Where Are Ron and Ellen?
Indonesia: 30 November 2010 - 15 March 2011
Ron on the road to Geumpang, Indonesia, December 2010
The Beaches of Pangandran
5 January 2010
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
Happy New Year to all! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season - and for those in the northern hemisphere, one without too much snow and cold. Here in Afton, we were lucky enough to dodge the Christmas storm that walloped the east coast. Sixty miles east of us they got lots of snow, but here there was only about an inch - although we did get the frigid temperatures and high winds that followed the storm.
I enjoyed Christmas with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons (and Bagel, the grand-dog, of course). On New Year's Day, an annual event we've been doing for at least 15 years: 6 couples gather for an elegant dinner, with some providing starters, some the salad, some the main course, and some dessert. We used to do it as a progressive dinner, each course at a different house, but in our rural area there was so much distance involved that it seemed as if we spent half our evening driving. So now we do it in one place (my house this year, a good beginning for our new addition) with everyone bringing the food. Good food and good company - a fine way to begin the New Year.
A number of you have asked via email or in person whether Ron was ok - or whether you'd been dropped from the email distribution list - because you'd received no reports from him for a while. He was just lazing about, but after some prodding from me, produced the following report on his activities since the gold mine adventure. He titles it "The Beaches of Pangandran," but doesn't say a single word about the beaches!
Love to all,
Ellen
Beaches of Pangandran
To see photos of Brastagi and Lake Toba, click on the thumbnail at the left.
5 January 2011
Pangandran, Java, IndonesiaHello, my dear,
Wiping the sweat from my brow, sitting in the Karya Bahari fish restaurant in the middle of the Pangandran East Beach fish market after my long walk along the West and East Beaches, listening to live guitar music, while my 6 gram $5 red snapper is being grilled, and wondering how I can explain the pleasure of wandering for almost three weeks with no particularly interesting adventures to report since my expedition to the gold mines of Geumpang.
On the bus from Bandung to Pangandran the traveler's trail seemed to appear as I met Awa, an unusual woman from Norway, of Scottish and West Africa descent, a dark, over 6 feet tall, 25 year old traveling with her surf board on the way to Batu Kari, a surfer's beach west of Pangandran. And this morning I had breakfast with a Dutch couple, a guy from Australia, and one other traveler, Swiss I think. They were talking about how tense it was in Vietnam and how mellow they found Cambodia and I told them my experiences were so different and how and why Vietnam was my favorite place to travel. Perhaps it has changed since I was last there. In Sumatra, the only place I met other western travelers was at Lake Toba. In Jakarta I choose to stay in the old town, Kota, Chinatown instead of the duller and more expensive for less quality accommodations in the back packers' area. As a result I met no other westerners.
Arriving back in Medan from Lake Toba, still on the bus, I telephone Nasrullah on my cell phone which I got charged up for a few minutes at one of the bus stops, and handed the phone to the guy working the bus and then the bus driver drops me off at Nasrullah's brother's gate to his gated community. How easy can my logistics be? I am now calling Nasrullah "Nephew" since he calls me Uncle. His brother is called Boy, a name his father called him when he was young. I spent the night and the next day, Saturday we did some errands in the morning. One was to finish setting up my G3.5 Modem and phone card which now gives me unlimited access to the Internet where ever there is a mobile phone signal, which appears to be about everywhere except in the mountains where the gold mines were. It works, so now I can surf the Internet from restaurants, on buses, any place and anytime I want. But I am finding that often even though the modem connects, the connection is really slow and often I can not send a message, download email or get a web page, but generally it works. If something starts, like sending or downloading email, then it keeps on plugging along until everything is finished. Back home with our Internet signal coming over the power line, it often is not fast or dependable either. We also went to a travel agent and I bought a fairly cheap ticket to Jakarta for Dec 27 at 7 AM which meant I had to be there around 5 am. Why does travel have to involve a lot or early morning transportation links for a night owl like me?
On Sunday Boy took his family and me to Brastagi where we stopped at a hot springs place where his children like to swim, a place he feels is good for his son's health. While the kids swam, we took the car and tried to drive up to the top of the active volcano nearby. We could see the steam rising from the active craters. But we were blocked by a gate at the entry into the geothermal area, where they were extracting gas ( I think). After a bit of discussion the guard went with us and we drove a bit higher on condition that I did not take any pictures of the gas works. They were afraid my pictures would get on the Internet and the world would know where and how they were getting their gas. There were a lot of large pipes taking something from underground up and over the mountain. This is an active volcano and was in the news recently.
