Hodgepodge Post

Want to know a phrase I'd never thought I'd say? "There are too many colonial buildings here." That, however, is the case in Penang. I've spent the past six hours or so wandering in the 90 degree fahrenheit, 75% humid clime here (feels like 107, according to weather.com), and so I am taking a break from exploring.

The colonial buildings are all over the place in the town center--its like a supersized Kuching waterfront.

So, to take advantage of the fan I'm sitting under, here's a couple of random notes/experiences from the past week, ordered by setting.

General:
My body is somewhat screwed up by the sunrise and sunset time. In theory, since I am in the equator, sunrise and sunset should be around 6pm/am on the dot.

Not true. Because of the various time zones, and how they are worked, sunrise/sunset times vary enormously.

For example, in Surabaya, the sun sets/rises at around 530 every day. In Penang, it stays light until 7. In Banjarmasin, it was pretty much 615 even.

Why? Look at a map with how the time zones are drawn. Even though Surabaya is farther east than Penang (by a significant margin), in order to minimize the amount of time zones in Indonesia, which has a significant east-west spread, Surabaya is actually one hour earlier than Penang to keep it in line with Jakarta and the rest of Java. Even though Banjarmasin is almost exactly due north of Surabaya, it is one hour ahead .

Yogya:
What I hate the most about touts is when they pretend to be your friend and get you on the long sell. I had just checked into my hotel room and saw a guy standing in the hotel lobby. Since he was talking to the hotel management, I figured he worked for the hotel. He speaks pretty good english, and we get to talking, and he has a drink while I eat lunch. He mentions that he is an artist and that they are having an art show, and would I like to check it out? Not really, but I go in anyway. As soon as we enter his "studio" he disappears and the studio owner appears offering to show me some batik and the like. The infamous "Batik Mafia" had nabbed me, but I walked out immediately before they could sell me anything--and to be honest, I thought the stuff was pretty bad.

Borobodur and Prambanan were fine, but they really get the foreigners hard with the ticket prices. They charge foreign tourists about 15 us dollars and 13 us dollars respectively, whereas Indonesians only have to pay about the equivalent of 1 us dollar. We do get a free welcome drink, though, and are greeted in a nice air conditioned ticket office. Someone has to pay for the upkeep of those UNESCO sites, and it makes more sense to stick it to the foreigners, who will come anyway. What I didn't like about the two sites, though, was how they permit all sorts of merchants and the like to setup shop in the parking lot near the exits, and the layout is such that it pretty much forces you go past all the solicitors. Some are even allowed past the park gates. It cheapens the experience, and I told the Indonesian government such when I was interviewed by a representative of the Indonesian Tourism Authority after passing through departure level immigration at Jakarta when bound for Singapore (they did give me a free gift, though!).

The amount of attention foisted on bules by Indonesians, especially schoolchildren, can get annoying after a while, especially when they literally all ask you the same question over and over again, and having to deal with the constant flashbulbs of cameras. That said, I prefer the shout of "meestir meestir" from a grade schooler over the "you want motorbike/ojek""i take you to art show" of the touts.

What is weird is posing for photographs with older people as well, not just schoolchildren--I got a picture taken with me and someones mom at Prambanan, and by some guy at the Jakarta airport when we were on the tarmac, walking off the plane from Banjarmasin.

Want to make Indonesians in the tourism industry laugh? When they ask you "are you going to Bali?", respond by saying "no. there are too many australians there." I'm pretty sure Indonesians feel the same away about Australians on Kuta Beach in Bali as Mexicans do about American spring breakers in Cancun--yes, they're annoying and can be a pain, but we'll gladly welcome their money, and they don't leave the kuta/hotel zone bubble, so we don't have to deal with them if we don't want to.

Touts in Yogya tended to be of the benign annoying variety. They would come up to you and try to get you in their rikshaw/motorbike/buy their goods, but as soon as you made it clear that you were perfectly fine walking, they left you alone. This is unlike my previously detailed experience in Probolingo.

