Is this really my life?

Apparently, it is.

Silly me, thought today would be a normal, laid-back day. And it was for the morning. I had a nice bowl of pre-cut dragonfruit for breakfast:


I had just ordered lunch (some grilled chicken) when Leli came in and said they were ready to leave (at 11:45 AM). Since she had told us the day before we would be leaving at 12:30, this threw Julia and I off a little, but as this is the usual, we grabbed our things and went out to the car.

We knew that the plan was to visit parliament, but we had no idea what was in store. We thought that we would be meeting with some staff, snapping a picture or two, and getting away from our computers for a couple of hours. When we arrived, we went through multiple layers of security, including a guard at the parking lot entrance and a metal detector (which went off for both Julia and I, but being bule women, I suppose they didn't think we posed a threat).

The building was extremely clean, compared the the police headquarters at least, and we went up the the 8th floor and were (literally) ushered into an extremely nice office, with a couple of large armchairs and four couches in a square around marble tables with ikat table runners (more on that later). A large picture of a stately-looking woman hung behind the desk on the other side of the room, and a huge flat-screen TV was playing...House MD.

Suddenly, the woman from the picture walked into the room. A real-life Indonesian parliamentarian! She greeted us and we all sat down, and she and Leli began a lively conversation in Bahasa. A few minutes later, a second woman entered the room and joined in. Julia and I later learned that these women were members of the women's caucuses of DPD-RI and DPR-RI, the national legislature and the regional house of representatives. We had some tea, tried a type of lychee, and Julia and I answered a couple of questions in English between long bouts of Bahasa.

They then invited us to stay for lunch (so much for ordering before I left! but I just enjoyed it for dinner), where we enjoyed a nice view of Central Jakarta while making small talk. We learned about one of the womens' daughters' upcoming nuptials, and I caught a joke (or so I thought) about how it will be in her palace. We traded cards, took some pictures, and I walked out with a dopey grin on my face.

It turns out, the wedding at her palace is ACTUALLY at her palace. I failed to catch in the earlier conversation that this representative is also the Queen of Yogyakarta, which maintains a semi-autonomous status within Indonesia. NBD, I just lunched with the Queen and told her to call me if she is ever in New York. Photo proof:


From L to R: Julia, yours truly, Queen Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Hemas, Aida Zulaika Nasution Ismeth, and Leli)

We paused for some pictures before heading back to the office (see below for me and the Parliament), where Julia and I persuaded Nita to tell us what just happened. It looks like I will also be working on a small proposal for them, which is awesome.


Finally, Julia and I book our last-minute trip to Surabaya, to include Mt. Bromo and Mt. Pananjakan! So this will probably be my last blog entry until I return--until then, adios!

Sabah Part 2: The Adventures Continue!

What adventures, you may ask? That will be answered in due time as I continue to work my way backwards. For now, our second day: Kinabalu Park and Poring Hot Spring Tour, as described by our itinerary. Except, it turns out it was outdated, and it was actually Poring Hot Spring and Kinabalu Park tour (in that order). No worries.

We started the day at 7:25 AM, by being picked up by our incessantly energetic tour guide, Edwin. Our first sight was an 8K run/walked/strolled by Malaysian students in support of the the "one student" Malaysian policy of getting kids involved in athletic. On the left side of the car, they clearly couldn't care less and were stopping, sitting, texting, and talking; on the right side, they were sprinting:


The promised half-hour drive was actually an hour and a half (the first of many drives much longer than described). Luckily, the drive was beautiful. Our destination was Nabalu, described as quaint, but actually a town that seemed to exist solely for tourists. Hundreds of stalls crowded a couple of small pavilions, selling rice, fresh fruit, and many, many souvenirs. Kari got us some breakfast, about 20 mini bananas for 1 ringitt (30 cents!), and we got some sub-par kopi peng. See the giant bunch of mini bananas in this photo (they lasted us all day and into the next day):

We browsed the stalls but our half hour flew by, and we didn't end up getting much, except for this photo:


From there, we took another long drive to Poring Hot Spring and Nature Reserve, passing Kinabalu Park, which we would return to later. The drive was GORGEOUS. The scenery was out of this world, rolling mountains, rice paddies, and Kinabalu himself looming over all of it. We learned the first legend of Kinabalu (yes, there are two), which is that when people die, their spirits go to live on the mountain. If you hike it, you should not call anyone by their real name, just a number the tour guide assigns you, because if you use their real name, the spirits will hear it and call it out, luring the unlucky namee to their death.

