Jaded so soon?

Lombok is beautiful, there's no doubt. Though I haven't been to Bali yet, I might be able to believe that Lombok is more beautiful and less crowded--the amount of tourists I saw certainly didn't match up to the number of beachfront hotels and tourist restaurants I passed while there.

However, though I'm new to SE Asia tourism, I have to say that my last two weekends have turned me off of it a bit and made me want to turn to the least "authentic" hotel I can find in Hawaii.

Today was a gorgeous day, and the driver I hired for the day (okay, I will admit that is a luxury I can't afford in the states) picked me up at 8 AM for the drive to Kuta. When I mentioned that I'd like to stop for a coffee, he took me to a beachfront cafe where I had a traditional Lombok coffee--finely ground beans with hot water poured over them (don't drink the dregs!). Interesting, but I like my coffee minus the chewiness!

We then took an two hour drive through Lombok to Kuta's next-door neighbor, Tanjung Aan. An absolutely beautiful beach with mountains and rocks ringing it, Tangjung is less crowded than Kuta. I settled down to enjoy the beach, only four other people on the entire thing, and felt like this is what I imagined Indonesian beaches to be.

Not so soon. After five minutes of peace, the stream of hawkers began. Throughout my four hours there, they came in chunks--I'd be in peace for an hour, then five or six in a row would hassle me. It doesn't really matter how many times you say no, or goodbye, or in what language; they sit next to your blanket and stare at you for a few minutes after you stop responding, perhaps to guilt you into buying something? I'm not really sure. This would have been bearable if not for the gang of six or seven young boys (age 6, about?) that surrounded me, also early on. I said a friendly hello and goodbye, and returned to my book, but they started making huge balls of sand (think snowballs, but with sand), and throwing them and small stones as close as possible to me without hitting me. No amount of SELAMAT JALANS! could make them go away, so I picked up my stuff and moved 20 feet down the beach. They got the hint after that.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

After a morning like this, though, it was hard for me to relax long enough to really enjoy it. I can't complain about a day in paradise, but I have to say that I've had better days. I was toying with the idea of a surf lesson, and maybe I should have gone that way? Or maybe it is just the traveling alone as a woman in a Muslim country thing hitting me? I'm not sure what I could have done to feel more comfortable.

We left around 2:30 and drove 10 minutes to Kuta, where I had a delicious lunch of stir-fried squid at the Full Moon Cafe, though I continued to be hassled throughout lunch to buy the fake pearl bracelets offered by girls who said it was to support their schooling. After Cambodia, I don't fall for that one.

My driver dropped me off at my current location, the Griya Asri Hotel in downtown Mataram, which I picked for its proximity to the airport. MISTAKE. The hotel is fine (what you would epect for $20/night), but they tried to charge me 60,000 rupiyah for the hotel car to take me to the airport tomorrow morning, when a taksi ride from Senggigi, the beach, costs less than 50,000. The whole reason I picked this location was to save some time and money, right? Nope. None of the staff speak Engish, either, so they actually ordered me a taksi to take me to the airport tonight, an hour after I checked in--leaving me wondering why I would check in at all if I am leaving for the airport tonight?

All in all, a beautiful day ended up being a bit frustrating. I know that I am the bule here (foreigner), and it is up to the Sasuk (ethnic Lombok people) to do what they wish, and we should adapt to it. But on an island that is trying to grow its tourist industry (brand-new international airport slated to be finished next year), it is not as welcoming to the Western tourist as I would wish. Perhaps if I was a bit more of a risk-taker, or if I was with friends or family, this wouldn't bother me as much. But in a strange city in a strange country it all feels a bit ominous and makes you want to pay for the beachfront Sheraton Hotel, where at least they speak English and literally pay the hawkers to stay away from their stretch of beach.

I know that in a few days when I'm sitting at my desk I will forget the bad parts and remember the good ones, but I wanted to write this to remind myself and you that Indonesia's beaches may look like a blissful paradise in pictures, and accommodation may be cheap, but there are a few cons, as well.

I'm going to eat the Nasi Goreng I had to order twice (and I still received the wrong thing) before crashing for my early flight. See you in Jakarta!

