I must say that I shed a few tears when they put gave me a parting gift. I’ve gotten to know these kids over the last two semesters pretty well and it’s going to be hard to leave Aceh.

For now, I’ll be busy grading and packing up. Then a few days in Jakarta before traveling to Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, starting 1 July. After that, back to Jakarta to pick up my bountiful luggage and hitch a ride back to the US. It’s going to be the icing on some really good cake.

Yogyakarta was great. I saw the sights I missed the first time around, ate some good food, drank some beer (but not too much). I also went to a Christian wedding. I wish I would have taken some pictures or The Last Supper mural painted in the church; it had a very Indonesian flavor to it with the apostles sitting on the floor in a traditional Javanese fashion. Below is a picture of the bride and groom in their traditional wedding garb.

The second half of the semester is starting and I’m grading up midterms. It’s disconcerting to see so many papers piled on my desk. And then I’m off to Jakarta and Medan next week for workshops. I’m in the process of tentative planning for a vacation to Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam and Thailand after my fellowship. So many things going on…

I’m still recovering from last week’s conference and did manage to see some of Bandung in the process, particularly a very quaint coffee store on a side street. They keep the beans for eight years and roast them using an old rubber-wood fired contraption. I didn’t bring my camera, so I’m waiting for my friend to send them this way. I did snag a business card though.

A half kilo of Arabica coffee was 25,000IDR, or about 2.75USD. I bought around 300,000IDR worth while my friend picked up over double that! This week’s haiku is a result of that visit to Toko Aroma in Bandung. Highly recommended.

I also had an interview with last Friday. It was a phone interview with about five people from their end and recorded for the others who couldn’t make it. I haven’t interviewed in four years, so it was a bit crazy. I felt like I hit 75% of what they were looking for. The verdict will be in two weeks.

I’m off to Bandung, West Java tomorrow for a conference: Teacher’s Competencies & Qualifications for ELT in Indonesia. The coordinating university is well-regarded here in Indonesia and I’m looking forward to see how various institutions around the archipelago are dealing with the certification of teachers now required by the central government.

Luckily, the travel was all work-related and for a two-day workshop in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, famous for being settled on the equator. The workshops went well and our hosts were magnificent, taking us out for a hot pot dinner at lesehan (a sit-on-the-floor-style restaurant), a visit to the equator monument, and dinner on a riverboat. We also found out that it is said that if you drink from the river, you will certainly return to Pontianak. None of us sipped from the river—not because we didn’t want to return, but because the river was, well, muddy and used as the local bathing hole and latrine (a not atypical situation in a developing country).

The equator monument was understated and we arrived after they closed the museum portion at 4p. Nevertheless, we got to take picture of the gyroscopic sculpture atop a pillar. There was also the perfunctory circumambulation in order to get the feel of straddling two hemispheres in an instant.

Then we went home.

The Thousand Islands are a popular weekend getaway for Jakartans, as it’s only a couple hours by ferry from the city. The ferry trip was fine as it was a clear day on Thursday. The only wrinkles were the instances when the boats motor started chugging, causing cries of “Plastic!” from a boatworker. We then stopped the boat and waited for the workers to clear the plastic from the boats propeller.

We booked into an all-inclusive island that, on the whole, wasn’t all that bad. The food could have been better for the price that we were paying, but that’s about it. I did some snorkeling along the various islands throughout the two-night stay. The water around the 1000 Islands is a bit murky and visibility isn’t the greatest. There’s also the ubiquitous bits of trash that invariably get blown around the area. It was relaxing to get away from all the hubbub that I’m accustomed to in the cities.

We befriended a French couple who met us for dinner at a Japanese restaurant, Yoshi’s, in Dharmawangi Plaza. It was all-you-can-eat with unlimited beer for about 10USD (they also charged for anything you ordered but didn’t eat). Oh, the sacrifices I make! Since we were commemorating a birthday, we went to a karaoke house nearby and sang some of the night away before pushing on to BB’s in Plaza Menteng (everything is pretty much a plaza here!). It was a classic dive bar with a pretty decent live band. I got into the act when the singer put the mic in front of me for the chorus of “Shake Your Moneymaker.” I’d probably be a regular at that spot if I lived in Jakarta. From there, we migrated to X2, a club at Plaza Senayan area. Eventually, the host of my crashpad and I decided to leave and I fell into bed for an hour’s sleep before having to wake up and go to the airport.