When we arrived to Poring Hot Spring , Edwin took us up to our first destination, the Treetop Canopy Walkway. We had signed up for a lot of hiking and exercise, but our fellow tourists, two Malaysian couples and a middle-aged Indian uncle, were not dressed for nor in shape for anything more than 20 minutes of hiking, which is how long it took to get to the canopy walkway. Still, a nice little hike and way to stretch our legs after all of that driving.

I had expected something like wood planks nailed to a solid structure that was a little ways off the ground. Nope. We were presented with an apparatus made up of ropes and cables that sunk as soon as you stepped on it and reached heights of 30 meters off of the ground. Terrifying (although I am hiding my fear from the camera here):


Somehow, Kari and I survived the walk, and in order to get some more hiking in, decided to pass the hot sulfur baths up (they didn't look too clean, anyways) and hike to a waterfall. Hike would be an overstatement; it was about a ten minute stroll, but the falls were pretty and Kari had the chance to try out the natural foot spa--down stream a little ways, the fish they'll charge you hundreds of dollars for in New York will nibble at your dead skin for free:



We got back in the car for another long drive for lunch at the Fairy Garden Restaurant, a restaurant with beautiful views of the mountains and seemingly tailored to tour buses. We were promised deer meat to try, but due to some odd reasons (we had to sit at a different table than the Muslims just in case we wanted to order alcohol, which we didn't, and you need at least six people to get the deer dish, and because of the religious divide we were a group of three and one of four, so no minimum for deer), we just had chicken, fish, and veggies. Still good, though we had gotten our hopes up!

Next, we had just a short drive to Kinabalu Park, where we spent 30 minutes being told about the things we would see if we had decided to hike Mt. Kinabalu. Kari and I kept trying to subtly hint that we would rather be outside in nature instead of being told about nature from a inside a sub-par exhibit hall, but Edwin would say NOT YET! NOT YET!

Once we finally got outside, Edwin led us through trails of lush plant life and a few gurgling streams. Very pretty, except I made a mistake. Earlier on the tour, I had expressed to Edwin that I liked orchids. Therefore, every single time he saw one, he would stop and yell "Christine! Christine!" until I came over and he could point at it. Thanks, Edwin.

I also made the mistake of disagreeing with Edwin over betelnut. From what Kari and I have heard and read, betelnut is a sort of fruit-like pod that grows in the wild, is harvested by Malaysians and Indonesians, and sold in some stores. It's effects are slightly drug-like, and it can be addictive. When I tried saying that it was addictive to Edwin, he shot me down and tried to talk over me. Maybe he is an addict? According to wikipedia, it also is a carcinogen! Who knew!


After another long ride home, Kari and I dumped our stuff at the hotel and walked towards the waterfront to check out the sunset and the Filipino market. Sunset: gorgeous; market: crazy (so much food! so many people!). We enjoyed a pitcher of Tiger and a seafood feast while watching the sunset over the South China Sea. How romantic. Afterwards, we tried some Malay desserts (Kaya butter balls = delcisiouness) before packing it in for the night.


Verdict: the area is beautiful, but even after coming home and doing some google searching, I cannot figure out how to do active touring of the Kota Kinabalu area without hiking to the top of the mountain itself. Perhaps if we had asked for more action and adventure, or to hike half the mountain, our experience would have been a little better; but Sabah is definitely beautiful and I would encourage anyone who has the chance to go. Wouldn't fly around the world JUST to see it, but hey, if you're here, why not?

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Just spent a successful day at work, which included:

-An invitation from a co-worker's husband, containing not one, but two invitations to trials: one in a civil court about an abasement case between two members of parliament, the other to the constitutional court. Um, yes please.

-Potential travel plans with Julia to see Mt. Bromo and Surabaya this weekend.

-The last hour of the workday was spent in a meeting with a representative from LBH, Indonesia's legal aid NGO. The meeting went well, and it looks like our CT human rights training will really be taking off in the next few weeks (just in time for me to leave!)