PS Coming up next--the disaster that was me not knowing how to eat a soft-shell crab. Sigh.

Fearless

I'm writing this post sitting on my hammock outside my bungalow in Lombok while listening to some T-Swift. This is my third night watching the absolutely gorgeous sunset, but I wish I had someone to share it with besides the French guy I don't know watching it from the bungalow next door.

This side of Lombok is completely different from Mataram--the main road can be noisy when an ojek screams past, but for the most part the loudest noise is the crashing of the waves against the seawall just 20 yards away.

I went for an early walk on the beach this morning before being picked up for my "Gili Explore" tour, during which I was only bothered once, and the hawker got the hint fairly quickly, though he is still convinced my name is Sandra. Don't know where he got that from. The very nice young driver took me to Perema's main office, where I paid and had a really good instant coffee-I'm going to have to get myself some of that mix! I then boarded a boat with nine Indonesians, some sort of collection of brothers, sisters, and cousins, who made a few words of conversation with me and obliged me by taking a couple of pictures. I started to get anxious, though, as only one of them was wearing a bathing suit and no one else besides me clutched a snorkel.

After an hour-long boat ride to Gili Trawagan (sp?), they all disembarked and I was confused. The boat driver finally caught onto my confusion and explained that they just wanted a lift to the island; the rest of the snorkeling crew were going to join us from the island. A nice (and beautiful) young Dutch couple and two middle-aged Aussie men got on the boat with snorkels and fins and all was well again!

We snorkeled for thirty minutes off the coast of each island. The snorkeling at Gili Trawagan was tough--the current was strong and I was so afraid of being swept to sea that I couldn't focus on the fish! Luckily, at Gilis Meno and Air, the current was much weaker and I saw a ton of fish--zebra fish, little neon blue guys, beautiful rainbow-colored fish, long skinny fish that looked like pipes, and a couple of turtles! My brand new mask leaked terribly, and I switched over to one of their masks for the last dive, which didn't leak once--so much for buying my own gear!

The boat dropped us off on the Air mainland for lunch, where I had my usual mango juice (what am I going to do when I get back to the states and can't have fresh mango smoothies every day?!?) and some delicious seafood cap cay (pronounced chap chai). I walked up and down the coast for a little, and the boat dropped me off at a different bay on the northern part of Lombok The same driver from the morning appeared out of nowhere from the boat and dropped me off at my door.

All in all, a lovely day (made better by some preemptive Dramamine. However, I still struggle with solo traveler's anxiety: did I sign up for the right thing, with the language barrier? Is this boat safe? Will my room be broken into while I am gone? Will I be in any of my pictures? This opportunity is fantastic, but I've realized more and more it isn't just the experiences you have, but the people you have them with, that take trips like this one from great to fantastic. I've found it almost paralyzing sometimes to to try to plan activities and travel for myself when I have no idea how it will turn out. Hence, the Taylor-listening and post title. Cheesy, but I think "fearless" is really becoming my theme for the summer: not worrying about what may go wrong, but being grateful for everything that is going right. In that vein, here I go with some sappy shoutouts:

-To my family, I miss you, and can't wait for our OBX trip when I get back. To my extended family, I am so sorry I will miss you all at the cape.
-To my friends, I miss you all in New York, DC, and around the world.
To SSSLY: can we please please do a sssly spring break or winter break or summer break or something now once we are all back in the states?
-To my new work colleagues, thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn about your wonderful country, and for sending me to Lombok!
-To Kari: I admire you for being fearless as well and being fearless with me! Here's to Penang and Bangok!
-To Erin: thank you for making me forget to be lonely in Jakarta! Here's to a future trip when we are actually both around the same weekend!
-And finally, to Alex--thank you for listening to me babble on skype about anything and everything, and for your love and support for me while I'm on the other side of the world. I miss you more than anything.

Love and miss you all! Off to Kuta in the morning, perhaps for a surfing lesson as well? Pictures to come once I return to Jakarta!