We then continued the trip down the mountain into Brastagi where he took the kids for a ride on a horse through the central market. A lot of people from Medan come for a weekend visit. There had been a lot of discussion about how I could not get from Brastagi to Lake Toba, and would have to return to Medan to get a different bus to Lake Toba. It was sort of like a "V" and I wanted to go from the upper right to the upper left, I would guess less than half of the distance back to Medan. I had asked the Tourism student if I could get buses between the two and she felt that I could. And I did also, just from my previous experience traveling. I didn't expect high quality buses and I was correct. Between Brastagi and Lake Toba I had to take three different local buses and of course a boat at the end to Samosir Island. I had the little towns where I had to change buses on a little piece of paper and would show it when needed. Each bus helped by handing me over to the next and the trip went smoothly, except the last drop off because I could not communicate where I wanted to be dropped until he had passed the way to the boats and I had to backtrack to the docks. I reversed the trip to return to Brastagi for Christmas because it was a small town, mostly Christian, at a high altitude where it would be cool. I talked to a lot of people, had fun, ate mostly at a Chinese restaurant, walked around, stayed out of the afternoon rain, and enjoyed my time. But nothing to really write about. No one invited me for Christmas dinner.
Lake Toba, which Huja had told me about, was a beautiful spot. There were many good places to stay on Samosir Island but I picked Tabo Hotel in Tuk Tuk, which was recommended to me by the hotel I stayed at in Brastagi, and I enjoyed it very much. It was fully booked for the holidays but I could stay for a few days before returning to Brastagi. Perhaps I could have found another place but I really wanted to experience Christmas in an Indonesian setting, not a westerner holiday resort area. Looking back, perhaps the wrong decision, but travel decisions are like throwing dice: by chance, adventures occur or don't. I could see Lake Toba being a destination for a couple of weeks of vacation. Too bad it is such a long trip. But is was a beautiful, relaxing, interesting small village with interesting travelers to trade stories with.
On the 26th I returned to Medan and found a hotel very close to the airport for my 7 am flight to Jakarta - told to be there at 5 am but 5:30 was early enough. Boy had gone to Geumpang to see some sick chickens and got sick himself, ending up in the local hospital. So he was not around for me to say goodbye to, but has now gotten well and returned home.
Jakarta: Now why would I want to spend almost a week in the big city? For one thing, I wanted to compare New Year's in Rio to Jakarta. Rio won. And I know by experience traveling during the holiday season can often be difficult. The crowds of motor bikes and the fireworks were impressive. The traffic on New Year's Eve was unbelievable. Living in the country, I enjoy the challenges of a large city - at least third world large cities that I can afford. But I must admit that Jakarta was more difficult than I expected it to be because of the frequent afternoon rains, heavy holiday traffic, holiday crowds, and the heat and humidity.
Of course the first thing I had to figure out after finding a place to stay within my budget range was how the bus system worked. I was told their system of "Bus Way" routes was copied from Bogota Columbia. The main route goes from Kota in the north to Blok M in the South with several other spurs I did not explore, and I never did find a map of the bus ways. To try to give you a visual image, picture a major highway of at least two or three lanes going north and two or three lanes going south divided by a set of bus lanes, one going north and one south with a barrier between them. Between the bus lane and the other lanes there is a raised barrier like a row of bricks, not enough to stop a bus from crossing slowly but enough to keep the cars and trucks out of the bus lane. When there is a bus stop there is a major elevated walk way to access an island in the middle of the bus lanes. Very much like an above ground metro system. Once you are inside the gate you can transfer or reverse direction without leaving the system or buying another ticket. On the island there are several queues for going each direction. The buses stop at an opening to let people get off, then they move up to one of the queues to let people get on. Buses are very frequent. But I experienced pushing to get on and the buses were often overloaded and the wait times to get on were long at a couple of the stations. I don't know how much of the overload was holiday-related. I finally realized if I went to the first station on the bus way, and let people go before me if the bus was already getting full, then I could position myself to be among the first on the next bus and get a good front row seat so I could take a few pictures. This is what I did on the morning of New Year's Eve. And after exploring the large malls at the end of the line I found out when I started to return that the Bus Way had been stopped for New Year's Eve and I had no idea how I would get back. This is how I found out about all the small buses with bench like seats on each side and back, holding perhaps a dozen people. They would sort of zig zag around covering an area until they got into the next bus zone where they would connect with other small buses going off in other directions. It took me at least 4 of these buses to get back to Kota. There was a guy who was a hair designer who was my good Samaritan, helping me figure out how to use these connecting buses. (He told me he is paid 300K, which is about $35, for a haircut.) Of course there are also Blue Bird Taxis, but I couldn't find one on the way back on New Year's Eve which was a traffic scene like nothing I have ever experienced, except in Rio on New Year's.