What’s next? I just sent off a FedEx cache for a job in Illinois. It almost cost 50USD. This has me wondering why organizations are still requiring hard copies of materials. Furthermore, there are job postings that require multiple letters of recommendations, sealed and signed, submitted with an application. This effectively gives me nil chance to apply since getting a letter from China and two from Jakarta within the two week period is impossible. Ha!

I need to get back to preparing for tomorrow and finally get some sleep tonight!

Once again, I found myself with a gap of days in which I wasn’t going to teach, so I arranged to meet up with some colleagues in Medan to head to places as yet explored by me. I met up with a colleague in the Medan airport (domestic terminal half-functioning due to long ago fire) and off we went to the Pinang Baris bus terminal via becak. This was my colleagues first time in Medan, so the grit and grime of Medan easily collected on her as we weaved through traffic to the bus terminal on the north side of town. The bus terminal was empty-ish because most buses and mini-buses leave from a place about 1km from the bus terminal on the same road. After we purchased tickets to Bukit Lawang (60,000), we were whisked to the place where the actual mini-bus was parked, waiting for more passengers to fill it before starting out. This was not a comfortable mini-bus. I’ll leave it at that. It seems tourism has taken a hard hit in this area as touts/guides jump on any mini-bus with foreigners, trying to sell themselves and whatever lodging they are affiliated. We were essentially a captive audience for one kind gentleman. We didn’t know what we were going to do in Bukit Lawang except go make an unscientific comparison of Borneo and Sumatran orangutan. When we didn’t commit to a trek with the guide, he said goodbye as he needed to get out and look for more foreigners on their way to the area.

Bukit Lawang was devastated by a massive flood several years back, killing a fair number of villages and washing away much of what was once there. Hotels are still being renovated and built up. We stayed at Eco-Lodge (70,000/night). Our room was quite nice and included a garden in the bathroom. Why one needs a garden in the bathroom is still something I question. Hmm. The lodge serves some good food and seemed to be composting and recycling when possible.

We engaged a guide for the morning to go with us to the feeding station and then a couple hour trek through the jungle. The only way to get to the park entrance is by riding on a little canoe-style ferry connected to a metal rope so that the river current doesn’t just send you off down the river. Shuttling tourists across the river is a two man job, but one park ranger hadn’t arrived yet and the ranger in attendance was having a tough go getting across the current. We waited. Finally, we made it across and had to wait for the missing ranger. Along with other tourists, we milled about the entrance. We were also alerted that there were some celebrities from Jakarta in our midst. They were filming an episode of “Celebrities on Vacation” or other such nonsense. My colleague and I were significant background artists during their shoot.

All said, we ambled up to the feeding station where a ranger peeled bananas and handed them off to a pregnant orangutan while the other lesser monkeys tried to steal what they good and not get a good slap from the orangutan. Eventually, the bananas ran out and the rangers filled up a plastic cup with milk for the orangutans. The youngest one in attendance tried to go straight for the milk jug but was grabbed by a ranger and made to wait his turn for the cup.

After that, we followed our guide up and down hills, sometimes hanging onto vines as we slid down slippery hills on our way back to the lodge. The guides tried to do what they could to find us some more animals to see, even trying to bait some monkeys with bananas. Alas, we saw some in the trees, but nothing else. After a while, we just decided we wanted to walk and get exercise rather wait around for animal sightings. In the end, we returned to the lodge, showered up, and set off for the bus park to make Medan by nightfall.