Interruptions

I called this interruptions because as I was about to post, the internet went out again. Sigh. It’s a wonder there is internet at all here, for free, so I shouldn’t complain. The training has been going well, though I haven’t been able to understand much. I am going to do some post-training interviews tomorrow, hopefully with Nita’s help in translating, to get some feedback and talk Literally as I was writing this, we got word that they finished early today. So, looks like we will have to make some phone calls next week! Will definitely need translation help!

So….three days on Lombok! This brings me to my next observation/complaint/puzzlement: SWF traveling alone. I haven’t really been scared or felt unsafe as of yet, but I have felt overwhelmed. Many of the tours I want to do require minimum two persons, and will operate if you have one person, but you have to pay as if there were two. Furthermore, there really aren’t enough tourists to be able to count on the tour having a couple of people already that you can tag along with. Hopefully when I arrive at my next hotel tomorrow they will have some ideas for me. I also have been musing on what to do with my things while I snorkel—can I leave them on the beach? Maybe if I rent a snorkel they will hold onto most of my stuff, minus a towel and flip flops, until I am done? This is hard! And it will be impossible to get any pictures of myself!

If anyone has any tips on traveling alone (or traveling alone through Indonesia!) I would love any advice you have! Missing the US and how much easier these things are (though not the prices).

Contradictions

The one thing I’ve really come to understand about Indonesia is that it is a country of contradictions. Every island is chock full of great beauty, but there are absolutely no environmental protections in place, in terms of sewage systems, pollution controls, garbage pickup, land planning—the list is endless. Living in Jakarta I’ve seen what years of this can do to a city, and it saddens me to walk and drive around Lombok and feel like in 30 years the smog will obscure the view of the mountains.

In the same way, Indonesia’s people are full of contractions as well. I am here to attend a women’s leadership training sponsored by common ground but conducted by KPI, a local NGO. Besides the trainer, Nita, and I, the rest of the KPI women and all of the parliamentarians and government workers save one are in headscarves, long sleeves, and long pants. I can’t help but wonder why these women complain that men will not take them seriously, yet they let their religion tell them what they can and cannot wear or show in public because of the same men. While she is controversial, I do look at Megawati and think that she achieved possibly the highest level a woman could in this country, that of president, and she didn’t wear a headscarf (and she still complaints that men don’t take her seriously). I wanted to stand up, and although only half of them would understand half of what I was saying, say to them, if you really want to be empowered, wear what you want, not what a man in a mosque tells you to. Perhaps I’m looking at things incorrectly, but I don’t have the courage to ask them flat out (nor would I embarrass SFCG by doing so).

Anyways, I started my day at 4:30 AM. conveniently timed with the first call to prayer I wake up for everyday by accident. I had called BlueBird the night before, and at five on the dot, he rang the doorbell-I was actually surprised, considering the cabs always seem to get lost. I had my first experience with a domestic Indonesian flight on Lion Air, which I didn’t love as the plane seemed older than my parents, and loved even less after Nita told me she didn’t need to use an ID to pass security.

(I fell asleep—the rest of the post to be continued when I have a better internet connection…)

Working backwards...

The easiest thing to do is to start off describing Kuala Lumpur (affectionately known by locals, and Kari, as KL). We slept in the latest we had in a few days (mmm, maybe until 6 AM? still too early to get another delicious breakfast) and went to the airport via our last tuk tuk ride with Chanty--we asked if we could grab some coffee onthe way and he took us to the cart he knew we liked right outside the gates of Angkor Wat, so we got one last view of the temples, as well.

Note on the Siem Reap airport: there is in fact coffee, croissants, and free computer access right at he gates. We were able to check our e-mail for the first time in 48 hours, and both found out that a clinic we had applied to had sent out e-mails for another set of interviews to be held Monday (this was Sunday morning). Kari and I sent about the same e-mail to them pleading for some flexibility with the times and the methods (Google Voice, which ended up failing on me, and a time NOT in the middle of our nights), and we both ended up getting interviews Monday right before bedtime.

Also had a fantastic e-mail from Annie, a classmate I have yet to meet at NYU but an Indonesia expert and wonderful travel adviser. I cannot wait until I visit some of the place she's described!