On my walk home, I was dreaming about some pizza for dinner, when I saw the most adorable little black kitten (which, as I recollect the story now, totally crossed my path. Not sure if that is bad luck here). I noticed it had a little jaunt to its walk, and as I turned my head to follow its path, I noticed its back hind leg was broken, and it was dragging it on the ground. My heart went out to the poor thing, but feral cats are common, as are rabies, but not rabies vaccines, so I knew I couldn't help it. Dear little kitty, I hope you make it on the tough Jakarta streets.

Ordering some pizza, then settling down to:

-Watch The Black Road, a documentary about the war in Aceh.

-Apply for some non-EIW jobs

-Conduct some travel research into Mt Bromo

-Blog more about Sabah

Oh, and the pho from last night--excellent. Just beware of those little chilies they give you--my tongue was numb for a good ten minutes after eating one.

Sabah Part 2.5: It was worth missing the 4th of July for this.

I'm sitting at a human rights discussion being conducted in Indonesian, and tomorrow is my last day of work, so it seemed like a good opportunity to wrap up Sabah.

There isn't a ton to say. Kari and I wanted to take it easy, so for July 4th, we decided to do a beach day. Turns out there is only one beach in Kota Kinabalu, it isn't close to where we were staying, and it isn't great either. So, we decided to try out the small islands off the coast and their beaches; they are part of a national park and apparently well-preserved.

First, though, we had to check out the infamous Sunday Market. They pretty sold everything there--souvenir vases, keychains, magnets, pets, purses, sunglasses, flowers, food, and freshly roasted and ground coffee. We bought so much stuff that we had to go back to the hotel and drop it off before heading to the beach.

The market was also the place to see and be seen. We ran into the owners of our hotel and three people from our tour the day before! We also ran into a creepy man who seemed to be following us and who we had to hide from to lose.

Once we dropped off our stuff, we walked to the wharf, Jesselton Point (no, sir, we can walk, we don not need a cab!). Once there, we were confronted with about ten counters in a row all selling the same thing: boat trips to one,two,or all three islands, with the option of adding lunch or snorkeling to our trips. We picked an island and sat down to wait, then were (poorly) directed, a few feet at a time, to where the boat was docked that would take us to our destination. We shared our boat with a family of Australian-Malays (the mother and aunt were Malay and had grown up in Sabah before moving to Australia to raise their daughters, who did not have Australian accents).


The first island we stopped at was so-so; fortunately, that was not our destination--we picked well when confronted with the choice of three islands! We settled down on the beach after walking around the island a little and finding some weird things, such as:

Scuba Diving for the invalid (aka Scuba-Doo):


World War II artifacts from the Japanese occupation:


A weird way to warn about jellyfish:


I tried snorkeling, though there wasn't much to see. There also wasn't much to eat. When Kari and I went to a restaurant with a huge buffet displayed to ask about eating there, they said they were closed. But we can see food. But we are closed. Try there. "There" had very unappetizing-looking food, so we survived on the remains of the huge bunch of mini-bananas Kari has bought the previous day for one ringgit (um, 30 cents). It was pretty beautiful:


After a few hours, we returned to the mainland by the same boat, gobbled some sub-par laksa (perhaps because it wasn't assam laksa, but a different kind???), and headed to the airport. I believe that is where I picked up in part 3!

Traffic! Traffic!

I stopped by this Pho restaurant I saw yesterday on my way home today and got some basic beef pho for dinner--I hope it's good!

Today flew by-I worked on editing the LWI report in the morning, and in the afternoon, Leli and I went to her old organization, Rahima, to interview one of their experts on women's issues in Indonesia for our upcoming Women's View report. She cited CEDAW's Indonesia shadow report so many times; I wish Kari had been there! I got some great notes, though my hand almost fell off towards the end. I also saw a little of Depok, the town between Jakarta and Bogor, as well as the train that runs between the two (although I did not see people on the roof as it wasn't rush hour yet). Mostly, we just saw traffic!

(Confession: this picture is from the internet, as my camera could not adequately capture the traffic from the car. However, this is typical Jakarta traffic, especially with the ojeks (motorbikes) swarming around the cars--today they were driving in the opposite on our side of the street because the traffic on their side was too heavy and we had to keep stopping to let them pass!)