The trip up to Danau Toba started from SM Raja in Medan. I booked up four seats for us the previous day with hopes that the fourth to our party wouldn’t have a delayed flight. In the end, she arrived 20 minutes after our departure time. Luckily, this really doesn’t matter in Indonesian ground transport. A five-hour mini-bus trip (80,000) commenced as soon as she could hop out of her taxi. We arrived in Parapet, the ferry departure point for Tuk Tuk on the other side of Danau Toba, the usual place for tourists. Unfortunately, there were no more ferries directly to Tuk Tuk, just to Tomok, another town a few kilometers away. We arranged for a pick-up from our hotel (Carolina Cottages) for 50,000. A spacious mini-bus picked us up complete with the driver’s pre-school kids and neighbors riding ‘shotgun’ and giggling up a storm while hitting the speed bumps.

Upon arriving at the cottages, we found out that only the cheap rooms were available to us. Each had twin beds and cold water. We took the rooms for 20,000/night. The hotel has a nice waterfront with rafts and diving board. There were also canoes for rent. Well, one canoe usually. We didn’t partake in the lake until the next day though. The menu was rather large but, as with any large menu, some things are just a crap shoot. For instance, one person rolled the dice and ordered a ‘vegetable taco’. This turned out to be similar to an empanada and not at all like a Mexican taco. Them’s the breaks. A few of the Indonesian standards didn’t make the grade (the gado-gado was overwhelmed with peanut sauce). However, the garlic toast and the vegetable curry were just fine.

The next day we started out with a late wake-up and some bike riding to Tomok and another village in the opposite direction, searching out for the tourism objects. We made it to Tomok around the time the elementary school was letting out, hearing a chorus of ‘hellos,’ and ‘botak’ (bald—I just got a hair cut. I’m not bald, but that’s how Indonesians describe it.) At least they weren’t yelling ‘bule’. The roads were fairly nice and traffic was light.

Later that night, we caught some Batak dance at a restaurant. It consisted of some teenage girls and a traditional band. After them was the same band singing some songs in Batak and hawking VCDs of one of their performances.

The next day we decided to try our hand at using scooters, but I was the only person who had any experience on motorized two-wheelers. This idea quickly got scratched and we ordered up a car and driver for 350,000. We took a nice easy ride to Simanindo for more Batak dance in a traditional compound of stilt houses. It went rather quick in the hot, midday sun. I’m not sure if all the dances we saw were full length. They all seemed rather short and to the point.

We then went off to see the hot springs—a big nesting of small houses and small hotels on the side of a volcano. As it was midday and the sun was shining, none of us were interested in hitting the heated waters. After that, the driver took us to a collection of houses where traditional weaving takes place, usually. When we arrived, there was an elderly lady chopping up some betel leaf to chew on. A matronly woman came out a little later and started to unpack all the weavings. After some hard bargaining, I and another friend bought a weaving—the one I bought is supposedly for a wedding ceremony. Doh!

The sun was getting on its way down upon our return and rain clouds were getting stopped up on the mountains. Two of my companions went canoeing in a dugout canoe in the choppy waters while I stayed safely on the water raft getting those last rays of sunlight. Dinner was at a small place that baked a good pizza. I attempted to grab some take-out tuak from a place across the street, but they wouldn’t give me any. Thus, I chose to imbibe some arak with my fellow diners. We toasted to all of those who couldn’t join us and turned tail to the hotel before the rain caught us again.

The next morning we tried to pay. Apparently, we misunderstood the receptionist telling us we could pay with credit card. Our cash reserves were running low and we couldn’t cover the entire bill. There is no ATM in Tuk Tuk either. So, the hotel sent a guy with us on the ferry over to Parapet to go to the ATM there with us. After his taking the money, we started on back to gritty Medan in a private car. The night was karaoke until we all passed out from exhaustion.

Bukit Lawang was definitely more accessible than Tanjung Putting, but I would rather go back to Kalimantan to see orangutan. Danau Toba is a place I’ll definitely go back to when I get the chance. A great place to lounge and take it easy…

Got back last week from more orangutan visiting in Bukit Lawang and my first visit to the charming Danua Toba. I think it’s Indonesia’s best kept secret. More on these later.

