Where Are Ron and Ellen?
Indonesia: 30 November 2010 - 15 March 2011
Ron on the road to Geumpang, Indonesia, December 2010
Ferry Travel to Medan
12 December 2010
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
It is a chilly and drizzly day here in Virginia, a good day to be inside painting (Ron's old office area), making stollen (Christmas bread) for gifts, and wrapping Christmas presents. Yesterday I enjoyed our grandson's birthday party - Leo turns 11 on Tuesday. Twelve boys racing around, leaf sledding (there are so many oak leaves on the big hill in their yard that there is very satisfactory "sledding" with toboggans and snow boards - snow not needed), treasure hunt, piņata, cake. High energy, but a pleasure to be with, as they are now at the age when they are self-amusing, kind to each other, and polite ("thank you" when served their cake).
Two messages from Ron, one before he took the overnight ferry to Medan, and one actually written during the ferry ride (although it isn't clear to me where he sent that second message from). And I have no idea where what the place he several times refers to as OJ might be - can't find it on the map or in the guide book. My best guess is that OJ is Ron's phonetic rendering of the area on the northern tip of Sumatra which is called Aceh.
Love to all,
Ellen
11 December 2010
Back from Kundur, waiting on the ferry to MedanHello, my dear,
My ferry to Medan leaves tonight at 10 pm and I checked out to the hotel at noon. Yesterday while riding a bus I saw a sign that said free wifi and later took my computer and went to find the sign again but could not find it. I rode the same bus - twice - looking for the sign. I thought I knew the general area but still could not find the place. I got off the bus and walked for blocks and blocks looking until I finally gave up. My hotel told me that I could find wifi in Aston Hotel so today took another bus to find the Aston, and sure enough they had wifi in the lobby for free - but their ice tea was almost $2 - but still a good deal.
I found a seat near an electrical outlet, plugged in my netbook (which needed charging) and booted up. While trying to connect to their network, I did something and my touch pad no longer worked so I could not use the cursor. As a result I couldn't do anything, including shutting down properly. I knew I had my manual on the netbook but without the touchpad I could not access it. So I packed up and went back to the hotel to get my mouse which was in my backpack in the hotel office.
Caught another bus as was on my way back to the Aston when all of a sudden I saw the sign about the free wifi. The sign had been moved and turned 90 degrees against a side wall and just was more difficult to find.
Sort of a cafe/restaurant with booths and tables. Each booth has an electrical plug and they brought an adapter to change the plug from the big three prong to my two round plug.
Booted up with my usb wireless mouse transmitter attached and after trying a couple of different battery sets, I finally got the mouse to move. Yea. Then while my email was downloading I brought up my manual and read which function key I had used wrongly and turned off my touch pad. Now I know how to turn it off and on - a wonderful bit of knowledge since the touch pad was driving me nuts when I was trying to type, or read with my nook reader, doing all kinds of things, like closing files, moving the page up and down, calling up programs, etc. Now I can turn it off and on at will. Such a small thing which I had not learned about my netbook.
So after several days of trying to find a place to connect, I am finally reading your emails.
I will send Leo a Happy Birthday message to Sharon's email address. When is he going to get his own email address? I see all the young people here with fancy phones in their hand, busy texting, phoning, sharing pictures, etc. They can type faster with their thumb than I can with two hands.
The ferry is overnight and I am not sure what time I will get into Medan tomorrow or what I will find there.
After breakfast I was sitting in the hotel restaurant facing the waterfront and reading with my nook reader - the book Charlie recommended so highly - Bury Your Dead. I had met the manager a couple of times and when he came by we began to talk and I showed him our pictures on my netbook. He turned out to be an artist and showed me one of his creations on his office wall as well as providing me with a fancy brochure on all the attractions on Karimun Island, which he said is only 26K long. He maintains that I could reach every place on the island by bike from the Hotel and return to the hotel for the night. Kundur is a larger island, and while the main city is smaller than the center on Karimun, there is more than one city to visit. So perhaps I will return with a bicycle from Singapore to explore Kundur before you come in February. Maybe I could leave most of my stuff at Sonny's and come very light. Just an idea.
When I returned I also had another coffee with the Pelni Ferry agent who gave me my actual ticket from the reservation I had made before going to Kundur. He was born on the island in the middle of Lake Toba, where I am going, but had moved to Karimun because there was more opportunity for jobs. One brother stayed with the land and his other brothers have moved to Karimun also while his mother moved to Batam, The hotel manager also used to live in the Padang area and tried telling me where I could take good mountain hikes.
