Hello and welcome to my Indonesian travel blog. I meant to begin posting prior to my departure for Indonesia but departure preparation certainly got the best of me so I have ended up arriving before finding the time to sit down and write anything. I have finally managed to find an internet connection strong enough to download a program that lets me edit blog posts from my room and save them to my computer to upload later, so it’s finally off to the races…now where do I begin?
The trip here was a long and arduous one, but Bali has definitely been worth the journey so far. My itinerary saw me flying from Toronto to London (7 hours), followed by a 12 hour stopover during which I was able to catch up with two friends from Toronto who had recently moved there from Toronto. Camden Market, Big Ben and an impromptu lesson on navigating "the tubes" were all crammed into a fun filled afternoon. One of the highlights of the day was a bronze bust, supposedly in the likeness of Nelson Mandela. I'm not exactly on a first name basis with the man but obviously neither was the sculptor given that they appeared to have taken some artistic liberties with the likeness.
Laughter and fun-times in foggy London-town were over all to soon and it was back to the airport for the 12.5 hour hop-skip over to Singapore, arriving just in time to sit through another 3 hour stop-over, though I had the good fortune to come across some immaculately clean washrooms. I think having an photograph of the actual person who has to clean the toilets when you’ve finished with them is a fantastic way to ensure washrooms stay cleaner for longer. Take a note, North America.
I was travelling with two other Canadian volunteers but we had only corresponded by email prior to the trip so I was on the lookout for keen looking types that looked like they were headed the same place I was. People-watching and eavesdropping are skills I have spent years honing to perfection and I was able to identify both other volunteers by the time we all got on the plane for the final 2 hour leg of the trip from Singapore to Bali.
I remember thinking as we landed and I changed my watch for the third time in 2 days that I would happily do terrible things in exchange for a warm, soft, preferably horizontal bed to sleep in for 3 or 4 days straight, Rip Van Winkle style. For some reason I never anticipate just how much energy travelling takes out of you and would speculate that this trip was actually made much harder by being stretched over 2 days instead of taking a more direct route. In any event, I was happy and excited to have arrived.
I vividly remember my first thought upon leaving the plane being “Holy heat and humidity, Batman!”, which I think summed up the situation pretty aptly. It was 10 PM and we were picked up from the airport and whisked away to our kost, a motel-y place with four one bed one bath type rooms where we all happily peeled off our respective sweat-stained shirts and collapsed in our respective (hopefully) not-so-sweat-stained beds.
I had hoped to avoid jet lag by forcing myself to stay awake through various legs of the plane journey but it looks like my plan failed miserably. My attempts to tell my body that it was NOT in fact the middle of the day but actually the middle of the night were of no use, and I ended up laying awake a good portion of that first night. Awaking the following day and taking stock of things I would definitely say my expectations had been exceeded. A private room with hot water, A/C, a bicycle and a fridge stocked with the essentials did much to lift my spirits that first morning. I was even able to get my first taste of Indonesian soap operas on TV.
The rest of the first day went by pretty quickly, we took a bike ride around the neighborhood with two of the other volunteers and stumbled on this ornately decorated temple in the middle of the city (one of many) And stuck my feet in the Indian Ocean (we’re talking bathtub/hotspring temperatures) and ended off with dinner at a tasty spot in town. Thus far, the verdict on Indonesian food is three thumbs way up.
Example: this morning we began our first day of in-country training at the country program office in town with banana leaf wrapped yellow rice with chicken, noodles, dried shrimp and fried potato cake. Delicious!
I have been working hard at making friends and already have a veritable army of cute housemates. Lots of little spiders that seem to have taken up residence in the corner of my showers which I have no problem with and so long as they pay their rent by eating the mosquitos that like to fly through my windows at night and make me itch. No roaches yet but plenty of tiny ants that will leave you alone as long as you take care not to rudely try to kill them with your back by lying on them with your shirt off while working out on your floor, in which case all bets are off (I found this one out the hard way). This grasshopper was also doing his thing on a flower stamen just outside our front gate.
I am also happy to report that the cheap AA battery operated point-and-shoot camera I bought appears to take great pictures if you’re gentle and patient with it, which is useful because although I have a nicer one, it’s bulkier and harder to whip out to capture moments like the explosion of scooters and motorcycles that happens every time a light changes.Indonesia has been every bit as wonderful (and sometimes weird) as I expected so far, everyone I have met has been incredibly warm and welcoming and it has me really looking forward to getting through training and language lessons to get out to my actual placement location which has me in Flores, an island about 300 km east of Bali. We keep being told that our placement locations will be very different from the tourist paradise that is Denpassar, Bali but more on that later, my grumbling belly tells me I’ve got some dinner to find.
Written while Listening to: the album The Flying Club Cup by Beirut.
Yes! Public health accountability! Love it.
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