Let's Dance
Trip Start
Jun 02, 2007
1
15
47
Trip End
Ongoing
Tuk, Tuk, Lake Toba, North Sumatra,
Indonesia
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
We started out at Brando's Blues Bar, the local watering hole, where Duan bought the first round of Bingtangs and taught me my first Batak word. "Lissoi," he said, raising his glass, and we clinked ours together, toasting the night to come.
Duan and Diana are Toba Batak, one of the five main Batak tribes in Sumatra, and they speak both bahasa Indonesia and Toba Batak; each tribe has its own distinct language. Duan speaks English quite well from his years as a surfers' guide in Bali, but Diana knows about as much English as I known Indonesian. We didn't let that get in the way, though. We hit the dance floor when Bob Marley came on (everyone loves Bob here), plus 50 Cent "It's Your Birthday," Batak tribal music set to an electronic beat, and what I have since learned is dangdut, hard-driving pop layered with Arabic sounds.
A refreshing aspect of Indonesian culture is its striking lack of ego or arrogance. Very few people here think they're above talking to other people, nor do they obsess about what they look like; there's no preening and posing around the dance floor. Here, everyone dances with abandon, feeling the music in their own way, sometimes with strange results-even a hula hoop came out, which the guy couldn't control very well, but he tried his best. Another group of girls invited me in to their Batak dance session and showed me some new moves, and I was invited to join a circle that had formed on the dance floor, where a kid with his hat turned backward said, "You so lucky! Only Western girl here! Everyone Batak!" I had to admit it did make me feel kinda special. Oops, there goes my western ego.
Duan took us to the next and only other club in Tuk Tuk on his motorcycle. Open only on Saturday nights, Tumbo has an atmosphere more like a club in Vancouver-huge, dark and cavernous, an acoustic cave for dangdut at ear-shattering levels. We didn't stop dancing, and we pulled out our Batak moves, holding our arms above our heads. Every once in a while, Diana and I smiled at each other, or saved the other from the grasp of a groping drunk. The entire night the only thing she said to me was, "You like Energizer bunny!"
We laughed and kept going, and going...and going. Bathed in sweat, I marvelled that she didn't even have a glow on. She was a very pretty girl, probably only 20, with high cheekbones, chocolate skin and masses of long, curly black hair, like Duan and many other Batak people. Made for the warm weather, unlike my Metis-Scandinavian self, acclimatized for snow.
It was good to see so many girls out getting their groove on. Bataks are Christian, having mended their head-hunting, cannibalistic ways over a hundred years ago when the Dutch converted them. Because this is Christian territory, jihabs are rarely seen anywhere, and the girls go out when they like, even (gasp!) showing a bit of shoulder. Most of the girls in the club wore cute frilly tops in candy colours, along with blue jeans, wide belts, flip flops, dangly earrings and fluffy or sparkly hair accessories. Next to them, I felt tall, gangly, sweaty and dingily dressed in my kahki green Mountain Equipment Co-op shirt. Earthy colours, so popular on the west coast, seem entirely out of place here. Overall, the way girls dress here is much more demure as well. But it's refreshing, too. Why let it all hang out anyway? Leave a little something to the imagination for a change.
We danced until 4 am. In accordance with Indonesian rubber time, the club simply stays open until people decide to go home. No fights broke out, either; the boys were far too preoccupied with their dance moves, whipping their shirts off and dancing on the speakers, for having any hate-ons. It was a nice sight to behold. Besides, it did get bloody hot in there. I was absolutely soaked by the time I said goodbye to Diana and headed back to Samosir Cottage with Duan, the breeze on the motorbike a welcome relief before the morning sun came up.