Upon arriving in KL (which I already loved for their fantastically easy and free visa process), we took a bus for 8 RM (mm, about $2.50) into the city center, then went to the hawker's market, where I picked up a few great souvenirs, ate some delicious chinese-malay food, preemptively fortified ourselves with coffee, and got ready for the Batu caves.

BUT THEN: reason number 2 why I loved KL even more: there are giant lockers in the central train/bus/transit station. YES. We dumped our backpacks and accumulated goods in one and caught the commuter train to the Batu caves just north of the city. These caves are beautiful on their own, but are also a pilgrimage site for Hindus in the city and beyond, and have statues that we might consider gaudy on a front lawn in the US, but they admire, as well as temples and (of course) souvenir shops.

There were two other highlights of the trip, though: first was a woman in a burka using an ipad to see the caves (we guessed she didn't have enough peripheral vision to catch everything through her veil)--I can't even used words to explain. Second was two adorable girls, probably fifteen and thirteen or so, traveling with their father, who clearly adored them and took numerous pictures of them. They laughed at us as we shied away from the monkeys that were crawling everywhere, and I (having heard from my mom numerous times how she hates never being in the pictures because she is always taking them!) offered to take a picture of all three of them. After numerous gestures and lots of nodding, he finally understood what I was asking and I took one. The older girl then asked where we were from; we said America, and asked her the same. "Iran," she said shyly, then added, "you know you are beautiful, right?" Kari asked her to repeat herself because both of us were unsure that that had actually just happened, but it did, and she shyly turned back to her family and they continued down the steps.

Both of us wanted to yell WAIT after them and spend the rest of the day with them--what is it like to be a teenage girl in Iran? Can you wear shorts and t-shirts there (they did that day)? WILL YOU BE OUR FRIENDS???

But we didn't. I wish those girls the best of luck with everything, and I hope my picture turns out well!

And wow, this is only about half of KL and doesn't include 12 hours of temples, the silk farm, or the floating village, but it is past my bedtime and I still need to research Lombok! Until tomorrow!

BACK...but not for long!

So I took copious notes (and over 500 pictures) over the last few days, and I can't wait to share everything in this space. But as I have an interview tonight, a skype date tomorrow morning, and leave (for my internship!!!) for Lombok on Thursday, time is of the essence. The highlights of today include:

-Riding DAMRI, the local bus, from the airport to Blok M (the closest mall to the kost)--a mere 20,000 rupiyah (the same price as a cab from Blok M here, and also about $2.50) (if you are ever here, DO IT)

-Getting told in a meeting at 2 PM I might have the chance to attend a LIW (women's empowerment project) in Lombok, and finding out 2 hours later I will not only attend, it is THIS WEEKEND

-Testing out Google Voice and calling the parentals for the first time!

-Avoiding smelling my laundry from this weekend...

-Learning how to count to one thousand from my wonderful roommate Putti (I was born in seribu sembilan ratus delapanpuluh enam-may not have the spelling down but I can say it)!

More later, I promise!!!

Finally getting out!

My second work week has concluded! (well, sort of--today is a holiday, Assumption, and tomorrow is not, but I will make up the time next week).

It has been a whirlwind since Brian, the boss, got back from his trip to Sri Lanka. As I had been warned, he is full of ideas, and as soon as I dive into one, he comes up with something new and with a closer due date! I love that my workload is filling up, although I am wondering when I will squeeze in the time to meet the Indonesian lawyers from different NGOs Ari sent me contact information for.

I also finished the terrible journal competition! I don't know how it turned out, but fingers crossed I will get onto one, and if not, I'll start looking for a term-timer internship for next year.

So I am off to Cambodia, computer-less, for the weekend with Kari; we also plan on exploring some of Kuala Lumpur and the Batu caves on Sunday. I don't plan on sleeping much for the next four nights, but that is a small sacrifice to make to visit two new countries over one weekend.

I leave you, readers, with a view of my lunch, mi goreng ayam (indonesian chicken and noodles). I've been trying to pull new dishes off the internet and from my Eat Smart in Indonesia book, but he cuisine here is very regionalized, and while Jakarta is a mixing pot of sorts, some dishes are only readily available in certain areas.

Until Monday!