The volcano was way calmer than I was today

Today's theme: girl power. Soundtrack: Wonder Woman theme song. By our powers combined, three other ladies and I scaled a volcano, argued a beligerent driver into refunding me a good chunk of money, and challenged archaic gender stereotypes.

Everything started at 2am, when three Dutch girls, two Korean guys and myself met in the lobby of the hotel to go to the village of Ceromo Lawang. At the base of Gunung Bromo, this is where we would switch from our minivan to a 4WD Jeep. Despite the other 5 being told there would be two cars with a max of 5 passangers each and despite me being told there was no room, we all managed to squeeze into the back while another couple got in the front seat next to the driver. And away we went, bouncing through the pitch black and an endless supply of potholes.

Our first stop was the top of Gunung Penanjakan where we waded through a crowd of a hundred tourists. There's a surprisingly large number of Dutch visitors, despite the fact that they were unceremoniously kicked out of the country 45 years ago. There also seem to be plenty of Germans, and I realized today I've only met one other American on my trip, a girl diving up on Pulau Weh. What the heck? Where are all the Yankees? We probably get a bad name around the world because the only ones of us going anywhere are in the military. Geez, people, get out a little.

Anyway, sunrise over the volcanos was absolutely beautiful and the mist that coated the valleys was absolutely magical. No matter where you looked you got the feeling that you were on another planet or looking at a primordial Earth. I'm just not a good enough writer to describe the scene properly, so I'm going to get let the photos do it themselves. After that we drove to the very bottom of Gunung Bromo and hiked up to the top.  Not a horribly difficult climb, but you still worked up a bit of a sweat since the sun had come out and you had to climb 127 stairs at the final push.  It was an incredible trek, though, and it felt a bit like we were on a different planet: thin layers of mist, smoking volcanoes, giant black boulders, the smell of sulfur, gulleys washed down the mountains like fingers raked through the sand...it was unlike anything I've ever seen.  It brought you back to earth, though, to have a sales pitch for a horse ride thrown at you every thirty seconds or so.

At the end of it all we bumped and bounced in our Jeep again back down to Cemoro Lawang where we finally had the light of day to see the village. These folks live in a forest that seems to be an odd tropical/ Alpine hybrid, with palm trees, edelweiss, sugar cane and evergreens growing side by side. Give these people loads of credit, their fields are planted VERTICALLY. The hills here are so steep that you can see every row of cabbage as you look over the edge of the road. Their walking paths are cut at a diagonal so they don't go rolling down uncontrollably. It's one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life.

But eventually we returned to the hotel and I had to deal with the little scam that had started the night before.

Backstory from last night:
When I asked Toga, the hotel manager, to join the group going to Bromo, I was told it was Rp200,000 per person, despite the fact that Lonely Planet says it's 240,000 for 4 and that the Korean guys had found another company to do the same trip we ended up doing for Rp70,000 per person for a group of five. I really got suspicious of the cost when he said a ride in the van to Ceromo Lawang, the next village, and back was 100,000 each, an outrageous sum! Then he says the park charges the entry fee when you go in AND come out?  Oh, and coats for the freezing-cold, pre-dawn ride are extra.  BULLSHIT.

However, he said the Jeep was already full with five people, anyway (remember how earlier I said nine of us got in it?), so I would have to go on the back of a motorbike, which would cost me 300,000 total. When I protested and mentioned I had planned to spend around 70-100,000 he actually made fun of me by handing me money from his wallet and said if I could find it for that price he would pay for it himself. I told him his behavior was unappreciated and that even though I thought he was charging much too much, I wasn't going to walk the streets at 11pm to shop around. But at least he agreed that if there ended up being room in the Jeep I could ride in that. I learned later that night that he had told the others before I arrived that there would be two cars for all seven people, leaving PLENTY of space for me.

But last night there was really nothing I could do about it, seeing as I arrived at about 10pm, but now it really infuriates me that not only did he lie and price-gouge all of us, but he's going to get away with it with the next batch of tourists who stay there. I mean, what can I do that would make any difference?

At least I managed to get some of my money back today. I asked to speak to Toga to get him to refund the extra Rp100,000 since I ended up in the same boat as the others, but they only sent our driver in instead. He claimed there was nothing he could do, I called him on his BS and explained how his boss had lied to all of us, he kept saying there was nothing I could do, I asked for his name (only Abdul, by the way, no last name if you can believe that) because I was going to complain to the police. He came up with a solution: he gives me 50,000 back. I say not enough; give me 50,000 and I'll leave your name out of the police report, but give me 75,000 and I'll forget the whole thing.

