Indonesia: To Main Island, Yogyakarta, Java (Day 12, Friday, 080709)

Have a 3:45 wake-up, so we can make it to Denpesar Airport for our 6:10 flight. This is slightly easier for me, as Eric was "busy" last night at a chalet.

We shuffle down an empty side street to the main drag. Still no vehicles.

Finally, a private car slows, and I approach it to ask for a ride to the airport when a cab finally swings past. My civilian driver, moments from earning a fare, noting, "oh, taxi," waves me on.

People so nice here.

At Lion Air, they scan our baggage, but do neither a liquids check, nor do they...even check my ID. I think you have to be carrying a cannonball with a lit fuse and screaming "72 virgins" in order to attract the notice of security.

Breakfast at the airport!

It’s a short hop from the Jogya airport (it looks like the name’s not been standardized, and I spot three different spellings) to our hotel, the Peti Mas. We marvel at the stupendous air conditioning, its intensity, the pure pleasure of it after days of humidity, and the quantity of toilet paper in the bathroom. It looks like the hording I’ve been doing (the roll I brought from home, as well as the half-finished rolls I’ve been pilfering from our multitudinous lodgings, were quite unwarranted.

David, Eric’s friend currently residing in Singapore and making a living as a Bikram yoga instructor, has arrived already and when he returns, we set out to gather some intelligence about the area.

There's a nearby mall with amazing...donuts, sez David. And so we're off to feast on all manner of J.CO's wee donuts with flavors ranging from chocolate, tiramisu, green tea, mango with...cheesy cream (?) to savory cheese, to an absolutely foul pizza flavor called "Mona Pisa" and described as a "striking rosy beauty with tomato-cheese spread and chopped chicken sausages."



A stroll down Malioboro Jalan generates an onslaught of haranguing, mostly from becak, or pedicab, drivers. We walk in the endless heat, maneuvering our way through incessant traffic (Times Square ain’t got nothin’ on this shit), past colonial (Dutch) era structures bright white in the noonday sun, and I’m about to collapse from the effort of keeping up with tall men with long strides while wearing flip flops.

My resolution to eat durian in Indonesia is ultimately fruitless; this is the closest I get to eating the stanky stank:



We pause to gawk at some fashion show nightmare, something more tawdry pageant--rhinestones! satin! too much eyeshadow!--than fashion, and David goes to town with his SLR, click-clicking away, his shutter fluttering...



There are a bunch of buskers--I dunno what the name is for folks who aren't performing, just scamming--suffice it to say, everyone wants to show us something. One dude tells us that the Palace is closed--it’s not--and wants to take us somewhere to “show us something.” Another informs us that he’ll take us to the Palace and that he lived near Barack Obama, whose residence he’ll show us if we want, which is funny because Obama lived in...Jakarta, on the Western end of the island. Lies, all of it, though it’s probably something I would’ve fallen for had I not been accompanied by two travel-hardened souls. Everyone’s trying to earn a commission from guiding tourists to batik shops, silver shops, even to the easily accessible bird market (teeming with maggots and crickets, and no doubt, avian flu).



The Sultan Palace is unimpressive and Eric and David snark the entire time. I, on the other hand, decide to take the high road and indulge in simpler pleasures, such as photographing the display of MSG, as well as cackling like a 12 year old boy about homographs.



After the bird market--



bad smells! crawly bugs! captured birds!--we break for lunch, stopping first at Legian Restaurant (which looks completely unappetizing) before moving on to "New Superman's."

Look, how delicious! Indonesian pizza!



[head, desk]

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 11, Thursday, 080609)

It’s our last day on Trawangan. Breakfast = fried egg, tomato, and shallot (???) on toast and a papaya, orange smoothie. And the remaining mangosteen. We leave to confirm our flight from Denpesar to Yogyakarta (pronounced Joe-jia, not Yo-jia), but are foiled again, and return to the room to pack, and convince a trio of white European chicks to take the room for 450,000 RP a night (45 bucks). They’re unconvinced, and we’re off to await the BlueWater Express.

Mm, fake Pringles.


I’m sitting astride starboard again—-the same side I sat coming-—in a vain and ill-conceived attempt to catch some rays. Eric insists I’ll fall off, so I slide back onto the seats, lie down, and proceed to pass the fuck out. Next thing I know, I’m filled to the brim with piss (and vinegar?) from the watermelon juice we had while waiting on the BWE. (Incidentally, I saw them adding simple syrup to the blender while making my juice, and saw therein all my illusions of “fruit is sweeter than usual because it’s a tropical country and closer to nature and thus creates superior harvest”…dashed.)

It’s a slightly less charming speedboat ride this time around, partly because going towards azure waters is typically better than leaving it, and mostly because I’m sitting in the shady, chilly side while still getting doused in spray.

We cab back from the dock in Benoa and return to Seminyak, and our home away from home, Inada Losmen, drop our bags, and head immediately for Callego Beach, where we bake pleasantly for a few hours, and Eric consumes his fish in garlic, butter sauce with mushroom and spinach, and I make an ill-fated decision to have the…chicken Cordon Bleu. With fries.

