims in the nation. They shouldn't have to put up with that all the time. Then again I come from a gentler world and we have religious freedoms that are as foreign in this land as my Bule (White Person) Dreadlocks.

We stepped out of the airport and ordered a cab to Gambir train station. Our destination for the night was Bandung, a few hours south of Jakarta. Normally the ride should last about 40 minutes. We sat in traffic for about 1.5 hours when our cab driver suggested we take a different route. We backtracked and went down a busier city street. It was good to get off the backed up highway that was going nowhere but going was still super slow due to construction. We entertained the idea of getting out and walking. We'd be a lot faster than this traffic crawl. All things considered it made more sense to ride it out and get there when we get there. The station was still 3 kilometers away and we didn't know at all where to go. We finally arrived, about 3 hours into the ride. Total fare, 112,500 rupiah. Maybe $13. Amazing. Nick thought the cab driver was taking us for a ride... I though he looked visibly distressed and just wanted to get there just as much as we did. It didn't matter. The money difference is a pittance to us anyway.

At the station I went to make a phone call to "By Moritz" Hostel in Bandung, while Johanna and Nick waited in the train ticket line. I got word that there was plenty of room at the hostel so it was game on. Not a problem to arrive after dark. We bought a ticket just in time to catch the train that was leaving 3 minutes later. It was so so so so so so so nice to sit, relax, breathe, and read for 4 hours on the way to Bandung. We hadn't eaten much that day and all had a raging hunger, luckily Eksekutif class has a meal service option for about $1 so we all ate our Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice) and settled in for the trip. There was much burning of grass and trash in the fields. There were many soccer games in the villages. It was a good ride.

Once in Bandung we weren't sure exactly how to get to hostel so we made do with the little map in the guide book. It didn't show that we could walk straight toward the hostel so we headed the wrong direction in order to try to skirt around the train station on a road. A nice fellow came chasing after us with an ID card from the hostel and told us that there's a much more convenient way. I think his name was PoPo. Butt in German. Haha. An easy way to remember. By Moritz was chill. A bare-bones hostel with an international crowd of travelers in the common space. Not aa ton of guests but it was a good feel. Augus was playing guitar. He knew a ton of American classics and had some nice Jazz guitar skills as well. We sat down for some dinner and some beers and sang along with some songs.

Long day. We were all asleep by 11pm.