A Look Back at Indonesia

After the expedition to Rinca Island, the rest of the trip was about going home. We stopped off at a couple of places on Flores, like the fish market, but they were just short stops. We spent one last night in Denpasar but mostly to accommodate the airline schedules. The big event there was a last dinner together and an expedition to a large mall.

Then it was a race around the rim of the Pacific to outrun a typhoon, a night in an actual hotel in Los Angeles, and a short, domestic flight home.

In other words, this will be my last Thursday post about Indonesia. I’ve got a short post scheduled for Monday, then I’ll be moving on to other topics.

I find there were a bunch of things I either touched on too lightly, or overlooked completely.

For instance, the fact the tour guides made a big deal about the people on Flores being mostly Christian. There was one church there. It wasn’t nearly as noisy as the mosque on the harbor.

As we passed, the local guide pointed out that his people had a special dispensation from the Vatican to be considered Catholic even though they retained the animism native to his people.

Also was the time on when our boat came back from Rinca to find the dock totally full up. Instead of requesting landing, out captain elected to shove his way through three layers of other boats to get us to the dock. In the process, he cracked one of the boards on the roof of his own boat. I sincerely hope he made enough from taking us to cover the repairs.

One of the big things I totally overlooked in my posts was the kite festival. This actually took place in Bali a couple of weeks before we arrived. In other words, we missed it. Still there were plenty of people still flying kites while we were there. Particularly in the Denpasar area.

Kite flying there is serious business. First of all, this kite was taken from many yards away. It’s the size of a small truck. Roving bands of young men in trucks full of long bamboo poles liked to fly the kites.

There were competitions before we arrived. Not so much while we were there. Still, one might see a dozen of these monster kites in the air in a particular area – like the beach or a large open meadow.

Early in the trip – in Java but I can’t remember if it was Jakarta or Jogjakarta – we were served an exquisite meal that scared me. They started with some wonderful soup, after which I was already full. Then came rice shaped to look like a nobleman with the funny hat. Alright. I managed that well enough, though I was thinking I was starting to put at risk all the health benefits of my months of dieting.

Then came the platters. Each person got their own.

I’m not one to miss a chance to try something new, whatever it is. Food is all the more of interest to me. I had every intention of eating at least one bite of each item but not much more than that.

I was so relieved when it turned out most of the space on our platters were taken up by palm leaves. In other words is was more decorative than filling. Whewh!

One of the things that I find to be of enduring interest in all my travels is how people in different parts of the world interact with technology. The regular juxtaposition of high and low tech fascinates me.

I think it all started with Mongolia where most people didn’t have any kind of plumbing, but they all had cell phones. Indonesia has it’s own version. The opulent and the rusty often rubbed elbows. Much like in Mongolia, the fronts of residences and other structures might not be particularly impressive while the interiors were stunning.

Every hotel we stayed at included internet access, but the access tended to be spotty. In every online session I spent half the time trying to get back online. But at least it was possible. Mostly.

Yet walls often seemed optional in the places we visited. We talked to some tourists in Komodo who were staying at a place just down the shore from our hotel on Flores. They didn’t have bathrooms. When they asked where to go to do their business, the were told to use the yard.

I could have said a lot more about the gates in Bali. The popped up everywhere. the strangest was the one made of what looked like cardboard. It was two stories tall, and I could see the wooden internal frame as we drove through it, but couldn’t get my camera up fast enough to take a picture. We asked the tourguide, but she totally missed it. Never did find out what that was about.

I had planned on doing a complete post about music alone. Their melodious gongs really impressed me. I tried to buy some music, but only ended up with xylophone type stuff. The stuff I really liked I couldn’t find in the limited time available to me, but ran into in odd places, like this street band in Jogjakarta.

I had also planned to do an independent post about scaffolding. That summer before the trip I had quite the adventure with scaffolding. To wee the bamboo version all over the place on the other side of the world caught my attention.

I’ll stick with the metal version available through my local equipment rental place.

At the very end, when our plane was leaving Indonesia completely, I was able to hand my camera to the nice young man sitting next to me. He got my only decent picture of a volcano from the whole trip. I actually walked on that thing, but couldn’t find it for all the billowing clouds.

The man in question barely spoke English. Apparently he was from Denmark, and was very nervous about flying. He was very excited to be using my DSLR camera. It took his mind off the typhoon.