Let me begin from the beginning, but first a caveat: Tonight's post will be a monster!
Friday went well - I got up super early (read, 7am) to get to a 9am interview early and ended up at the House of Parliament a half hour before the interview, so I had a coffee and prepared my questions. An hour and three quarters later (and thus over an hour late), my interviewee came in, mentioned the traffic briefly, and we got down to business. There is a very famous Indonesian phrase that has slipped my mind in true Wooster style but translates as rubber time, which bules (rude word for white foreigners) tend to find infuriating but must learn to deal with. However it DOES mean that, apart from the drivers, everything is very laid back in Indonesia. Anyway the interview went well and means I may be able to save my story - it was all about how certain parties had pushed for the child pornography loophole (that if it is for personal use, it's legal - scary) to be closed in Indonesia but that politics had basically muddled the law and allowed the loophole through by accident.
Then it was back to the office to do some research before getting a driver I had sneakily booked that morning to take me an hour out of Jakarta, to interview the director of a Muslim woman's rights group, who was LOVELY. We talked for a good two hours and then I ojeked back to Jakarta. It took an hour and a half, and while I loved it, I got a very numb bottom and my hands vibrated for hours afterwards. I tried to take a video of it but when I nearly lost the camera (and the bike) I decided to stop.
I was so tired by this point (it was 6pm) that I decided to have a quiet night and bought a very naughty pizza (sounds like a strip tease involving a dancing pizza slowly removing pieces of salami...) and garlic bread and watched DVDs until 11pm, then did the most stupid thing I've done in a long time - tied my mosquito net to a bottle of beer and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. I remember having a moment of doubt and then thinking, those look pretty heavy. Idiot. Cue getting into bed, rearranging the net slightly and hearing two huge bottles smashing from a great height. Then cue tiptoeing across a glass-strewn floor and cleaning up beer, vinegar and shards of glass for an hour with the only thing available, my towel. The walls of my room have been stained with drips of vinegar, so it looks like I killed someone with brown (stinky) blood. SIGH.
The next morning I got up at 5am, as the plan was to head out to Bogor to visit Michelle and have a relaxing weekend in the country. I got to the train station as instructed well before six but hit our first snag when it turned out that the train to Bogor didn't leave from that station. Some others turned up and we headed to the next station along via taxi (our guy taking us to the next station after THAT in order to get more money. Bastard.) Then Peter, Jack and I jumped on a train that had every seat filled, the doors wide open as it moved (no air con), and at one point, a small hole rusted through the floor. It was also filled with vendors selling anything from papers and MASSIVE lighters to towels. We jumped off at one station to meet other JPPers, but they insisted the NEXT train was the one we wanted, so we left them to it - foolishness! Their train was air conditioned and had seats. However, ours was very cheap and had a lot more life to it - at one point a band got on and played for a couple of stops, very cool.
We hopped off an hour later and met Michelle and her friends Asi and Jess, who would prove life savers later on as they could speak fluent Bahasa and had infinite patience. We all piled into two cars, seven of us in each, and set off for Bogor, stopping only to take in the view (beautiful - high up a mountain, mist below us and rows and orderly rows of dark green tea plants) and for me to squish into the back in order to stop one of the other girl's moaning (she had taken a Valium, which hadn't seemed to help). Then we headed off to our guesthouse in the Pancak Pass area, which was run by Balinese people and was just beautiful. It had a dining area whose veranda looked out into the valley of green green trees, insects everywhere and a series of ponds and water wheels below us, and mist up into the mountainous distance. It also had those Arabian raised sitting things, with cushions, that could fit about 6 people, which we all took turns at utilising. Our rooms were fine - I topped and tailed with Michelle and kept her up too late talking - and over looked the valley too, and everything was green and mossy - the bricks were covered in them and had random archways, it was like an old ruin in some places. I saw a squirrel creature with a weird nose, a HAND-SIZED bright yellow spider (gross) and I fed the huge goats with curling horns carrots - they were kept in little wooden boxes which seemed cruel - I hope they were just locked up for strangers. One of the goats kept making burping noises when we were there - whenever conversation stalled you could hear "Barrrrrrrp".