This was a fairly ridiculous bluff, by the way. I never intended to go to the police. It's not like I had a very strong leg to stand on in this whole thing, but what else was I supposed to say? "I refuse to leave your hotel until you give me my money, even if it means ending my vacation." Um, no.

At one point he went and sat down in the lobby to wait for his 'friend' to bring the 50,000 I said I'd take "as a start to the solution" and the Dutch girls came walking by. I explained what was going on and they offered to help since Toga had lied to them, too, and the Korean guys were ready to talk to the police if they came. Between the four of us girls standing over him, arguing that yes it was his business since he works for Toga and that if he can give me 50,000 he can give more than that and various other approaches, he must have started to feel overwhelmed. It got a little heated towards the end and at one point he just grabbed 75,000 from the register and threw it at me before storming out, pausing just long enough to say, "You need man to control you.  You crazy woman.  Find a man to straighten you."  Yep.  Story of my life, buddy.  Keep talking, I'm sure it will sink in at some point.

He was somewhat right, though, that this wasn't really his business. I paid Toga, not Abdul. I got my information and assurances from Toga, not Abdul. But since Toga told him to go in his place and take care of the problem, that's what we all felt he had an obligation to do. So like I said before, I'm not mad at him, I'm mad at that asshole Toga and the fact that this is going to happen to other people because there's nothing to be done about it.

So I guess to some extent today the ladies held their own, but only parts of it actually felt like a victory. I felt good about getting my money back for about half an hour then started to regret losing control of myself. I wish I could blame it on feeling sleep deprived and robbed of justice, but really if I would just develop more patience those things wouldn't be an issue. I have GOT to learn to relax more and control my temper. Too often I let something little get in the way of enjoying an incredible experience and I often regret it. Come on, Lauren, get your priorities sorted.

All right, well, I've boarded the bus to Bali (again being watched protectively by the elderly conductor and sleeping upright and pushing hard against my overweight neighbor and trying not to think about the cockroaces), so once I'm surrounded by laid-back surf culture it should be easy to let stuff roll off my back, right? Famous. Last. Words.

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One final comment for the day

As it turns out, the manager at the hotel had forgotten that I need a taxi service tomorrow, so thank god I reminded him.  But that's only where the fun begins.

Now, I understand that "there's a different pace here" and "you can't be in a hurry" and "if you're on-time you're actually an hour early" etc., but why is it to much to ask for just to get some up-front information about the situation? Don't tell me the bus will leave in 5 minutes when you know it will leave in 20, drive a mile, then sit for another 20 minutes. Don't show me a picture of one bus then push me into the tiny smoking section of another bus since mine 'has problem'.  Don't 'forget' to tell me that there actually isn't a boat to Iboih so we'll have to walk and that the taxi taking me, my 70 liter pack and regular backpack to the port that is a 40-minute ride over the hills of the island is, in fact, a motorbike driven by your friend from the village.  Just be honest with me and tell me in advance so that I can be prepared; 9 times out of 10 I'll be cool with it, I just don't like the dishonesty used to get my business. And it just makes me angrier that I can't do anything about it. Don't like the arrangement? Too bad, you already paid. Police? Don't speak English, don't care. You're going to write Lonely Planet? So maybe in the edition 2 years from now they leave out one adjective in their description.

I hate feeling this helpless. And used. And worked over.

Damn it.

Leia Mais…

Today there's a bit less smoke coming out of my ears

I can’t believe I’m going to be traveling alone again!! It feels like I’ve been hanging out with Elias for weeks, when really it’s only been about 5 days. He’s been a good traveling companion, even if I have gotten a little frustrated with him at times, but that’s going to happen with anyone you travel with, especially if you’ve never met them before and you’re from such different backgrounds. But I’m sure he’s been wanting some time to himself and it will probably be good for me to be independent again, too.

But now I need to try to figure out what I’m doing next: Bukit Lawang or Banda Aceh (although I think it will all come down to which bus is available to me in Medan this afternoon). Bukit Lawang offers life in a jungle village for a day or two with a chance to see orangutans while Banda Aceh would provide relaxation, scuba diving, and a bit of island hopping. I’m behind schedule a bit, so it might make more sense to go straight to Banda Aceh, especially since I’m not sure how overly excited I am to be in the jungle (I’ve enjoyed not sweating like a pig for the last several days). And let’s not forget that I find most monkeys incredibly creepy, but who am I to turn down the chance at a new experience like this?