Kundur used to be directly accessible from Singapore by ferry, but is no longer, Batam being the closest immigration point. It may be that Singaporeans can enter Karimun directly, but I know that I can not. As a result their tourism on Kundur has really dried up and many tourist-type businesses are not doing very well. Another reason to perhaps return.
While I have been able to do some exploring on the back of a motor-scooter or the small buses (vans), I have not been able to get out of the congested areas into the countryside like I do when I travel by bike. A real loss. But I have enjoyed learning about the local customs, transportation, food, markets, I have felt safe and only hassled by the motor-bike mafia, which have been ok, when I just smile and indicate by my fingers that I will walk, When asked I explain that I walk for exercise and to lose weight and I think they find the idea acceptable - if peculiar. People just don't seem to walk far at all.
It is hard for me to believe that I have spent 11 days with so little to report and no pictures of any interest. Now I understand why I need so much longer time periods to travel. I am just a slow traveler and can enjoy doing almost nothing - but would rather do nothing in a more beautiful environment. I have found the people friendly and an interesting mix of Moslem, Buddhist (large Chinese populations) and Christians.
In most of my travels I have not sought out islands, feeling more restricted, preferring more open travel opportunities. But I still like the idea of traveling around Indonesia without flying (if I can). Now I will move on to Sumatra and Lake Toba, which everyone seems to agree is a beautiful place. No one seems to think I can catch ferries down the Sumatra coast and will have to use buses, while everything I have read about buses on Sumatra does not encourage me: slow and crowded. So stay tuned. I love not having a clear idea of what I am going to do, where I am going and how I am going to get there. Such a freedom to be open to whatever adventure comes along. Or just being and doing nothing of any consequence. But I miss my Bike Friday.
By the way, I think if you look in the plug behind my desk you might find the cord to charge my telephone. Seems like chargers were something I messed up on packing [he left the charger and extra battery for his camera plugged into an outlet in our dining room!], perhaps because I was charging everything. I can't picture packing the cable and have not completely emptied my pack looking for it, but feel pretty sure I left it on my desk. [I couldn't find it, and there are so many wires on, around, and behind the desk it would be impossible to figure out which one doesn't belong.] Another mistake was bringing the translator with all its languages. Seems Indonesian is not one of them.
I am glad to hear you got a pickup load of wood. [Because the geothermal systems hasn't been installed - still waiting for heat pumps - and the weather has been extremely cold, our calculations of the wood I'd need to heat the house were well short of what I've actually needed.] Is it cured? [No, but I'm mixing it with cured.] I guess you will know when you try to burn it. When I show people here pictures of snow and our pile of firewood they find them very interesting. I look at them and think about you being cold and feel guilty.
Now I will send Leo a birthday email, read your other messages, and see what the food is like in this wifi cafe.
Love and miss you,
Ron
12 December 2010
On the overnight ferry to MedanWith the final answer, the last page of Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny ended in a loud noisy Karaoke Cafe on a Pelni Ferry between Tanjung Balai, Karimun Island and Bekasi, the port near Medan on my way to Lake Toba. Writing this sentence I have been interrupted by a guy in a red shirt finally making me understand it is time for lunch but wanting to finish I continue and am interrupted again by one of my roommates who comes into the cafe and also tells me I should go now (I think he said, but am never sure I understand anything correctly). He leads me to the dinning room and disappears saying he will see me later.
Lunch was served family style at a table in the first and second class dining area, fried chicken the way our Colonel from Kentucky would prepare but with different kinds of cuts, a cold noodle and vegetables dish, fish looking and tasting like very over-sized sardines, papaya, and a large colander of white rice. Something was hot, perhaps the sauce with the fish on my rice. My other roommate has finished and is sitting with his telephone in his hand texting. I sit at the table after the dishes have been cleared and continue to write this message and remember my last cruise in 1965 from Savannah, Georgia to Qui Nhon on my way from Fort Benning to An Khe, Vietnam, with the 1st Cav, - my first visit to Asia.
