Monkey Business

Trip Start Jun 05, 2006
1
25
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Trip End Jul 15, 2007


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Flag of Singapore  ,
Sunday, July 9, 2006

I spent the better part of the last 2 days making my way back to Singapore after spending an amazing 9 days in Indonesia. It is early in my journey to say this but I am confident that my time in Indonesia will most likely be one of the highlight of this trip! I have been thinking about the best way to describe my time in Indoneisa and what made it so special? The first word that came to my mind was simplicity. There is a beautiful simplicity to there way of life. Most people on the island I was on (West Sumatra) are peasant farmers of some capacity (fish, rice, vegetables, fruits.)They make a living peddling their goods at the weekly markets. When it comes down to it, its not the place its the people and the interactions that make an experience memorable. Indonesian people have a contagious sincerity in there smiles.

They do not see many tourist (or at least not in a long time due to all the troubles)in the area that I was in so they almost have a child-like innocent with foreigners. We came across this guy knee deep behind a water buffalo plowing a rice field. I stopped and asked him if wI could take a pic. He nodded his head yes but seemed to be amazed why any one would want to take a picture of him? He was just doing the same thing that he does everyday?

I befriended another traveler(an Egyptian guy) who was staying in the same bungalow as me. The place we were staying looked straight off of a post card. We were staying on the rocky bank of this picturesque creator lake. The lake was surrounded by miles and miles of rice fields, and dense jungle mountains. We were about 20 miles South of the equator so the landscape was very lush. One afternoon we rented motorbikes and made our way up this windey jungle mountain road. The road is always littered with monkeys so we made our way up to check it out. We went equipped with a bag full peanuts to see if we could make some friends? We were there about 10 minutes or so feeding the monkeys and taking pics when another motorcycle pulled up along side us. I was a little upset at first because the bike scared the monkeys, then I noticed that one of the guys had a video camera. So I said to myself "OH.... he wants to video the monkeys!" When I looked up again he was not filming the monkeys we was filming us!?! I thought about it for a second and realized that they see monkeys all. But 2 white guys........... that makes for some nice home video? So we started taking pics of him taking pics of us!

Almost everyone I came across outside of the cities where in some way or another interested in me. Most people just wanted to look at me? I was thinking to myself is this what is feels like to be famous? I was trying to find something I could compare it to. I came up with this............. I think it would be the same situation as if you put a bus load of "photo happy" Japanese tourist in the middle of a rural mid-West country town. One of them Dakota states! The people there would be much more interested in the Japanese then the ticket taker at "The Magic Kingdom!" Everyone wanted to practice what ever little English they had with me not to mention if they had a camera they wanted to take a picture. I honestly posed with at least 30 little Muslium girls so they could take a picture with me?

"The Incredible Edible Egg" is a proud sponsor of the 2006 "Johnny Nomad Experiment."

Just add water -Johnny Nomad
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