After we got settled in and ordered lunch - I got a delicious chilly green bean concoction - I headed to the main road by myself to get more money out of the ATM, and then proceeded to climb the mountain to get to the markets and botanical garden at the top, to meet the others. I really need to exercise more - my thighs were aching, I was drenched in sweat, and I had to stop a couple of times, but it WAS a pretty steep incline. My progress wasn't helped by the village children who would gamely run up and down the 45 degree slopes, one of whom said "Hello bule" at me, cheeky so and so. They would ALL say "Hello Mr!", whole tribes of children, and lounging men, and giggling teenage boys pushing each other toward me - I was a real oddity, it was like the circus came to town (plus I felt like an elephant, puffing and blowing as I was). It got very very annoying very quickly, and I felt quite attacked after a while, but the walk was LOVELY - sunshine, mountains in the distance, quiet little houses, little crooked stone steps leading to their doors, and bajillions of tiered gardens - Mum would've loved it, they were all carefully tended and had heaps of different plants. As I walked, at one point prayers started and the singer was very good - haunting and lilting, great atmosphere music.
I reached the markets and walked the wrong way, reaching the National Park before I turned around. Then I bought carrots to feed the ponies I could see walking up and down the mountain, and headed to the botanical gardens, where no one was insight. By this time I was exhausted, so I headed back to the guesthouse, giving in and jumping in a little yellow van that served as the mountain's bus service, similar to the blue mini cabs in Jakarta - very cheap, stops where you want it to. I was again impressed with how nice Indonesians are - the people in the bus told the driver when to stop for me, and told me how much to pay him. I got out at the guesthouse to find that the others had done the opposite to me - bussed up, walked down, just missed them. Ah well.
By this time it was late afternoon, so we ordered coffee, waited for the others to turn up, and then watched Ananya eat banana pancakes, deciding as we did to order them for breakfast. The others showed up with this fairly greasy guide in tow, who kept trying to get us to hire him, and telling us he'd give us special prices like 100,000 each (so about 1,000,000 in total) to guide us to a FREE, EASILY MARKED waterfall. He also kept wanting to come to dinner with us and get in our cars...very creepy.
We wandered down the road in the pitch black in order to find dinner - even though Pancak Pass is in the country, basically, it's still quite a busy little road we were on, and we had to walk single file a lot of the time to avoid getting hit by over-eager drivers and bikers. It was a warm night and the crickets were out in force, and the air was so fresh, after bloody Jakarta - it was lovely. However, dinner was a bit disappointing - we went to a banquet place and they gave us far fewer dishes than usual, and they all tasted horrible, and there was no stewed duck! My heart broke. It was a nice place though, and the trip was worth it for the Cornettos we bought at the store next door. Then it was a walk uphill in the dark, avoiding the massive potholes and listening to the little streams that occasionally flowed alongside the road. Back at the guesthouse, I realised I'd left my phone in the hire car, resolved to get it tomorrow, and headed to have a cold shower (BLISS) and get into bed, where I talked Michelle's ear off (it was great to see her again!) and then slept like a LOG until about 8pm. Apparently I talked in my sleep, and I did have weird dreams, but it was so good to climb into bed after 5 hours sleep the previous night, 5am start, and a long walk in the sun.
This morning was overcast (it rains something like 350 days of the year in Bogor) and the scenery still beautiful. We ordered banana pancakes...and 1o minutes later ordered another round. Unfortunately because the owners had to make them from scratch, it took ages to get the last pancakes, by which time it was 12, our drivers had arrived, and I'd ascertained that my phone had been taken by the driver's friend who'd taken the car the night before (my phone had been turned off, and I'd had full battery). The driver promised to find out from his friend if he had it, and with that we took off to see the markets and botanical gardens for those who hadn't seen it. When we got out of the car, we started to move off as a group, when I saw one of the horses from the day before. Unfortunately, his hip bones were sticking out and could be seen very clearly through his skin, and Peter told me after the horse had taken two steps with me on his back that it was animal cruelty, and I had to agree. I hopped off and fed the horse the entire bag of carrots I'd bought, and he seemed marginally more alert.