Yesterday, after leaving the wifi cafe, and walking from my hotel into the ferry area about 8 pm, I found if very quiet and almost deserted. I was invited to join a group of people sitting at a table and after communicating to them that I was going to Medan and looking for the ferry I understood, incorrectly, several of them were also going. There was a lot of discussion about where my cabin was and where theirs was and a lot of laughter among them. We talked about where some of them were from, one woman being from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, some from Medan, one from Lake Toba, and one guy from Karimun. He asked me what part of America I was from, so I produced a Thomas Jefferson nickel with Monticello on the back as an explanation and gave it to him, as all the others listened curiously.
An English-speaking man joined us and explained some of the relationships. The woman who was the most talkative, but not in English, was the sister of his brother's wife, some were his children, a couple of his brothers, and some I can no longer remember, but I could appreciate the large extended family. They started to move to the ferry waiting and loading area around 9 pm so I went back to the hotel next door for my pack, and when I returned and walked into the waiting area and looked around I found a group of waving hands towards the back of the room and a seat saved for me by and next to the talkative woman who was full of laughter. Later the English speaking brother sat on my other side and explained that her husband was a businessman who traveled to many of the countries in the region but I could not understand what he did exactly. In the row in front of me was a young girl, 20 years old, who also could speak some English and was full of questions about me. At the moment her father was sitting on my left and with conversation we realized I was the age of her father and her combined. On her left was her young husband who was also quite talkative, but not in English, but was a pleasure to try to communicate with anyway. Around midnight most of the family had left, including the English-speaking brother, taking his young children and leaving only the young couple and her father, his brother, the only person to really be catching the ferry.
There was another young rather robust lady behind me who could also speak English and she kept trying to get me to turn around and talk with her, but my attention and communications kept going to various members of the extended family. She explained her job was PR. Finally when I pursued the topic some more it turned out she worked for the pub in Hotel Maximillion which the manager had showed me on the grand tour of the hotel. I enjoyed the concept in my mind of a bar hostess being in PR.
My ticket was for a 22:00 departure, I was told by the agent to be there by 21:00, and at around 1 am I was awoken from my nap by the lady behind me and we finally loaded onto a small ferry for our trip out to the large Pelni Ferry, the size of a large cruise liner, holding between 3 and 5 thousand passengers, depending on who I asked.
While the boarding process was not unruly, it was not orderly either. Someone would sort of ooze past me being followed by a human chain of family holding on to the one in front, and of course when the first one passed me I couldn't break their chain and had to allow the entire family to pass while on my other side another human chain tried to pass.
Wearing my back pack and shoulder bag over my head and shoulder, at the gate I am given a bright orange life vest to put on, and someone is trying to help, but of course if won't fit over my backpack and when I try to sling the backpack off it gets tangled in my shoulder bag, which I'd put on last. Finally after following the crowd, carrying my pack, I find myself toward the rear and lower deck on the small ferry carrying perhaps a couple hundred people to the large ferry, and I can finally remove my vest and get it under my shoulder bag. As I look around the compartment a number of women with small children are in the center floor, mostly sitting and talking and the men and women without children are standing around the outside like myself, When we reach the ferry some more family trains snake past me and I finally reach the long steps lowered from the Pelni Ferry, high above. At the top people seem to being going in many different directions and I have no idea where to go so I follow part of the crowd, then sense I made a mistake, turn around and go back, and show my ticket to someone and am pointed to a sort of ticket window where I can read the sign that says 20,000 rp key deposit. He takes my ticket and money and gives me a chain of two keys and points. Someone else shows me down a hall to a room and points to my key for me unlock the door to enter. There are 8 double deck bunks and I look at my ticket and see 5032 / B written on it. I recognized the room number on the door and assumed that B was my bunk number. But the only person in the room was already in B. He took my key ring and tried it in the lock box under his bunk and it would not fit. Then looking at the key we see it says A on the tag attached to the key and the B probably is the class of my ticket.
He could speak English and asked where I was staying in Medan and how was I going to get there - questions that I had not addressed yet. He explained we would arrive in 21 hours which was going to be late night. My thought was to stay in a port hotel, but he didn't think that was possible - but his brother, a doctor who works with animals, was going to meet him and would take me also to a hotel or his brother's house. This part of the story will have to be continued since I have not seen him again since he brought me to the dining room and left. I wonder, would I even recognize him again?