Sabah Part 3: The return

Kari and I left the hotel two hours before our flight, and paid half the price to return as when we had arrived (minus the late-night surcharge of 50% and minus five extra ringgits? awesome!) The ride to the airport took only about ten minutes, and security took all of 30 seconds to pass through. We found a Famous Amos store on the other side (yes, like the little vending machine cookies), with about ten varieties of cookie as well as traditional American movie-theater snacks. Would-be yummy, but both of us are a little ready to detox after the eating binge that has been Asia.

While we were waiting, Air Asia made an announcement that our flight was delayed, and I looked at Kari in terror, as my international connection in KL was only an hour and a half, and I knew that if there was a delay, I wouldn't make it.


Ten minutes is not a delay. Air Asia made an announcement that our flight would take off at 6:40 instead of 6:30. Um, don't all flights take off ten minutes, give or take, from the actual departure time? And it turns out we were in the air by 6:35 anyways. False alarm.

Somehow, even though we booked separately and at different times, Air Asia placed us next to each other, which was fantastic. What was not fantastic was the flight composition--probably about 25% children under the age of 8 years of age. Neither of us have ever seen anything like that. The row in front of us was made up of three children who didn't seem to know what a seatbelt, or a seat was. While they didn't bother us too much, we did worry slightly for their safety--one of them spent the flight either on his brother's lap or on the floor.


Upon arrival, I bade a quick farewell to Kari (NOOOOOO MY TRAVEL PARTNER IS GOOOOOOONE!) so I could get my ticket verified, go through immigration, and go through security again before my boarding time in less than an hour. No line for any of the above, and I arrived at the gate with 20 minutes to spare.

I was pretty humgry by that time, so I decided to try something new for dinner: a chicken satay paratha wrap from Hot& Roll. It was looking good as he made it, until out of no where, he picked up a giant bottle of mayonnaise as I shouted NO! NO! and squirted it all over the chicken. Since when does chicken satay go with mayonnaise? Since when does any Asian food go with mayonnaise? Luckily, he was able to remove most of it, and covered the rest with black pepper sauce. The concoction was very bizarre and not great, but okay. I used up the rest of my ringgits buying souvenirs for folks back home, checked my e-mail on my kindle (aka battled with the LCCT internet for 20 minutes), and was ready to go.

But my flight was not to be. After they finally make an announcement that it was delayed after it was already supposed to have taken off, they still didn't update the departures screen, and I decided to kill some time by scouring duty-free for a bottle of wine, as wine is super expensive in Jakarta. Turns out, wine is expensive there, too-the cheapest was a bottle of Yellowtail for $30. No thank you.

Finally, my flight took off an hour late, and I immediately passed out on the plane. I did notice, however, there were at least ten other Westerners on my flight, nine more than I have ever seen on a flight to Jakarta before. When we got to immigration, I took a peek at one of their passports, and it turns out they were a contingent from the World Bank, presumably here for a conference?

Since the terminal was deserted, I breezed through immigration and customs and was ready to head home!

Not quite so fast. I learned my lesson after my arrival in Jakarta to never get in a cab that is not a Bluebird. So once I went straight to the Bluebird man at the airport and took my number (13)without a second thought. And I waited...and waited...and waited. Not a Bluebird in sight, the number of people waiting growing, and the number of alternative taxi drivers offering increasingly lower fares also growing. One Bluebird came, and left with passenger #1. And then...nothing.

After half an hour, and after a number of people gave up and took their chances with other companies (I was ready to get a room at the Air Transit Hotel before doing that!), I asked how much for a Silver Bird (read: Mercedes)to where I needed to go. 180,000 rupiyah, give or take--$22. At this rate, music to my ears.

Nope. I went to the Silver Bird counter and he said not available. But I have been watching tens of them drive by! Nope.

Back to Bluebird, another fifteen minutes wait, and finally enough cabs came through that I could get in one. And this was only because a nice Irish woman also gave up to go with an unsafe company and gave me her number (7).

Home free? Not yet. My Indonesian phone had run out of credit when I arrived in Sabah and my texts to my roommates from my American cell weren't going through. So when I arrived at the kost, I had to spend five minutes banging on the gate and ringing the doorbell before the owner woke up and unlocked the gate. I felt terrible about waking her up at 2 AM, especially with the call to prayer at 4:30 AM, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The rest of our trip was amazing. More on that later (if you can't tell, I like working backwards!)

Oh Say Can You See...

So again, I need to do EIW work, but there is too much buzzing around my head, and I want to get some of it down before I forget (or to procrastinate).

Working backwards:

-I've been struggling with my key and the front door for weeks. On the inside, it slides right in; from the outside, I fight and fight until I muscle it in. I think that muscling finally backfired, as today I could. not. open. the. door. Atik finally heard my struggles and came down to open it for me. We held our keys up next to each other and sure enough, there is a chunk of the first "hill" on the key's body that is missing from mine. She's going to see about getting me another one. Please, I hope!

-Before that, I decided to give satay another try, especially after the carbo-loading of today (see below). I asked Nita for the best place around here and she directed me to a stand close to Wolter Monginsidi, the main road. It is extremely close to the office, and I walked in a giant circle trying to get there, but I made it--and FINALLY found the supermarket Julia has been raving about. As she said, it is like Total, but twice as big--it has a TON of stuff, minus granola bars, or anything remotely healthy that isn't fruit or produce (does anything healthy exist outside of ex-pat-catering super-markets???)

-I also realized on my walk home my view of Jakarta has changed immensely from my arrival: when I first got here, my fears on my walk home consisted of terrorists, robbers, and lecherous men looking for a white girl to attack. Now, I am afraid of giant rats, giant cockroaches, and bats, all of which exist due to the piles of trash that never seem to be picked up (I saw a garbage truck on my walk to work this morning, but somehow, the roads still smell like a mixture of sewage, petrol, and rotting fruit). The walk to work looks like this:


-Another observation of Julia's that I completely agree with is that people here do not cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. Perhaps we only know this due to some CDC or WHO campaign from our childhoods, but I have taken it for granted. Now, not only am I afraid of what the pollution/cigarette smoke/rotting trash are doing to my lungs, I now have to worry about all the germs mixed in with the particulate matter. And TB is common here. Great.

-Julia and I did discover a little piece of heaven across the street today, though: Helen's Cakes. Not only do they have gourmet cakes for a third of the cost that they would be in New York, they have fresh coffee, salads, and other non-Indonesian foods. I will be back. A lot.

We purchased a tiramisu cake to commemorate Hugh's departure for Sri Lanka:


Apparently it is tradition for the receiver to cut a piece of cake and hand it to someone he or she is feeling particularly happy toward, then someone else should take over, but we made Hugh do most of the work:


And the next reason I will be coming home with the summer sepulu (sepulu = ten, my idea of Jakarta's version of the freshman fifteen) goes back to lunch, where we celebrated the fourth of July with one line of the Star Spangled Banner, a ton of pizza, and cokes (the burgers here aren't quite up to par, and the beer too expensive):


That pretty much summed up my Fourth festivities (except for my breakfast; see below)--the American Embassy was all exclusive about their party (hint, hint--us lowly Americans need some celebrating too!)

-I also still haven't figured out the texting culture--one of my co-workers pulled out her phone and started texting while my boss, who had come into the office specifically to talk just to her about something, was in the middle of talking. Kari and I speculate that it honestly might just be the culture--for example, she told me that in Malay, there is no word for "please" unless you are talking to someone equivalent in rank to the king.

-Common sense, or what we in America would term common sense, also seems to be lacking sometimes. Case in point: when asked about why there was no pre-test for one of the LWI trainings, the answer was that our local NGO partner "forgot" to administer it, and SFCG was not present yet, so couldn't enforce the requirement (like they keep "forgetting" to send us the lists of names of attendees of each training, lists that were complete at the trainings themselves, but I digress). Fine. However, when asked why there was no post-test, the answer was "well, because there was no pre-test." Julia and I remain baffled.

-As I said I was working backwards, I am missing an important part of my morning and Fourth of July celebrations. Total did not have chopped fruit of a variety I wanted, so I bought an eighth of a watermelon, chopped it up at work, and enjoyed it for breakfast. YUM. America, I miss you sometimes, but I also loved that I paid less than one dollar for that quarter.

That's all for now, folks! Off to submit some EIW bids, upload some Borneo pictures, and maybe get some sleep. Coming up next will be a Borneo post!