Then I headed to the gardens and after about five minutes, caught up with Michelle and the others, Peter having attracted a toothless old man who insisted on following the girls around asking them to kiss him. Sigh. It was decided that we would skip the botanical gardens and head to the tea plantation to have lunch, as the gate to Pancak Pass closes at 3pm (and wouldn't open again until 6pm - apparently they only let tourists in at set times, then locals, then tourists....very interesting). Michelle talked to our driver in Bahasa, he nodded and agreed that he would drive to pick up Dana et al from the garden's entrance, and then go to the address she gave him. She repeated the instructions, the driver said he understood, and then tried to leave the Gardens without picking up Dana and her friend Steve. Not wanting to pay another 30000 rupiah fee to get back in for all of ten seconds, we all called out and explained the situation to him again (twice) and we picked up Dana, went to get her luggage, and then headed to the tea plantation. A good hour or so later, we arrived at the rockiest road I've ever seen that ran along a sheer cliff off the mountain. We bounced along the road, feeling distinctly nauseous, and then waited tensely as the driver backed right to the edge of the cliff and then stopped. We all hopped out and climbed a short path to find we were on top of a peak that overlooked the entire valley. The top was paved with garden tiles and had rounded edges that just dropped off into space - people were paragliding off the top of the peak for 50,000. But alas, time was short (and perhaps Indonesian health and safety not SO great) and we had realised the driver had taken us to the wrong place. We rang Michelle, whose phone had died, and then we rang someone else, to ring the other driver, to ring OUR driver (who had taken off to take in the view himself) and explain just where the hell they were. Unfortunately, we were just out of time, and decided to head for Bogor before the gate's closed. We explained this to our driver, without much hope, and all seven of us jumped back in the car, when the driver let go of the hand brake and took his foot off the brake, letting the car slide backwards off the cliff.
I'm not even kidding - the car rolled back for a good two seconds, and our back wheels went off the edge, before the driver braked. The entire car, including the boys screamed, the driver put the car in 1st as we all clung to seats and tried to take in what was happening, those lucky enough to be sitting on the sides grabbed the door's handles to jump out (I was in the very back) and the driver revved the car for a heart stopping 2 seconds until the back wheels found purchase on God knows what and we lurched back to safety. The driver then LAUGHED.
I yelled "Don't laugh!" and him and then said "Hati hati!" (Be careful!) which probably wasn't much help considering he spoke Sudanese or some other language beginning with 'S', apparently. He then headed back down the bumpy road and back to Bogor, where we got stuck in stand still traffic for a good hour and then experienced true Indonesian driving when the driver and several other cars drove on the wrong side of the road for extended periods of time at 100kmh and more.
Back at Bogor, we stopped off at a really cute cafe with a view of the volcano, complete with its massive chunk of top missing, mist, little orange cottage roofs and kites flying high in the sky. I ordered pizza and beer and took a walk to the bridge to see the sunset - bright pink and orange, listen to the prayers at 6pm from the mosque and then BATS started flying and flapping from tree to tree, big ones, small ones, ones as big as your head! Very cute, they were chittering all the while.
After dinner we farewelled Michelle and hopped in the cars to head to the station which was 2 minutes away. 15 minutes later, we told our driver 'train station' in Bahasa three times, and finally made it to the station, the idiot behind the wheel having taken us the long way for no reason. Yes, we had to pay this goon who had nearly killed us. He probably still has my phone.
We said goodbye to Asi and Jess, who had come with us to help us negotiate tickets, and then we got on a train. Unfortunately, there were 4 trains at the station, and everyone was on the one furtherest from us, leaving in ten minutes. Cue leaping from trains down to train tracks, scrambling up into another empty train, jumping across space to another train and then arriving in the right train only to be told it was the wrong one, leaping back to the third train, being told by four different people, four different places it was going and then finally deciding to get back on the fourth train with everyone else, because it was leaving first, and it was air conditioned. I abandoned the boys to sit in the special women's carriage (not sure why there's a women's carriage?) and found the other girls who said we were on the right train and they'd tell us when to get off.
An hour later, I farewelled the others and taxied back to the kos, where I regaled Helena with my tales and was devoutly grateful I'd cleaned up the beer and vinegar before I left. Now it's off to sleep, in order to write 1000 words tomorrow. Ay yah!
LESSONS LEARNT 22, 23 & 24:
- Bogor is beautiful!
- There is nothing more relaxing then getting back to nature, and fresh air
- Mosquitos here are insidious - I've been bitten four times on my TOES of all places just writing this
- Travelling with people is more fun than alone
- Being alone can be good
- Exercise is a Good Thing
- Sleeping after a long day is AMAZING, as is a cold shower after exercise
- Squat toilets are not half bad - better for your bowels/bladder, apparently
Alex! I'm so glad you're OK and didn't go irrevocably off that cliff. Loads happening in this blog entry. It all sounds amazing and interesting except I'm sorry about your phone :( Good luck with the 1000 words. I'm very much enjoying reading about your adventures. YOU HAD A REAL LIVE ADVENTURE!
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