Ten days of vacation: check.
Six flights: check.
Being arms-length from an orangutan: check.
Five hour jungle trek on Borneo: check.
A couple hours on a bamboo raft: check.
Ten hour bus ride: check.
Christmas karaoke: check.
Good company: check

That was my holiday, briefly. I’ve got some decent photos that I’ll put up somewhere soon. The whole business was quite a pain in the arse as I was in charge of getting seven people on the same page and in the same city and paying the guide fees up front. After that, it went pretty well. As it turned out, the only place that one can fly into Pangkalan Bun, the closest airport to Tanjung Putting National Park, is from Semarang. It was a prop plane and only just over an hour. For some reason, the nice and slow prop planes scare me less than the big jets I usually have to take. From Pangkalan Bun, we were picked up and ushered onto a boat in the river town of Kumai. The boat was a two deck affair with a toilet in the rear from which a could peer out at the foliage, or my comrades, while having a wee. The small area could also be used for showers if we were to stay on the boat. Luckily, we were booked into a place a little more posh, Rimba Lodge.

The ride upriver was a good retreat for all of us. The jungle had some fresh air and the aura of Borneo jungle took us in. Splendid. The next couple days were visiting orangutan rehabilitation camps—places where rescued orangutan have been sent in hopes that one day they will venture off into the wild. In those three days, we saw quite a few orangutan. Unfortunately, many were quite used to having humans watch them take their daily feedings and even provided some entertainment in trying to snatch water bottles and bags from visitors. Overall, it was amazing to see orangutan in the flesh and see them move from tree to tree and hang around. We even were caught in a line with a few female orangutan who were holding their babies as they marched to the feeding platform. A very nice and quiet time in the jungle. We did manage to see one wild orangutan from the boat as well as some proboscis monkeys. No crocodiles though.

The third day, we set off by afternoon bus for Pangkalang Raya. We arrived around 3.30a after bussing through some pretty deep water that disappeared the roads at some times. There were also a couple stops to helps the ‘economy’ bus of the same company and wait for a passenger who missed the bus at one of the stops. Never a dull moment. We went looking for the hotel the guide recommended. The ojek drivers told us it was too far away to walk, and a local getting off the bus told us it was not 200 meters away. Off we walked. We checked into a room with a gold bed spread, dark wooden ceiling and cold water from the bath. The sign on the wall behind the reception said that the hotel was given a two-star rating in 1997. The Hotel Adidas has seen better days. We spent that night and the following in Pangkalang Raya but were only charged for one at check out. Lucky.

Using the public transit, we arranged a jeep for the ride to Banjarmasin for Christmas day. Then we went exploring to the two places the guidebook listed as tourist sites. The first one was some type of provincial museum that was closed despite our collective wandering to find someone to open the darn thing up. Following that, we visited a longhouse. We only were able to wander the outside of it, even after jumping the locked gates (sorry, mom). Our other wandering put us at a building for karaoke. Pangkalang Raya had the most churches I’ve seen in a while and they were all busy throughout the day. We supposed the karaoke was closed for Christmas Eve as well, and it was.

The next item on the agenda was beer. As I’ve been here the longest, it was up to me to ask the taxi driver where we could get some. His face lit up at the question and he said, of course. He then stopped in front of a shop with cases of beer and several varieties of spirits indigenous to Indonesia. The evening would not be dry. Little did we know, one of our compadres had lugged a bottle of homemade wine from my great state to Indonesia for such a splendid occasion. Excellent and sweet.

My colleagues also had it in their heads that we should ‘dress up’ for the evening. This meant batik. All six of us bought a new batik shirt in either red or green to mark the festive occasion. The hotel we were staying at had a Christmas tree in the lobby and we congregated there with our drinks to sing Christmas carols before trying to find karaoke once again. In the end, we got rained on and couldn’t find karaoke. Damn. Pangkalang Raya did have a club that was open that night but it was quite far out from where we were staying.

The jeep picked us up at noon for the four hour trip to Banjarmasin. We just all barely fit with our bags. It was tight. Christmas Day was spent sleeping, talking, and watching the jungle and clear-cut forest pass by. We finally made it to Banjarmasin in time to clean up for dinner. As I was the only male in the group, I had to take a hotel. The others stayed with a colleague there. It wasn’t such a sacrifice as I got a nice, hot shower and A/C. It also turned out that my colleagues took pity on me and chipped in on my bill for the night. Bonus.