All right, I think I’m ready to talk about the second half of my motorbike ride yesterday. Oh, I was just seething at Elias and myself and the road and the people hollering at me and Lonely Planet and the cows and everything! I was in pain and petrified that I would break something on the bike or fall off and hurt myself or, even worse, fall off and hurt my camera. It also got annoying that he would just leave me behind and get almost a half-kilometer ahead of me, like he was just leaving me to my doom.  At first, avoiding the potholes, piles of loose rocks and sudden drop-offs was a bit like a game (How Quickly Can You Swerve?), but I was getting madder and madder because I wasn’t able to appreciate the absolutely beautiful scenery around me. Elias compared it to the foothills of the Swiss Alps, but all I noticed was what the pavement looked like because I didn't dare lift my eyes off of it for fear of yet another crash.  This photo really doesn't do it justice.

At one point, I was just completely fed up and couldn’t go any further without at least complaining about it. I hollered at Elias to stop, came up next to him, bounced over a giant rock and promptly fell over into him. From that point forward I believe our exact conversation went something like this:

Elias: Are you all right?
Lauren: (picking my bike up) No, I am not all right! I’m getting really tired of this!
E: Well, just calm down.
L: Oh, come on, let me be upset for like two minutes. This is ridiculous!
E: No, calm down.
L: Trust me, this is as calm as I can get right now. Do you really think this road will get us out of here?
E: Don’t worry so much. We’re--
L: That doesn’t answer my question. Do you really think this road will get us out of here?
E: Well, it’s going down the hill so it will be fine.
L: God, this is just so ridiculous.
E: Look, the next time we see someone we’ll stop and ask them properly, okay?
L: (back on my motorbike, in an obviously fake, controlled tone) Can we get out of here, please?
E: We’re not leaving until you’re ready.
L: Until I’m ready? Don’t talk to me like I’m a child! I’m fine.
E: Well, behave differently, please.
L: Man, you sound like my father. Fine. I’m done. Let’s just go.

And I basically said next to nothing after that for about 3 hours. He got a lot of ‘yep’ and ‘nope’ and ‘uh-huh’ and ‘I don’t know’. Anyone who knows me well or has seen me ticked off will recognize this instantly, I’m sorry to say. But anyone who knows me really well or for a long time will know that I’ve grown to be a lot more patient and in control of my temper than I used to be. Not as much annoys me as it used to (thanks to my line of work, I guess), but to travel under difficult—read: cheap—circumstances in countries that don’t have luxuries like paved roads you should really have the patience of a saint, or as close to that as you can get. Also, I’m Irish, thus part of the difficulty.

So yesterday was a bit difficult, but of course every day has problems of its own and today’s is the same as yesterday’s: transportation.

One thing you must know about travel in Asia is that nothing is scheduled. No, wait, let me modify that: nothing runs on a schedule even though one does exist. Everything leaves whenever the driver feels like it, which is typically after the vessel is filled to capacity (e.g. overflowing) and they’ve taken another fifteen minutes on top of that for lunch. Okay, so now we’re ready to go, right? Yeah, to go about two miles before we stop again so the driver can add petrol or piss by the side of the road or lose a few passengers (which we must then wait to get replacements for) or just admire the goat walking down the street. Who the hell knows what the reason is, just add another twenty minutes to the trip.

For example: the 9:45 ferries came at 9:30 and 9:55. The eleven o’clock bus rolled up to an invisible stop down the street around 11:20 but didn’t leave until 12:30.

And you can’t get upset about this because this is just how travel works in places where cars are for the wealthy, enclosed single-passenger taxis are for the rich white tourists, and public transit is used as much to ship vegetables and chickens as to transport people.

But since we did eventually get moving, here are some fun things we drove past: a statue (paper-mache?) of a soldier ready to stick you with the bayonet on his rifle (the sign below reads Welcome to Lake Toba), the Monkey Protection Area, a smashed-up car straight from a demolition derby put on a pedestal with skulls and crossbones beneath it, you know, stuff like that that makes driving across someplace even as beautiful as Wyoming a snooze-fest.  Iowa especially could do with a lot more skulls and crossbones, since lord knows they've already got the smashed up cars.

Anyway, I manage to befriend yet another foreign traveler, this time a Frenchmen in shorts my dad would have rocked back in high school (oh, god, the Indonesians found that absolutely hilarious) who mocked the, admittedly, large size of my pack. He's one of those crazy travelers who can fit everything in a carry-on bag and still travel for a year with no problems. I hate people like that because I want to be one of them so badly. Yeah, that's never going to happen.

By the time we arrived in Medan I had most definitely missed the bus to Bukit Lawang, but there were still plenty of overnight buses to Banda Aceh so I guess I know where I'm going next! And I will get there in an air-conditioned, non-smoking, full-sized, reserved in advance seat god damn it. Since I had a little time, Jean and I walked through the city's largest mosque, Mesjid Raya, which he of course got to see more of than I did, then went to Lonely Planet's 'die die must try' restaurant recommendation: Corner Cafe Raya. After the obligatory 30-minute wait all Asian restaurants tack on to the meal, I was presented with a truly beautiful chicken cutlet sandwich. It was a monster! Cheese, egg, tomato, mayo, lettuce, cucumber, sprouts, chicken, and double of everything for a double-decker sandwich! Even eating it with a fork and knife I made a mess, and the whole thing set me back about $3. Incredible. It made Jean's little cheese and tomato sandwich look like an amuse bouche.

And then I was whisked away to the bus station where, after extracting multiple promises that this bus would provide the conditions I required for an at least bearable trip, I boarded the bus to Banda Aceh.  The last row again, near the smoking compartment, but it went pleasantly unused and there was plenty of space for me to lay my chair back.  And the staff paid a lot of attention to me to make sure I was totally comfortable; it was the best bus service I'd seen in Indonesia.  I even got a blanket and a pillow for the trip!  What opulence!  So now Banda Aceh or bust!

Leia Mais…

Crash #2 (and 3 if you're picky): Danau Toba

So it would appear that I left a fairly interesting detail out of yesterday's blog post: Elias and I are now staying in a (sadly, unauthentic) batak house!  Someone checked out of it yesterday right after we checked in, so we never heard it was available until later that day when we bumped into the guy as he was leaving. Man, this hotel is a steal: Rp50,000/night.  So basically, Elias and I will both be paying about $2.50/night to stay in this giant traditional Indonesian house.  HOW AWESOME IS THAT??

It's a bit sparce inside, a queen bed, three shelf sets, two chairs and a coffee table, but it's extremely roomy; I think the ceiling must go up about twenty feet.  The door is hilariously tiny, though, and I think it was built by the Lollipop Guild of Munchkin Land.  I've hit my head on it twice already and can't wait to see how high that number will get over the next few days!  It's all made of very dark wood and there are only two small windows, so while it's fun to look at it kind of encourages you to get out and about because it's also a bit dreary.  And the exterior, while fascinating to look at, doesn't make the mood much more cheery; it's more dark wood with red highlights and there are some seriously creepy faces carved on the outside of this hut. 

But all is forgotten the moment I step out the door this morning because the sunrise is at the perfect point to create a road of light straight from the door of our house to the hills on the other side of the lake. The only interruption is the slow, graceful bobbing of a fishermen’s canoe as the occupant casts his old green net with one hand and gently strokes a paddle with the other. After a while he swaps the net for an old porcelain bowl that he uses alternately as a left oar and to bail water out of his shallow canoe. As I watch him, swaddled in winter clothing against the chill of the water, I wonder if he even notices the sunrise after all the years he’s done this work. I hope that he does.

Beautiful or not, there isn't a lot of time to just sit around today because we've got to go get our motorbikes! The shop that did my laundry and that I bought a nice red and green sarong from is letting us rent two of their nice, new scooters and we're going to leave Tuk Tuk and check out the rest of the island that the peninsula is part of. I'm really excited about this because the road runs along the water for the entire circumference of the island. I think it's going to be an easy, pleasant ride with lots of little stops thrown in to look at hot springs, batak houses, maybe head up a hill...oh, yeah, this is going to be nice.

And the first half of the ride is perfectly lovely; I could have kept going for days. Sunshine, riding along the beach, green fields, colorful monuments, children waving and shouting 'Hello lady!', large batak houses with their ridiculously steep roofs... And we certainly didn't have to worry about becoming lost because there's only bridge across the lake and if you follow the beach around the edge of the island you're bound to come to it. We had hoped to find a beach to swim on at some point, but it seems like the only access points down to the water are lanes that run past houses. It would definitely be a bit awkward to ride up to someone's backyard, strip down to my bikini with a guy who is not my husband or even my boyfriend (this area may not have many Muslims but Christians are a bit touchy about nudity, too), then splash around in front of some strange family, so Elias and I stick to the road.

Only a dozen kilometers or so after we leave the peninsula and hit the main part of the island, we come across a village built hundreds of years ago that they've restored and preserved as an outdoor museum. Some of the batak houses are decorated with the furnishings their original owners would have used, such as dishes, pots and pans, a loom, a low bed, and, on the upper level, some musical instruments like drums and a gamelan (a small hybrid between a marimba and a vibraphone and played with a hammer). It's not overly cool in the house, but it's still cooler than being outside in the sun and I suppose when there's a breeze it feels better, but I hope they do their cooking outside because that fire would raise the temperature in here several degrees. Outside there are stone chairs in the shade of a large tree, still set in the circle that the village elders met in to make decisions. And of course there are the freaky, nearly life-size puppet men outside one of the houses, stone faces making funny expressions lining a narrow, walled-in path to another part of the village, and a large memorial decorated with ornaments that bare a very strong resemblance to boobs. I wonder how that slipped past the Catholics.

Apparently there was supposed to be a traditional dance featuring the local girls, but I guess it's not a huge surprise that it's been unexpectedly canceled for today; that seems to happen a lot in these little villages. So instead, we ride our bikes down to a concrete dock where two women are happily washing their laundry in the lake, chatting away like the gossip queens they no doubt are, and clearly unphased by our presence they don't even cast a second look as we set up our cameras and take a few shots of them and ourselves. And yes, Elias got the pink scooter because it just made me hate that color more when the shopowner said he got a pink one 'just for you girls'. Screw you and your stereotypes, old man. Damn I really hate pink.

It was another hour or so before we got to Pangururan, the small city that sits on one side of the bridge. We stopped and, after a bit of gesturing and pointing, ordered a lunch of fried rice with pork that came out in huge, delicious, steaming portions that could have fed four people. Mmmmm. If this is how good it tastes when we don't speak Bahasa, I can only imagine what kind of stuff we could get if we knew more than 'terima kasi' (thank you)! At our table, we made a plan of attack for the rest of the day. I would have been more than happy to stick to the road along the beach, but Elias wanted to go up into the mountains in the middle of the island for the view and to see what all was up there. Anticipating driving conditions similar to what we'd seen the first half of the day, I said that was fine with me and off we went.

Clearly, I never learn.

Let me summarize by saying that I got really, really, really, really pissed off the longer we rode. I was getting so flustered that I fell over when I got stuck in a rut and then again when I came up behind Elias too quickly. Now there were some beautiful views, I'll give him that, and you could compare the landscape to something from the foothills of the Alps (he said it looked like his home in Germany). But the road...so bad...me...so angry...this is going to have to wait until tomorrow or I'm going to reach over and hit Elias right now. I'm surprised I didn't hit him then!

So once we were finally out of the mountains and headed back towards home I took out a little bit of aggression on the roads and, admittedly, drove poorly enough that I probably would have been arrested back in the states! But Elias was showing off and I was pissed off and wanted to both show I could keep up with him and work out some aggression. So we got going as fast as we could, and considering there were turns to take and people to pass and helmets to try not to lose, I'm impressed we made it up to about 100km/h. And it did go a long way towards helping me cool down after the ridiculously terrible conditions we had just spent 3 hours riding through, so by the time we returned the bikes (thankfully they didn't notice that one of the mirrors would spin around at the slightest touch) I at least wasn't totally ignoring Elias.

At the end of it all we take care of some “chores” online and have another meal at Romlan. The smell of flowers goes a long way towards mellowing me out and brings me back to reality, which is that I’m on vacation on a beautiful tropical island, eating dinner with a cute boy, and recovering from having spent the day riding a motorcycle. I have really got to work on keeping my perspective so that I don’t let my tendency towards impatience get in the way of enjoying my travels.

Just a quick note: I want to say Happy 50th Birthday to my dad! I’ve been thinking about you all day long, dad, and hoping you’re enjoying celebrating this milestone. I wish I could be there! I love you very much and can’t wait until I can tell you about my trip in person!

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