From 9 pm to 1 am there were constant fireworks, with heavier action nearer midnight. Walking along the street people would be setting off stuff we would only have under special supervision. They had large tubes sitting on the sidewalk sending up stuff that I have only seen at special fireworks shows. And smaller tubes would be held up in the air shooting off some major fireworks, and between each burst they would sort of shake the tube a little and another one would shoot out. At one spot I watched a group of 6 guys each holding up a tube sending up some major fireworks, shaking between each shot. From where I was I could see up and down the road with the bus way, and there were fireworks as far as I could see. Derrick and the boys would have loved it.
All over Jakarta I would find what I consider American fast food restaurants: Burger King, Starbucks, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominoes, frequently with a group of them in the same complex. Business partnering on real estate I guess. But near my hotel I found a Chinese soup restaurant where I ate at least once a day. Bowl of noodles, tofu with some kind of meat inside, fish balls, spring onions, garlic and these small limes with orange-like insides and more seeds than juice. Wish I could have a bowl right now.
But instead tonight I will walk down the street to a restaurant in Pangandran I found last night by chance. As I was walking down the street someone spoke to me in English and I stopped to exchange some words. He had long hair, well feed and not thin like most guys here. He was a 42 year old guy who has traveled around most of Asia, India and Australia, often thought to be Japanese, perhaps because he had long hair and played a guitar. His friend he was visiting owned the restaurant and he could also speak English. After talking a while I asked if he had fish (in three previous restaurants I had tried I was too late and they were out of fish) and he said yes and took me back to his icebox, pulled out a tray and pointed to a large head end of a fish he said was tuna and made me an offer: If I didn't like it I didn't have to pay. I took him up on his offer and found the fish to be the best I have eaten in Indonesia, grilled with a wonderful garlic and tomato sauce, slightly sweet, with onions and tomatoes and some other seasoning that I could not identify and I used the last bit of it over the white rice. Some of his background music was rock and roll from the late 1950s, my high school years, so tonight I am going to take my netbook with my 50s rock and roll collection. The long-haired guy had gotten married to a woman from the beach who was the head chef in a large hotel and he had purchased 1000 sq meter rice paddy and was building their house in the middle of it on raised columns of concrete and steel.
I don't think any of my meals so far would rival your progressive dinner. Reading your description my mouth watered and I wished I had been there.
Leaving Jakarta, I was given some tips on how to get Pangandran which made the trip very easy, as all of my trips so far have been, I took a small van bus to the Bus Way, then to bus stop Sarinah where I was pointed to Baraya Travel, where I got a ticket to Bandung, and from the bus station in Bandung got another bus to Pangandran. As usual I left late and had to wait for the Bandung bus, but this gave me time to find a IBIS hotel to have breakfast, and their buffet was a bargain for around $7.50, including all the fresh mango juice I could drink, very tasty sausages, fried fish and chicken strips, lots of fruit, raisin pudding, fried noodles and rice, various pastries, and many other items which lasted me until I had my late night fish dinner in Pangandran. The drive to Bandung was just a couple of hours in a modern 20-passenger small bus, with the driver buzzing along at between 70 and 80 mph on a road equivalent to our interstate, air conditioned, smooth ride, and I could read my book on my NetBook. The second bus was older, less comfortable, and the roads were not good. This was a much longer ride, perhaps 6 hours or more. It was a long day.
Currently I am page 338 of 790 pages of the Fall of Giants by Ken Follett which I am enjoying very much and want to read every spare moment I can. I guess it could be called a historical thriller, and I am learning a lot about the history of World War I. The first book I read was Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny, which was recommended by Charlie and I really thought was well written and enjoyable to read. The second was Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler which I also enjoyed. The Barnes and Noble Book Reader program often loses the current page I am reading between various shut downs and hibernations, and the touch pad continues to drive me crazy, often leaping ahead or behind and losing my place, or going two or more pages forward with one click. But I am getting more used to remembering my current page number and using the touch pad.
So now I have wasted my friends reading time on this report that has no exciting adventures or misadventures, just a couple of pleasant weeks wandering around looking at things and talking to people (or at least trying) and looking for the next fish dinner. If anyone has specific questions they should email me and I will try to address them.
Love and miss you,
Wandering Ron
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Last updated: 5 February 2011