We ended up hitting Pizza Hut for Christmas dinner. It was my first time there since I lived in Makassar. It wasn’t so much the quality we were looking for, but a little more Western ambience to accompany our Christmas cheer. Then we hit the karaoke place next to my hotel. It was clearly a karaoke/hostess place, but we booked a big room for the five of us and started it up. Karaoke with friends in a private room is really the way it should be. I don’t feel so bad singing way off key if it’s just friends. I did, however, channel Elvis with “Heartbreak Hotel,” much to the surprise of my colleagues.

Next stop: Loksado. This jaunt was arranged by one of my colleagues acquaintances. We took a small van four hours to Loksado village. A place billed in the guidebooks as quaint and a bit of the old world here. A nice and new guesthouse stood in the middle of the village. That’s where we stayed. A couple beds to a room, Western toilet, and clean. That’s 12.50USD for you. We then took a stroll to a longhouse about 40min from the guesthouse. It was getting old and a newer one was being built closer to Loksado village. A glimpse at the past for us.

Day two in Loksado was the near killer. Our guide spoke little English and we only knew that we were going to a waterfall and a jungle walk. The waterfall was nice and some of us went swimming in the chilly waters. After that we proceeded to take the one track through the jungle, fording streams, slipping up and down hills, swatting mosquitoes. We didn’t bring all that much for lunch and definitely not enough water for the four hours of trekking we did that day. We visited another longhouse and saw some great vistas along the way. A few of us got scraped up well and all of us had some nasty shoes from all the mud and waters. We were more than happy to wash up and get ready for dinner at a nearby warung that we commissioned to find us some vegetables. We actually arrived at the warung just before the rains started up and were ushered off the benches in front of the house into the living room and on the floor with kerosene lamps lighting the evening. We ate rice, eggs, and green beans. For some reason, vegetables were scarce at the time. In the end, the dinner cost 50,000 for six of us, a little over 5USD. By the time we finished dinner, the rain had let up and all of us were ready to hit the hay.

The third day in Loksado wasn’t a lot. We met our guide and found out that we couldn’t leave at the time we wanted because we needed another river guide. It turned out that another group of travelers were plying the river that day. Eventually we hopped on the bamboo rafts with benches in the middle for the tourists. The rafts were triangular with the front being lashed together tight. For the next couple hours, we sat while the boatman kept our raft from getting stuck on the rocks. He was a workhorse for the whole time. We stopped for a bit for a swim, but that was it. It was 150,000 rupiah for three people for 2.5 hours on the raft. Definitely worth the price.

After the rafting we were looking forward to the hot springs nearby. Unfortunately, the hot springs were in a state of disrepair with only a small shallow pool heated up. Two larger pools were either brown or green-watered. The changing rooms were not particularly clean either. The local collection of young men were also very keen to have a look at my traveling companions and followed us all around, tossing their cigarettes in the only clean pool while we were in it. The hot springs at Tanuhi are best skipped. Back to Banjarmasin.

The next morning put nearly all of us at the spa next to my hotel. Again, I was charmed to find out that my colleagues got together and sprung for a 90 minute massage as a birthday present for your correspondent. It cost around 20 bucks and got very personal. I entered and the masseuse told me to strip and put a towel on. I did so and lay down. She came back in and promptly took the towel away from me, leaving me in my birthday suit. I’ll just say she got as near to my bits & pieces as she could without actually touching them. I did get a good rub down that countered the aches from the jungle trek up near Loksado.

I stayed on a couple days to explore Banjarmasin proper. My colleague there and I had New Year’s Eve dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant only a short rickshaw ride down from where I was staying. We then returned for dancing at the pub adjacent to my hotel to ring in the new year. Good times for all.

I’m not back in Banda Aceh and exams to end the first semester will commence on Friday. After a couple weeks, I’ll have another break between the semesters. I might end up in Kuala Lumpur and probably head to Jakarta to get my fungus looked at again.