That said, for every tout in Yogya, there were also some genuinely nice people--like the guy on his way to the hospital to see his newborn nephew who saw me and told me what I was looking at, and where the locals go to shop for batik. Or the tour guide at the Kraton who gave some directions, and pointed out the exact same place to go shop for it, and even negotiated with the ojek driver to give me the Indonesian price (interestingly, at the shop, I ran into a couple that I had seen and talked with at the hostel, and they were told to come to this place by two different people as well--which gives even more credibility that the previous two people weren't on the pay roll). Or the tour guide (when I say tour guide, I always mean government qualified, not private) at the Water Palace in Yogya, who drove me on his own motorbike, even providing me a helmet to the songbird market--about a 3km walk away. He made it clear that he didn't expect any money, but I gave him the equivalent of 2 US dollars anyway.

I was nabbed by the Ojek driver when I tried to go to the water palace, but he kept insisting on taking me to his "batik" place--the place he was on the pay roll--and dropped me off there instead--about a block away from the water palce. And he also refused to make change, so I purposely made him wait while I went somewhere to get change.

Sometimes getting lost in translation can actually be to your benefit. Fearing that I was going to be charged a ton of cash for an ojek ride from the songbird market to my hostel, I told the guy that I wanted to go to the Sultan Palace/Kraton and even showed him on a map. We agreed on a price--about 1 US D--and even though he kept saying "sultan palace," ended up taking me all the way to my hostel's street--for the same price as previously agreed to.

Loved Yogya, and a great place to meet other people, since the travelers all stay in the same area, and you have to go there if you are in Indonesia.

Quick hits to come later about the various attractions there and one of the saddest places I've been to--the songbird market.

Solo:
I took a daytrip there when I was in Yogya (just an hour trainride away, even in the ekonomi train). The place is known as the least westernized Javan city, and it certainly feels that way. Too bad it is also relatively boring. If it wasn't for my great tour guide at the palace there, I would have considered it a waste of time, but I really liked my mandated and assigned guide at the palace, as she told me about all sorts of stories behind various items--including going into pretty heavy detail when talking about various pieces owned by the sultan that are used on some of the more private areas of the person's body (a male chastity belt, for example). She definitely did not skimp on details, and this was a person who was wearing a traditional Islamic headscarf.

I wasn't able to make it out to the erotic temples at Candi Sukwuh--about an hour away from Solo--mainly because I was still kind of sore from Merapi, and also nursing somewhat of a cold.

I also somehow managed to get on the right train, think I was on the wrong train, and then got off at the next stop, only to hop back on the various train. The mistake was somewhat understandable. Solo is located east of Yogyakarta, and has two train stations, a west station (the main one) and an east station. The train pulls up at the west station, where I am, and instead of going west to Yogya, it ends up heading east. I realize something isn't right, and hop off the train when it stops at the east station.

Too bad I was wrong.

Unlike in the U.S., where trains only in one continuous direction, in Indonesia, or with this train in particular, it started at the Solo west station, goes to the Solo east station, and stops again at the Solo west station before continuing onward. Since I was on the ekonomi train, it meant sputtering fans and the only real ventilation being open windows, which was fine for the hour.

Flight from Banjarmasin to Jakarta:
As I'm boarding the Batavia flight, I see a kid sitting in the exit row seat...playing with the hatch, while the parents just act clueless and ignore the kid. Oh great, I thought. Let's let kids who should know better (about 10 years old) play around with airline safety equipment, and not say a word. No wonder these guys are blacklisted. Thank god that ended up not being their seat.

Otherwise the flight was pretty much uneventful, and I got some great views of the Javan volcanoes rising up above the clouds, and Jakarta, which looked like Los Angeles with its urban sprawl and yellowish smog layer covering the city.

That said, there's something about Indonesian pilots that makes them assume that right before they land they should wag the wings a couple of times. Landing was slightly off center this time, with the left gear landing just before the right gear, but was otherwise smooth. The tarmac could have been resurfaced, though.

Singapore:
Reverse culture shock, big time. Wait, there are actually such things as lines? And free internet at the airport? And candy at the passport desk? And helpful airport security workers? And nice customs agents? And spotless airport bathrooms? Where am I?

Will post more later. Off to go visit the Jewish Cemetery and Jalan Katz in Penang!
I will be heading back to Singapore tmw afternoon on an Air Asia flight at 305 landing around 420pm, and then, hopefully, fly from Singapore to Siem Reap/Angkor Wat, Cambodia early sunday morning.