There was no linen other than the one covering the mattress on my bunk and the room was rather cold from the air conditioning but I slept well. This morning I was woken by a guy in a red shirt saying something about breakfast and after finding the WC down the hall and using the much needed Asian style squat toilet I wandered around until the red shirt found me and directed me to the dining room for first and second class passengers. I had selected the cheaper of the second class (8 per room, WC outside) vs the more expensive 2nd class with 4 per room and WC inside (at least this is what I understand but have not seen). I can only imagine what first class is like. But in either case, we eat the same.
After breakfast I took my netbook and found a bench outside along the upper walkway, but the glare from the bright day made it impossible to read. So I tried returning to the dining room and found it closed. The cafe on the upper rear was also too bright but I followed the signs to another cafe and found a small room with tables and a sales counter. I ordered a coffee and sat down and read. There was loud music and different people took turns singing and I soon realized I was in a Karaoke Cafe. But I could still read so continued giving my attention to Bury Your Dead. Later the rather robust PR woman from the waiting area came in and sat down with me, looking through the song books, picking some, walking back to the counter and returning with a microphone and starting singing. Later she returned the mike and came back and told me she had paid for my coffee and left.
Reading electronic books with my Barnes and Noble Nook reader software has been a mixed experience. To be able to carry a book in my pocket and read a little whenever I have a few minutes while waiting, riding a bus, having a coffee, or just sitting in a beautiful spot is the best and most convenient. But carrying a bunch of books in my already over crowded back pack would not be a pleasure. Reading on the netbook is comfortable, easy on the eyes, and with the adjustable font size, also a pleasure to read. However, the touch pad on my netbook must use gestures because something is always coming up from underneath, or the cursor seems to take over its own movements, or the pages rapidly change fast enough so I am not sure if they went backwards or forward or how many pages. When I shut down the computer or close the Nook reader, the program does not remember my page number. I have found it better to turn off my touch pad and try to remember the page number of my current page, an impossible task, for me. But each day I grow more familiar with my netbook and the Nook reader and enjoy both more.
I finished reading my book, started this message and was interrupted with lunch. After I had eaten I asked if it was ok to remain and use my netbook and was told yes. Gradually the room emptied, and then later people began coming in and the room began to fill up with the chairs arranged in auditorium style rather than with tables for meals. I thought it was some kind of entertainment and kept typing facing the entrance and not the stage and crowd which was behind me. People picked up some kind of program book at a table when them came in and there was some group singing. When everyone stood up, I turned around to look and it felt like praying. Then I heard "Amen," and realized this was Sunday and I was attending a church service - but with a band playing music and people hand clapping slowly. So I will take a break from the netbook as a man and a young boy take the microphone, with a piano playing in the background. I have no clue until I recognize Joy to the World and realize he is singing Christmas carols.
After church I returned to my room for my cable to charge the computer and realize the room has two plugs and while I talked to my English-speaking roommate my netbook got up to 75% charged. His card for the company he owns in Batam says Engineering, Fabrications, Jigs & Fixtures, Automatic Controllers and Design. Bill W. could have a good chat with him. He says he fabricates metal parts for European companies and he wants to come to America as a tourist but can not get a visa since he has no relatives there. He is going to Medan than north to OJ [Aceh] where he has 10 people digging a gold mine with another brother overseeing the operation. He went to Batam get his money from his metal parts sales to invest in the gold mine and will spend one night in Medan then take the overnight bus to OJ [Aceh]. He is also setting up another operation to process the rubble (tailings?) from other people's gold mines to get the gold they didn't get out. He says 1 out of 5 holes are successful at finding gold, but the process he is setting up for other people's rubble will be less risky and provide the capital to invest in more holes. A hole needs to be 100 meters deep to start producing. Perhaps an adventure will follow as he has offered to take me with him.
Dinner was a repeat of the lunch menu, with the exception that I found the large sardines smaller and tasting more like sardines. I don't know how or where the economy class eat, but I have wandered through their sleeping areas, large rooms with rows of raised platform cots. Other rooms, halls and stairwells with people on mats on the floor. Wherever there is an electric plug, someone is sitting or standing waiting for their cell phone to charge. I would certainly have more social contact using economy class, but I think second class suits me better.
Now if I have an opportunity to send this email before we leave for OJ [Aceh], wherever that is, I will. But on the other hand it may work out that I can not do so for a few days if I go off on this unplanned side trip for some adventure. In that case I will keeping adding to this chapter as long as I can find a plug to charge the battery.
Love and miss you,
Ron
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