Adi’s back again—-the dude from the jungle—-and we’re invited to a party, an invitation to which I promptly send my regrets (in my mind). Adi’s “darlings” and his kiss-kissing, it’s not grating per se, there’s just something so affected about it. Colonialism? I don’t know.

And then we’re off again, with me still feeling guilty for not getting a massage and making the lady’s day. Eric showers, and we take a brief stroll around town, scrutinizing the goods on display, mostly slutty dresses for foreigners.

Eric and I split up, he to his party, and I to continue my stroll.

There comes a time, I think, when there’s little that makes you feel simultaneously “grown-up” and as though there are infinite possibilities still in store. Walking around another country by myself is one of those few things for me, and it’s pleasant.

Stopping by a K-mart (no relation), I’m spoken to in Indonesian by the clerk as I’m checking out, so I give, again, my apologetic smile, a shake of the head, and squint at the display for the price of my water. The refrain: “Where are you from?” And again, my hesitating response, where I try to choose from four options: US? California? Oakland? New York?

“You look like an Indonesian,” he says, gesturing to his face. I smile; it’s good, if only for the purposes of my ongoing tanning venture.

The Bali and Lombok LP gets packed away tonight. It's Indonesia LP from here on out.

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 10, Wednesday, 080509)

This morning, Eric’s off for nitrox certification, but he’s kindly ordered my breakfast, and I, cross-legged in a chair on the “patio,” dine on a triangle of toast with jam and an OJ-papaya smoothie, and contemplate whether I want to get out of bed.

At some point, I wake again, but have no clue as to the time--the light looks the same as it did earlier, something about the proximity to the equator perhaps. I take a stab at late afternoon because of the relative coolness of the day.

It’s off to the Snapper Bungalow--I like to stick with what works, especially after a debacle such as the Pseudo-Tandoori meal--for watermelon juice and fish and chips. I’ve seen the same French family four times on this tiny island, the mom and pop carting their Gallic-lookin’ moppets on bicycle adventures that the little fuckers won’t remember. But at least they’re a picturesque little bunch.

There’s Americans, so I ask them the time--12:30--nice, I haven’t “wasted” the day in bed.

So I proceed to while away the rest of the afternoon on the beach.

Eric and I are off to Scallywag’s again for dinner, and on the way, I’m kindly made the following offer, given with a lascivious leer:

“If you not happy, I’ll make you happy.”

Thanks, dawg.

Dinner (potato salad, quail eggs, tomatoes in with basil vinaigrette, bread):


More dinner (butterfish and baked potato):


A kitty with whom I share dinner:


Note the tail, crooking abruptly at a 90 degree angle. Nearly all the cats here are built this way, tails askew or docked. My guess is that there's no easy way for cats to get on or off the island, and the felines on Trawangan are a genetic consequence of isolation per Darwin's Galapagos finches.

Indonesia: Gilli Trawangan (Day 9, Tuesday, 080409)

Wake to find Eric's left to dive again. There's five minutes left to breakfast hour, but I don't want to be a pushy tourist, so I satisfy myself with the mangosteens bought two days ago in Ubud.

When Eric returns, we return to Snapper Bungalow for more guava juice and a fried fish platter.



Not exactly sampling much of the regional delicacies, but pleasant enough, except for a trio of Spaniards arguing with a scuba/snorkeling provider. The men are all "puta mascara" and calling the local a "payaso" and foam-flecked lips because there's some disagreement about the non-return of a snorkeling mask or somesuch. The woman, of course, is relatively more conciliatory and makes some propitiating gesture of cash money.

Relax, people.

I wonder how it is that only Americans have earned the reputation as assholes abroad.

We break for the beach--Eric's off shortly for another dive--and I set up camp a short distance from a group of Brits.



There’s a particular breed of Brit that travels here, poncy and posh, drawling in round and elongated Oxbridgian tones, none of the clip and garble of the Mancunian, or residents of other industrial revolution type towns.

The Poncy Posse keep creeping forward, shifting their lounge chairs, following the movement of the sun, and I endure their plummy voices and cigarette smoke until I start feeling grateful for the American Revolution and finally decide to flee.

When Eric returns, we grab a quick snack at the suggestively named "Horizontal," shrimp skewers, bad onion rings, and papaya juice. Rummy.

Then a nap before...uh...real dinner on the southern end of the strip. An Australian owned restaurant at Scallawag's, plastered with cheeky signage boasting the quality of the place's food. We've met up with two older French tourists, Philippe and Joelle, whom Eric met while diving. The three of them wax eloquent about the far-flung locales they've traveled to, comparing notes and such, while I feed a pair of strays my fish of unknown provenance.

Philippe and Joelle are both teachers, but Joelle's currently teaching in Barcelona, while Philippe works in Rouen, Normandy. They regale us with stories of...cleaning (human) bones for cremation with a kris dagger while on Bali, and Philippe keeps waggling his fingers and making sound effects of mock horror and disgust.

I expect him at any moment to let out a "ZOINK," at which point I will fall over in a paroxysm of giggling.