TravelStream™ news feed for member hardiek on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/hardiek en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:30:35 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/HardieK/17/1033671111/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/HardieK/17/1033671111/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/HardieK/17/1033671111/tpod.html Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:30:35 -0500 INDONESIA AGAIN & TIMOR 2

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Chiang Rai, Thailand

Less than ten days after arriving back 'home' in Chiang Rai, Thailand, the ‘Bali Bombers’ struck, including one of the bars where I drank, one of the few bars with girls operating freely. I hung there just for research. They’re all dead now, I suppose.
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Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia

I catch a night bus back to Bali from Malang. I try to sleep, so don't remember much of the trip, including the ferry ride across the strait separating Java from Bali. We get into Denpasar early in the morning. I hang out a while at the bus station, then continue on to Kuta. I’ll hang out a day or two tying up loose ends, then head back to Thailand.
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Malang, Java, Indonesia

Malang is not on anyone's list of tourist sights, but I had a feeling I’d like it. I was right. It has a totally different feel from anywhere I’ve been in Indonesia, perhaps because it’s up in the mountains, so much cooler. It also has a good market, where I buy some masks and other artefacts for possible commercialization. It even has a central plaza, something almost unheard of in typically sprawling Asian cities. The only problem is that some weird guy keeps following me around speaking good English and talking about such taboo subjects as the CIA and such. He seems like bad news to me and I try to blow him off as well as I can, but he’s persistent. The central square is a nice place to hang at night.
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Solo, Java, Indonesia

Solo/Surakarta is the sister city of Jogja, but definitely the lesser-known of the two. I can see why. It's nice enough in terms of authenticity, but not a whole lot of facilities for Western travelers, e.g. restaurants, etc. Most locals who want to eat out do so in the local way, in large tents and enclosures laid out on the streets and sidewalks.
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Surabaya, Java, Indonesia

Surabaya is the big new city of Java, huge and highly industrialized. It is not very friendly for budget travelers, but I manage to find something fairly centrally located. It also reportedly has the biggest redlight district in SE Asia, but I felt no need to research that merely for academic purposes. I'm a married man now.
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Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia

Jogjakarta is the cultural capital of Java. I've been here before, but it’s been a long time. Fundamentalism seems to be making inroads into Indonesian culture. Whereas last time the streets at night had lots of girls looking to make ends meet where the cheap hotels are, this time there’s no evidence of that. Culturally and genetically similar to all the other countries in SE Asia, Indonesia somehow ended up Muslim for one reason or another, and all of a sudden their 'Muslim Lite’ attitude toward it all is being called into question. Bali still gets away with more than the others- not being Muslim itself- but there are no guarantees. The beach scene after dark has definitely been curtailed- except for gays. Guys can do whatever they want- and do, servicing countless young Japanese girls and middle-age Western women- indeed acting much like Thai bar girls in the bars where they work. Tensions are inherent when religion is antithetical to the orinal culture. I take advantage of my opportunity to go see the Hindu ruins of Prambanan close by, a reminder of the time when all the region was under that sway. Bali still is.
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Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia

Back in Denpasar I briefly meet up with a few friends from the old world-crafts section of the trade-show circuit, a rapidly vanishing breed in the digital age. We hang out on the beach in Kuta, chase trinkets in Ubud, drink, and generally play tourist. After a few days of that we go our separate ways. I'm after something a little more authentic. Kuta’s become too much of a zoo. I catch a flight to Jogyakarta.
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Dili, Timor-Leste

The flight from Denpasar to Dili is nothing special, definitely the po' man’s run, and upon landing you can see why. Dili is pretty bad off. When the Indonesian army withdrew, they pretty much trashed the place, and I doubt that they did it much better in their twenty some-odd years of rule after forced annexation. The UN is running the place, so things aren’t especially cheap, and there’s not much there anyway, except what some enterprising Chinese have had time to accumulate. I end up in a Chinese-run hotel at $25 per night, expensive by Indonesian standards, considering that it’s pretty much just a box with satellite TV. The town is no better, hardly a place to eat or do much else. Some travel agencies exist, but nothing much is really up and running. The UN gave me a week, but two or three days will be plenty, thank you. The Portuguese influence is weak now, and lingua francas tend to fluctuate between English and Bahasa Indonesia, though Tetum is the local dialect. Bless their hearts the local kinky-haired Papuans are not an especially handsome people, so it’s not like there will be any rush to mix-breed the next generation any whiter and brighter.

The one thing that stood out on the trip was the weaving, one of my import specialties. Now I’d already known that west Timor had some of the most outrageously beautiful weaving in Indonesia and on the planet, so I was very interested to see what the East would have. There wasn’t much, and much of what there was was overly garish, not really my taste, but there were a few I like and one that was the spitting image of the style of Solola’, Guatemala, an impossible coincidence. How could that be possible? Is this the result of some ancient cross-breeding from the old Spanish galleon trade? The ikat technique itself was transmitted across the ocean, so anything is possible I guess. Surely there haven’t been enough folk-art cowboys like myself to account for it. I still wonder.
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Chiang Rai, Thailand

Chiang Rai was/is home, so the starting point for many trips. Except for a connection in Bangkok, I flew straight to Denpasar in Bali. That's the only way you can get to East Timor.
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Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia

I stopped in Bali just long enough to make onward travel arrangements, in this case to Dili in East Timor. Unfortunately I've gotten so used to the ubiquitous ATM’s in Thailand, all capable of disgorging large sums, that I’d forgotten that it’s not like that everywhere. So I’m stuck with a piddly $50 or so a day, in addition to the Thai currency I happen to have, so not good. I’m forced to stay in a dirt cheap place just to mitigate the circumstances. I get my flight, though, so I’m back on the road.
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