Advertisement
Published: December 6th 2012
Edit Blog Post
"Indonesia - land of smile" sounds a little bit exaggerated but it is true. They know how to smile and they do it very often. It is probably the first attribute of the indonesian people a foreigner notices when he comes to Indonesia.
Eight years ago I made the same trip from Jakarta to Bali, it was one of our best trips we have ever made to Southeast Asia. Now I am making the same tour again.
Am I going to like Indonesia as much as the last time?
Jakarta
I met them in the Halong-Bay in Northvietnam, we travelled only one day together
. They attracted my attention because they were laughing whenever they talked together
. I took photos of them and later we exchanged our addresses.
How often do we exchange addresses with fellow travellers, who we never see again ?
But in this case it was obviously different. Whenever there was a Tsunami or an earthquake I asked them about there well-beeing.
I also asked them when the epicenter of the earthquake was maybe in Banda Ace, more than 1000km west of Jakarta.
As there is no lack
of a catastrophe in Indonesia we stayed in contact. In some years we even exchanged several eMails.
Last year when there was an EHEC epidemic in Germany it even went the other way round. They asked me: "Walter are you okay?" We finally met again in Jakarta.
I love it when I come to a foreign country and there is someone waiting for me. In this case there were tree young women, who waited for me at a local train station. They showed me Kota (the old city) and the National Museum. The day ended in a garden restaurant in Jakarta.
Thank you very much for this beautifull day. It was a good start for my journey.
Pangandaran
Pangandaran is a seaside resort at the south coast of Java.I always find it very boring to hang around at a beach I so rented a motorbike for three days. I only went to the beach to take photos.
In one village I saw women who were washing themselves, cleaning the dishes and washing clothes in a small river but I also saw someone else using the same river as a toilett.
The daughter
Land of smile
Schoolgirls doing there homework, Yogyakarta of a shop owner has just returned from Singapore. There she took care of old people. She worked 12h a day, 7 days a week. She only got a contract for 2 years and then she had to leave Singapore immediately. Only after one year outside of Singapore she has the chance to get a new contract again. She does not complain, she said all the time.
In a small village I saw how whole families were smashing stones from a nearby river with only a small hammer. What a waste of human resources.
Fraternization in Yogyakarta
Very often you get approached by small groups of schoolgirls. They say they have to do a survey among foreign tourists as a homework. They ask questions about local dishes and want to know how someone likes Indonesia. One group of schoolgirls even asked me in German. It doesn't take long to notice that these questions have nothing to do with homework. Their primary aim is to talk with a foreigner and to take a photo with him. At the nearby Borobudur (Buddhist Temple) you can meet many local weekender. Of course they too want to have there
Land of smile
Schoolgirls in Pangandaran photo with the foreigner. If you are blond and blue-eyed you might not have enough time to see everything of the Buddhist Temple but you will get to know many friendly people. It looks like fraternization. You see mostly groups of women with their children among the weekender, it looks as if men only play a minor role, but I might be wrong. For me Yogyakarta is the most attractive city in Java.
Somewhere in Java:
The Burden of the past
In my Hotel I got to know a retired dutch man. It was easy to notice that he was trying to talk with me. The next morning during breakfast we finally talked together. He is over 70 years old and was born in Malang (East-Java). He was married and had worked for over 20 years in Germany. When his company got bankrupt he lost his job and finally got divorced. He sad that this was a relief for him.Although he is now married with a woman from Bandung (West-Java) he actually lives alone in this hotel. On his first flight to Indonesia he got to know his present wife but she stayed
Land of smile
Schoolgirls in Pangandaran in Bandung. He lives in this hotel he said because he needs the contact to other people. Obviously he doesn't need the contact with his wife.
It took only a few minutes and I knew that he and his parents were taken prison in Malang (East-Java) during ww2 by the japanes army. The prisoner were treated very bad and many died in captivity. He mentioned several times that also his mother was among the victims,she only got 33 years old. It was easy to notice that he was very occupied with the death of his mother. His mother died more than 67 years ago but he was still obsessed with this sad incident. How often has he told this story? Does he tell this story everyday to another hotel guest? He looked sad when I told him that I was going to leave the city right now.
Reunion at Mt.Bromo
Most of the tourists stay only one night at Mt.Bromo. You get up at 3am in the morning (can you aready call it "morning"?) to watch the sunrise at Mt.Bromo with sometimes 100 other tourist. After sunrise the tourist leave the place hastily at maybe
10am. Eight years ago we stayed one more night. The staff at the hotel was very friendly, tomatoes were growing in front of our Bungalow, the weather was very good and at night the hotel staff used the hotel restaurant as a Karaoke Bar. You could listen to very good western music. We were almost the only hotel guests. So why not stay one more night? I took many photos of the village people. Some of these photos are hanging at our walls for years now. This time I came back with some prints. To find out the address of my former "models" I presented the prints at the reception of my hotel. It was all very easy. People were still living in the same village. A once 12 year old girl is now married for 3 years and has a 3 month old baby. She is now 20 years old and still very young. Unfortunatly one print I could not hand over personally anymore. An old farmer's wife died in an accident with a motorbike 2 month ago. I met her husband and gave him the print. The photo shows his wife walking along a street. The husband was
very glad with the print. He said that this photo is the only print he has from his wife. Strange accident, his wife passed away and a little bit later a foreigner comes along with a print of his wife.
Next destination Bali
Here there are more
photos to see about my journey
http://waha.smugmug.com/Indonesia
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 10; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0355s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb