5-11-11 Travelling to Yogyakarta

Woke up early today so I could get showered and catch the 7AM train to Yogyakarta. We boarded the early train and sat in “Eksekutif” class on the “Argo Willis” train (all major trains are named in Indonesia), which is the first class of the Indonesian train system, and was about 20USD per person, but it assured assigned seating and was one of the few air conditioned cars. 

 The Indonesian train system reminds me of some of the scenes from “Slumdog Millionaire” minus the kids on top, but since the car I was in was crowded I can only imagine how full the other cars were.

What the cabin lacked in comfort or amenities, the view from the the window seat which I had more than made up for it. I was awestruck by how beautiful the country side was, and unfortunately, yet again, neither my words or photographs could properly capture the beauty of the country-side which I was witnessing.

The tropical environment was a patchwork of rice paddy fields, clusters of trees, and verdant mountains and dormant volcanoes. However if I had to sum up the country side in one word, it would be, “Green”. 

After an 8 hour train ride, from Bandung to Yogyakarta (known colloquially as 'Yogya), I was happy to be off the train to stretch my legs but I was throughly happy that we took the trip by train instead of flying. One of the first things I noticed at first the the amount of “Orang Bule”, the Indonesian way of saying white people, that were roaming the streets of Yogya. After being completely surrounded by Indonesians of all shapes and colors, seeing white people was a bit of a shock. Remembering however that Yogya was one of the major tourist centers of Indonesia I snapped back into reality, and we arrived at our hotel. 

We stayed at the Hotel Ibis at Malioboro. Although it's a European chain of Hotels, it was surprisingly filled with mainly Indonesians. We settled in to take advantage of the Internet, but I didn't have much time to type, as we moved from one place to other checking out the mall which was connected to the Hotel, and also trying out the Indonesian McDonalds, where I wanted to try the “McRendang” which is the McDonald's version of the popular Indonesian dish, Rendang. We were also looking for Batik shirts for me, but because of my size, it makes it relatively hard to find, as the Indonesian size scale is about 2 sizes smaller than the American size scale (which means I'm about a 4/5XL in the Indonesian scale!).  

View of Yoygakarta from my hotel room

Fast forwarding to the night, our first afternoon/day in Yogya was pretty chill, we got some “salak” from the supermarket, on the bottom floor of the mall, we would meet up with the daughter of one of my mom's close friends the next day, and I tried to turn in early to get some sleep.

5-10-11 Bandung Adventures

Tomorrow we go to Yogyakarta at 7AM but first a small tour around Bandung. We stayed at my uncle's house again last night in the hills around Bandung, still no steady internet, thinking I should invest in a mobile modem but its just a passing thought. 

At this moment I'm writing this entry at a Restaurant front drinking a strawberry Fanta, on Jalan Braga (or Braga Street), one of the last remaining streets of old Colonial Indonesia. My mom says it used to be like the Rodeo Drive of Bandung, but now it's just falling into disrepair. 

Old Colonial building re-purposed as a Bank

The once cobblestone paved streets are now filled with potholes as the stones have become dislodged and cracked, and the building fronts are stained black. I feel like part of the reason why the old buildings are falling into disrepair is Indonesians are lashing out against Neo-Colonialism, as the bitterness of Colonial Indonesia is still fresh in the minds of Indonesians, despite the Dutch being kicked out in the late 40's/Early 50's. My mom has much fonder memories of Braga street as we passed by artist stalls with paintings of Braga street during colonial times, as my mom would stop and point at the paintings depicting colonial times as she would say that she remembered when Braga street looked closer to the paintings than the current day. 

She pointed out a central market that was open when she was younger, but is now being over grown by various plant life. We wanted to go visit some museums today, but as with most shops and buildings, they close for about an hour from noon to one, for lunch and mid-day prayers. We also went to museums so that we could pass the time until my cousin Faris was done with his exams, he's probably been one of my favorite people on this trip, he's really easy to talk to and is eternally helpful. Will write more in after we get back from the museums.

Part 2- Just finished the excursion around Bandung and visited two museums, both of which were in woeful disrepair, we visited the museum which commemorated the 1956 Asia-Africa summit which basically was the beginnings of the “Non-Aligned Movement” which is a pretty landmark historical moment, and it was pretty cool to see except for the fact that museum seemed ill maintained, but it still clung to its legitimacy as a museum by the exhibits it had. 

I was surprised that the museum didn't charge for admission, and my mother and I were both wondering how the museum could be maintained if it didn't build income from admissions, even a thousand rupiah or so per person would probably help. The same things applied to the next museum we visited, Bandung's Geological Museum, it was also in a state of disrepair as exhibits were tampered with and it must have been under-going renovations because there was the sound of construction echoing through the old halls. 

Me in front of some fossiles at Bandung's Geological museum

But many of the Indonesians must not mind because throngs of school children entered the museum as my mother and I were leaving. Luckily the geological museum is walking distance from my grandmother's house, so we walked home, stopping at a book store to look for magazines, but I ended up buying a computerized dictionary, which had english and indonesian on it, so that should prove helpful for the rest of my stay. I've also been using an infantry school as a point of reference as it's not that far from my grandmother's house, I was going to try to take a picture, the guard seemed willing but the guard's CO photoblocked us, no worries though I'll take a snapshot as I pass by in a car soon enough. I was also pleasantly surprised to see my cousin Faris had put some minutes on our phone so I was really happy about that, we would go shopping for groceries with my cousin and then we would have dinner with my uncle at a nice restaurant in Bandung, called The Point or was it The View... or maybe The Peak lol, I don't quite remember but it lived upto it's name sake as it gave a wonderful view of Bandung at night. Had a great dinner with my uncle, my grandmother, mom and cousin. Yoygakarta by train tomorrow.

5-9-11 Easy Days

Woke up at 0530 by the call to prayer, finally getting into the rhythm of Indonesia, my mom was suggesting we go to the markets by her mom's house, and always ready to try a new experience I w/as down. After a relatively American breakfast of left over b-day cake, I went out with my mom around the streets of Bandung to get some things from the market. 

As we walked and used Bandung's Angkots (basically a form of public transport in the form of mini buses.) We got some food from the street side stands, which at first I was a bit hesitant to eat from but said fuck it and was like lets bring on the food! Still a bit hesitant to drink things with ice, or even table water at restaurants, opting instead to drink things from bottles, cans or boxes. 

Van on the far right is an Angkot

Our tour of the markets took about 2 hours and we returned home. My mom got some Surabi for me, which remind me a lot of poffertjes except bigger and more savory, and my mom got some Gudeg, food which was a specialty of Yogyakarta. After the tour of Bandung though, the class disparity of Indonesia hit me a bit more, the inner sociology minor in me trying to figure out who was at what social class and possible percentages of unemployment, as we passed by beggars, and various peddlers. 

We would later go onto get airplane tickets for our return trip from Bali to Jakarta and our train tickets from Bandung to Yogyakarta which I'm pretty excited about as its apparently an 8 hour train ride, and all I get to see is the Indonesian country side. Kept trying to figure out how to make my phone work, and I think I eventually got hold of Simone which I was pretty excited about, as I heard that she was ok! But I was bummed in the fact that apparently in all my attempts to contact her I burned through our minutes that we had, so that was disappointing but luckily my cousin Faris would come through in the clutch and put some more minutes on the phone the next day, but for the night I was left really disappointed that my phone decided to run out of minutes so I couldn't talk to Simone, so I'll have to be much more careful with the phone's minutes in the days to come. But looking forward to the excursion of the last day in Bandung before Yogyakarta.

Going back the US!

Hey all! Sorry again for the lack of posts, I haven't had internet for a while, and while I have had internet, it's been relatively slow making image uploads well... nearly impossible, however, I am working on my text for the blog so be prepared for an explosion of posts this coming weekend! Hope to see many of you soon!

-Kris

Lack of posts

Sorry everyone about the lack of posts! I have been having poor luck with reliable internet, and I haven't had much time to sit down and write, but I fully intend on posting more when I have stable/reliable internet, I have so many pictures to post up and stories to share, so stay tuned! there will be things to read soon!!!

5-8-11/First Morning and Surprises!

I woke up around 0613, Realizing that family is a bunch of early risers, most likely because they follow the schedule of the calls to prayer, its a stark contrast to my usual sleep schedule, which I guess isn't that regular but w/e, still a bit jet lagged but I'm recovering surprisingly fast. After I woke up we took a tour of my uncle's neighborhood, where we got a good look at Bandung from the hills above it. I also learned that the neighborhood had a gold course, rec center, all the bells and whistles, and was also the home to Indonesia's upper echelons from generals to CEOs.

The Sleeping Giant

Breakfast with the fam!

The View of Bandung from the Hills of Dago

We got our cell phone today, at a used cell phone shop, and bought a sim card and loaded it with some minutes, unfortunately with my mom not understanding Indonesian telecom policies, and my lack of understanding of Indonesian, it would end up being a temporary source of irritation for me. I also was able to get some Internet access which was really nice as I got to facebook chat with Simone and update my facebook status, and check on somethings, though I was still a bit frustrated with my phone that I wasn't able to call her yet, apparently it takes up to 48 hours for the phone to fully activate, and I'm pretty convinced it wanted to take the full 48 hours to activate, which was another minor annoyance. But while I was browsing the web my mom was trying to hurry me off the computer, claiming that we were going to have lunch with my family, me being the ultra plugged in person that I am was trying to absorb as much Internet time as possible but I reluctantly got off the Internet in a huff, and made my way to my grandmother's house (oh yeah I forgot to mention, I had to go into one of the dormitories to get Internet access which isn't that far of a walk, but it would have been easier if my grandmother had Internet access.) I got dressed in a huff, and then went into a car with my cousins, Kanigara, Ichsan, and 'Windy, and went on an adventure.

Our Cellphone (which I would soon replace)

As I got to know them a bit better, we went back into the hills around bandung, saw a strawberry farm where you could pick your own strawberries, and also went to a petting zoo, which would be our final destination. All the while my cousins were telling me that we lost a few cars and since we were ahead of them we had to wait on them which I figured was ok, apparently the petting zoo we arrived at wasn't really a petting zoo but a nice outdoor restaurant/resort. We met up with my uncles and took pictures to pass the time “until the girls could catch up” however we reached the top of the restaurant, only to find that the rest of my family was there and all along this was a surprise party planned by my mom since January of this year, where she coordinated a time where my entire family would be in one place, and what a surprise it was. To have 30 people sing happy birthday to you was pretty awesome, I think it was one of the biggest parties I've ever had, and this party was just with family!

However it was slightly awkward for me and I would later learn for my cousins also, because they felt self conscious about their english, and I about my lack of understanding Indonesian and the fact that I didn't remember everyone's names, and just that there were so many damn people. I wish Simone was there with me, she always helps me with my shyness/awkwardness, but we eventually bridged the gap and it got more comfortable, we had a big family picture, which I can annotate for my dad, who's been asking for an annotated family picture for years. But in anycase the lunch was nice, everyone had goody bags and seemed to have a good time, and then we went back to my grandmother's house where the families regrouped and went back home. After I got home I would unwrap some presents that people would give me.

The Family, still missing 3 members of the family lol

One particularly nifty gift I got was from my cousin 'Zela, which was a travel bag, or what most americans would call a murse or an “urban shoulder bag” lol, but I thought I would use it (so most of the pictures I'll take from now on will have it in there) and I was thinking about growing out a beard to look like Zach Gallifinakis a la The Hangover, but I thought against it and would embrace the travel pack. I would go on to use the internet again, and try to call Simone by all means but our Pingo card didn't work, our cell phone wasn't working either, and texting wasn't even working so I was pretty peeved and eventually went to bed, hoping that the phone would work and I could talk to Simone.

5-8-11 0009h/Arrival in Indonesia/First Night

We arrived in Indonesia in the early morning, and since we landed we haven't stopped moving until now. The flight was pretty uneventful, and the food/service was great! After landing in Jakarta, we got our visas and bags, and were greeted my Uncle Tendy, who I call, Mang Aten, my cousin Faris, my aunt Jane, and my Grandmother, who I call Enin. It was a hug filled event, with my grandmother crying and my aunts and uncles asking if I remembered them. (with a family of nearly 30 plus members it gets a bit hard to remember all the names.)

Landing in Jakarta

We rushed into the car, which was the indonesian equivalent of the Toyota Sienna, getting ready for the drive to Bandung, my mom's home town, which is also where we would be spending the first few days of our vacation. On the way to Bandung we drove through downtown Jakarta, which has now become a collection of high-rises, and malls, a bit different than what I remembered, or maybe it always was like that I just didn't notice when I was younger.

My Grandmother, my aunt Jane, Me and my Uncle Tendy, I think my mom took the picture, and my Cousin was getting my uncle's car for us.

Maybe it was also a bit different since Jakarta was hosting the ASEAN (sp?) conference. Another thing that's pretty crazy is the traffic on the roads in Indonesia, which I will save for another Post, but in any case, it was a pretty uneventful drive. We drove to Bandung on the relatively new highway route, which was a stark contrast to the winding road of the mountain passes that we took nearly 10 years ago, the highway route cut the travel time in half as we got to Bandung in 2 hours.
We arrived at my grandmother's house which has now become a compound of 4 buildings and has potential to increase as 2 of my aunts and uncles have undeveloped plots of land. The land which my grandmother lives has been in our family for a few generations now, and was at one point requisitioned by the Indonesia military and was used as barracks for some officers. However after some land reclamation our family now owns the land and has built up dormitory style rooms (and yes I can use dormitories for this description because they are off campus lol) and they rent out rooms to local college students and the rent that the students pay goes to help support my grandmother.

my grandmother's house :-)

My Aunt Eni's building which has 8 rooms for rent to students

My Mang Aten's Building which has 13 rooms for rent, all the rent from the 21 rooms goes to help my grandmother and maintain the buildings

I must say though that after such a long flight, I was itching to make phone calls/use the internet, unfortunately, Internet access was spotty at best and we didn't have our cell phone yet, so I would have to wait for at least another day to get internet/phone access. I was also surprised to see most of family milling around my Enin's house, which I suppose was normal, my grandmother being the Matriach and all, why wouldn't the family be there?
So that night we stayed at my Mang Aten's house, which was in the hills around Bandung, in an area called Dago, which is the upper class area of Bandung. I didn't realize how upper-class the area was until I saw the houses in the neighborhood. We had to pass 3 guard posts to get to my uncle's house, and the house itself was really boss, I was even more surprised that it wasn't his only house but one of 5 or 6 properties that he owned. I'll spot light my uncle soon, but we'll just leave it that my uncle is a very successful man. I wish I could have gotten more pictures from his house because the view of Bandung at night was breath taking but I also wanted to wait until the morning to see the contrast in the views.

View of Bandung at Night

5-7-11/Singapore-Jakarta

Landed In Singapore in the early morning, and saw rows and rows of cargoships, but I couldn't get good pictures because my camera is pretty shite, but it was pretty impressive. I wish I could have gotten pictures. But when we arrived in Singapore, complete 180 from Moscow, even the air was different. Singpore's terminals were sparkling clean and the bathrooms were totally clean, they even had anti-biotic spray that you could spray on toilet paper so that you could wipe the toilet seats, which to someone like me thats borderline OCD, it works out really well.
All the cleanliness got me feeling self-concious, after sitting in my own funk for nearly 24 hours, I wish that I could feel as fresh and clean as Singapore's airport was. They had “free” wifi available, but only if you subscribe to a certain plan, luckily though they had terminals which travelers could use which was really cool. So I used that to check my facebook, which was pretty convenient. Pretty much Singapore's Changi Airport is one of the nicest in Asia. The staff of the airport is very multi-cultural as well, if you have the chance allow Singapore's Changi International Airport to be your gateway into south east/southern Asian, and if you have a chance you should also visit Singapore itself!

More Singapore Airlines planes docked around us

We boarded the plane bound for Indonesia, Flew a 777-300 with Nintendo games to Indonesia, though the entertainment system was a bit older, as well as the seats. But the good part was the flight totally empty, so as soon as the outside doors were closed, we immediately moved seats and sat by ourselves, we had food, and we washed our face with warmed moist towelettes, which is something we got on every flight since Houston, which is pretty baller. Prior to take off I got my first glimpse of an A380 as I saw a Quantas A380 come in for a landing, which was really cool, unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of it. We left Singapore just after sunrise so I got to see Singapore lit up at night and Singapore during the day, which both were really cool.

Pics of Singapore and the surrounding area from above

Delay in Posts

Hey All!

Sorry about the delay in the posts, Internet has been pretty spotty in all the locations I've been in so far, and since I want to post pictures with my blog posts, uploads take forever/don't even work! I'm still writing in my pocket journal, then transcribing my thoughts on a text document, and then posting it up here when I have the chance! So stay tuned, there will be more posts very soon!!

-Kris

5-6-11 /Moscow-Singapore

When we landed at Moscow, the first good sign that the flight would be ok was that we docked next to an El-Al 767-300ER bound for Tel Aviv, and that automatically made me think of Simone, which by this point its been almost a week since I had seen her, and I already missed her sooo much!

The weather and people of Moscow that day was dreary. I would probably have to say that Moscow is one of my least favorite airports, up there with the airport at Philly. The airport seemed to be stuck in the cold war era of inefficiency, as all the passengers were forced to deplane and go through a russian security checkpoint, as if we haven't been through enough security checkpoints already.

There was only 1 person handling all the passengers that deplaned, even though there were 4 open counters, the lack of organization was frustrating, probably also because I was sweating and still recovering from an 11 hour flight. 

We finally got back on the plane, and we were sitting next to the same guy, we hoped he wouldn't be there... but oh well. I was pretty frustrated with the whole ordeal and my clothes were pretty damp with sweat, I was just hoping to get back on terra firma. One of the things that kept me going was hoping that things would be much better in Singapore, also looked forward to watching more movies. 

Will probably avoid flying into Moscow in the future if I can help it. 

So I settled into my seat hoping to watch a movie, but when I got back, my in-flight entertainment system was on the fritz, which made me pretty pissed. However I went and got a change of clothes and we got some food, and I felt a lot better. Had a steward reset my entertainment system and all was much better.

I started off the flight by watching “Black Swan” (I AM THE SWAN QUEEN!), then “The King's Speech” and finished up the flight with “The Mechanic” all pretty great movies. I can see why both “Black Swan” and “The King's Speech” won Oscars. Landed in Singapore in the early morning, after flying over Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Malaysia. I was able to see the glow of Cities in India, and the glow of Kuala Lumpur which is pretty huge. I also saw a group of clouds which I'm pretty sure were storm clouds because I saw flashes of light within them... either that ot it was explosions. Not sure, but Now onto Singapore!

Views from Singapore as we descended towards the airport, Airport must be on the outskirts of town as I remembered Singapore's lights being much more vibrant. Also sorry for the poor quality of the photos, I wish my camera could do most of what I have been seeing justice.

5-5-11/ Houston-Moscow

One of the first things I noticed was that one of the senior stewards looked like George Takei from behind. 

The service was pretty much just the same as I remembered, we had a mix stewards/stewardesses. It was interesting that some had different uniforms than others, I later learned that it was denote their ranks. But I was more concerned with the entertainment system.

As soon as we took off, I immediately turned to the “KrisWorld” entertainment system. I remembered that they used to have Super Nintendo games as one of the main entertainment sources, unfortunately this flight didn't, however, it had a kick ass music and movie selection. 

I was pretty bummed that my MP3 player wasn't working like I wish it was, but It was made all the better by the selection of music they had in the entertainment system. They had all sorts of artists, from pop to Electronica, and even foreign artists. I built a very dancy list, of Deadmau5, Paul van Dyk, and some pop songs from the Now series (which was on number 76/77 due to it being the British version of Now.) The movie selection was even better.

Plenty of the Newest movies out of theatres, I watched 2 movies on the flight, A french film called “De Vrais Mensonges”, and an American movie, “No Strings Attached”. Was a decent flight, but had a middle seat so it was a bit uncomfortable, there was some random guy that got the aisle seat, so he was a pretty lucky bastard... but it was ok, he was quiet, and when he got up to use the bathroom, we rushed to go before him lol, but it was pretty fun. 

We would land in Moscow on the 6^th of May, though I can't remember if I changed my watch to the local time or not. But after an 11 hour flight, I was glad to be off of the plane for a bit, but what would greet me was something I would rather not go through again.

The only picture I could get of Moscow before I left, too bad I couldn't get one of the El Al plane, i was photo blocked by a stewardess before I could get it

5-5-11/Orlando-Houston

Flew United/Continental, seat belts were a bit tight, but it was a short flight so that was nice, arrived at Houston at lunch at panda express, and switched terminals to the international section. Waited for a few hours and then boarded the plane. The plane we boarded was a Singapore Airlines 777-300ER, and it would be the same plane we would fly on from Houston to Singapore.

Travel Journal

So since I'm going to Indonesia for nearly 3 weeks, I figured I would keep a travel journal where I would post up pics and tell stories about my travels! I will probably not have steady internet through out the whole trip so many of my posts are probably going to be back dated. In order to keep the experiences fresh, I'm writing my experiences down on paper as things happen, as well as taking pictures which I hope to connect to my posts later! So hopefully you'll enjoy!