Back to earth

Looking back toward Banyuwangi on the ferry to Bali,
where we had to return to fly back to Java

Ironically, we had to return to Bali from East Java in order to get back to West Java. Our guide and new friend Azan stayed with us on the ferry as we crossed the strait. We arrived at Gilimanuk where he disembarked the ferry, and we left the deck and found our seats again on the bus. Now, the long road journey through the little known west, to Denpasar.

Leaving the pleasant isle, Bali of a thousand gates, where the gods live, and… back home to Tangerang, the ‘real world,’ at least for now. Back to earth… to my other favorite island in the universe, Java!

It seems wherever I look, I am amazed and instantly drawn to whatever and whoever I see in this land I call my other home, Yndonesia, far from the experience of many other visitors. I’ve looked at quite a few travelogs since returning to America, and even posted a link to one of the most extreme of them at the bottom of the side panel of this blog. Poor Liz! It seems as though, if something could go wrong, it did. There are many differences not only between her experience and mine, but between us as people. C. S. Lewis is quite right, ‘What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are’ (from The Magician’s Nephew, Chapter 10).

Our ride on the bus from the Gilimanuk ferry dock to the airport at Denpasar was another beautiful experience. The road skirted the island of Bali’s western shore, filling our view with indescribable sights of the living paradise. This is where, I guess, many if not most of Bali’s Muslims live. We saw far fewer family shrines among the houses, and mosques made their appearance regularly, as on Java, and were mostly the small ones that we see everywhere in the countryside of Yndonesia. The large mosque in the distance is at Medewi, on our route to Denpasar. Its style reminds me a little of the Taj Mahal in India, unlike the usual shape of mosques here, which have a uniquely southeast Asian look.

It was a long journey, but finally we arrived at the bus terminal in Denpasar. That didn’t mean we were home free, by any means. All it meant was, we had to find a taxi to carry us to the airport, something that could take as long as two hours if the traffic was as jammed as it was when we left Denpasar for Singaraja the day we arrived. Today, we were fortunate. We found a trusty taxi driver, and the traffic was so unjammed, that we arrived at our destination in much less than an hour.

Our cabby was a very hip guy, and culturally sensitive too. Of course he noticed right away that here he had a bulé and a native who might be an overseas Indonesian as his passengers. He heard Yudhie and I speaking English in an American accent, so he knew we weren’t, I wasn’t, an Aussie. He did speak a little English, and he turned around and asked us if we liked country music. I didn’t want to disappoint him (I don’t like very much of it, but I do like some) so I said, ‘Yes.’ He showed us an old CD of a well-known (but I forget who) male country vocalist before he popped it into his CD player. Twang, twang, oh my broken heart, you left me after all I did for you, boo hoo. You know, somewhat sentimental.

While the music played, I was noticing something hanging from his rear view mirror. Most people who do that usually hang something of religious significance, and this guy was no different. I squinted to see just who it was. Was it Krishna? I wondered. Finally, I got brave and asked him who was on the icon hanging from his mirror. It was Krishna, on one side, and Vishnu on the other. The Vishnu side was facing us, but at that distance and in the dark interior of the cab, I couldn’t quite make out the skin color—Vishnu is purple and Krishna is blue-skinned. When he saw that I knew who they were, he opened up quite a bit, even spiritually, and brotherhood was shared, recognition.
God is God.

We arrived at the airport, got our boarding passes, paid the departure tax, and got on the plane, all very quickly. The flight seemed to pass quickly too. This time, Yudhie and I were not able to sit together, and we just both rested. It was a relief to just be quiet and rest. The day had been long, and our senses quite overloaded.

When we arrived in Jakarta, we hailed a taxi and decided to have him drive us not directly home to Taman Ayu, but instead, to the Karawaci supermall, where we would be sure of finding something to eat. I think it was that night that we had dinner in the café on the top floor of the Times Bookstore. What surprised me was that Italian pasta dishes were prominent on the menu, like this spaghetti bolognese. This is a student hangout of sorts that Yudhie knew well. After dinner, we went down to the taxi stop to wait for a cab.

Everywhere we went in Bali and Java the week before New Year's
we saw booths like this, selling flashy horns and other noise-makers

‘Oh my gosh! It’s New Year’s Eve!’ should have been flashing big bright warning signs in our brains, but we hadn’t even given it a thought. Of course, we knew it was the 31st of December, but it hadn’t occurred to either of us that there’d be a run on taxis tonight, the uncarred masses of the Jakarta metropolis requiring them to be transported to and from parties. We arrived at the usual stop—there’s only one—and even though it wasn’t very late yet, the queue there was about twenty persons long, not counting family members sitting on benches and on the pavement against the building while one of them stood in line.

‘Well, let’s see what happens,’ I said to Yudhie. And so we waited, and waited, and waited. I don’t know how long it was before the next taxi arrived and picked up one group. Then it was another long wait before another showed up, maybe twenty minutes, and picked up the next in line. The third cab didn’t show for at least forty-five minutes, and meanwhile the queue had actually doubled in length. We were somewhere in the middle. Behind us, a group of three or four Korean tourist twenty-somethings were becoming very antsy. People began leaving the queue and walking away, but the queue never seemed to shorten, and after two hours we were no closer to getting a cab than before. So we left.

The solution was easy. Just hop on an angkot and go home. Those were my thoughts, but I left the logistics to Yudhie. He knew what to do. It wasn’t long before an angkot going close to Taman Ayu pulled over to the curb and we got on. After a short ride on the highway through thick traffic, we got off, walked through a gangway, and ended up at an alley entrance I was now familiar with. Three or four ojeks were waiting there for customers. Though it really wasn’t far at all to our house, Yudhie wanted us to ride there. Our small luggage was fastened to the handlebars and we hopped on behind our drivers. We arrived home licked-split, got off the motorcycles, and paid the drivers 5000 rupiah each, and with a sigh of relief unlocked the front door, and almost collapsed onto the sofa.
We were home.

Union Station
Portland, Oregon

Now, for a rest. New Year’s Day we did nothing except local activities. The weather was warm and bright, but there were occasional thunderstorms that night. But as for us, we were safe and at peace.

Next… Let’s go by train!