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Published: December 28th 2008
When you leave the tourist comfort zone, people seem more interested in you than your money...
So we arrived, after 3 hours of the most interesting bus trip of my life, to
Gilimanuk, where we took the ferry to
Java; of about 200 people there, we were 4 tourists and we ended up together in
Banyuwangi train station and that's how we met Suzette and Lars with whom we spent the next 5 days...
After we were informed (half hand language, half pidgin English) that the next train to
Yogyakarta won't be leaving until the next morning (and it was only 3 pm!!), we went searching for a hostel to spend the night, but alomg came Harry who works at the train station and his colleagues had called him home to come and help us as he is the only one who speaks English...
He helped us with the tickets and invited us to spend the night at his home, to which we accepted very happily the 4 of us... but sometimes people is not what they look like and, sfter having dinner in his in-laws, he took us to his friend "place" which ended up being a
phone card shop with a fridge with some drinks; after making sure that we all had a drink he invited himself and his daughter to one and made us pay for it and then he told us that "if we wanted" we could give him some money "for his wife", not for him, he insisted, but for his wife for having us at her home... there you have Indonesian hospitality that we had know... first he invites us to his home and then he asks money for it, so we ended up paying nearly as much as a hostel for sleeping the 4 of us together in the same room... but he was kind enough to give us the pink ventilator...
But the train ride to
Yogyakarta was worth it... the first 7 hours we spent in a train where the cocroaches were running up and down the walls... but enjoying beautiful rice paddies landscapes... the next 6 hours in a great train where we got dinner, but we didn't see anything... you can't have everything...
Yogyakarta is big and, as all big cities, is full of people and, as in most of places where there's people, there's
rubbish... and where there's rubbish there's rats... and somehow I had a massive diahorrea (how do you spell this!!!??) the day we were supposed to go to
Borobudur, which is the most famoust buddhist temple in Indonesia, if not the world...
The next day I didn't have to run to the toilet every 15 minutes and I braved the bus to the temple... I'm not going to describe it as an image is worth more than a thousand words and that's what pictures are for, but I will say that we chose to go the same day as hundreds of school children who wer more interested in us than Buddha's life and spent long time "practicing" their English and taking pictures with us... Hollywood here I come!!!
We said goodbye to Suzette and Lars as they were heading North and we were going back to Bali as we had to fly to Singapore a few days later, but not before we went to a shadow puppet show... world wide famous but they haven't thought about translating the story into English... even though ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY in the audience were tourists... we were leaving the place very quietly before they
finished but not feeling guilty as they had told us that they get paid by the government and they play every night whether they had an audience or not...
Benditos sean los conductores de trishaw
Cuando sales de la zona de comodidad de los turistas, la gente parece mas interesada en ti que en tu dinero...
Asi llegamos, tras 3 horas en el que debio ser el viaje en bus mas interesante de mi vida, a
Gilimanuk, donde cogimos el ferry a
Java; de unas 200 personas en el barco, eramos 4 extranjeros y acabamos los 4 juntos en la estacion de tren de
Banyiwangi; asi fue como conocimos a Suzete y Lars, con los que pasamos los proximos 5 dias.
Despues de que nos informaran (medio en senhas, medio en ingles) de que el siguiente tren a
Yogyakarta no salia hasta el dia siguiente (y eran solo las 3 de la tarde!!), salimos en busca de un hostal para pasar la noche, pero entonces aparecio Harry, que trabaja en la estacion de tren y, aunque habia acabado su turno, sus companheros lo llamaron a su casa para que nos viniera a ayudar ya
que es el unico que habla ingles.
Nos ayudo con los billetes y nos invito a pasar la noche en su casa, lo cual aceptamos encantados los 4... pero a veces, la gente no es lo que parece y, despues de cenar en casa de sus suegros, nos llevo a tomar algo al local de su amigo que resulto ser una tienda de tarjetas de telefono con una nevera; despues de asegurarse de que todos habiamos consumido algo se invito a si mismo a una bebida y otra para su hija y nos la hizo pagar a nosotros y luego, nos dijo que, "si queriamos" podiamos darle dinero para "su mujer", no para el, insistio, sino para ella por la molestia de tenernos en su casa... ahi esta la hospitalidad indonesia que hemos conocido... primero nos invita a su casa y luego nos pide dinero, asi que acabamos pagando casi tanto como en un hosta por dormir los 4 en la misma habitacion... eso si, nos dejo el ventilador rosa...
Pero el viaje a
Yogyakarta merecio la pena... las primeras 7 horas en un tren donde las cucarachas subian y bajaban por las paredes a sus anchas... pero
disfrutando de paisajes de terrazas de arroz... las siguientes 6 en un tren fantastico donde nos dieron de cenar, pero sin ver paisaje ninguno... no se puede tener todo...
Yogyakarta es grande y, como todas las ciudades grandes, esta llena de gente y, como en casi todos los sitios donde hay gente, hay basura... y donde hat basura, hay ratas... y de alguna manera acabe con una diarrea de cojones el dia en que se suponia ibamos a
Borobudur, q es el templo budista mas famoso de Indonesia o, incluso, del mundo mundial...
Al dia siguiente ya no tenia que correr al banho cada 15 minutos y me atrevi a cojer el bus al templo... no lo voy a describir porque una imagen vale mas que mil palabras y para eso estan las fotos, si dire que fuimos en un dia en que cientos de ninhos estaban alli de excursion con el colegio y parecian mas interesados en nosotros que en la vida de Buda tallada en las paredes y se pasaron un buen rato "practicando ingles" y sacandose fotos con nosotros... Hollywood ahi voy!!!
Nos despedimos de Suzette y Lars, ya que ellos iban Norte y
nosotros de vuelta a Bali, ya que volabamos a Singapur en pocos dias, pero no sin antes ir a una representacion teatral de marionetas de sombras... si, si, muy famosas en el mundo entero, pero no se les ha ocurrido traducir la obra al ingles... a pesar de que ABSOLUTAMENTE TODOS los del publico eramos turistas... nos fuimos escapando con cuentagotas antes de que acabaran, pero sin sentirnos culpables ya que, antes de empezar, nos habian confesado que, como les paga el gobierno, actuan todos los dias tengan publico o no...
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