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We spend a few days in Jakarta before heading to Jogjakarta and Borobodur.

In our neighbourhood, we visit the wayang kulit (leather puppet) museum.

This interesting device is a coconut-oil lamp for illuminating the screen for the shadow play.

The museum also has 3D puppets.

Jakarta is not a great city to spend time in. We describe it in an email to a friend as ‘kind of Hellish’. We make plans to leave ASAP.

On the way to the train station, we pass this mural. Some images are iconic the world over.

The Beatles and Indonesia have not always seen eye to eye. Thanks to a friend who is a Beatles fan – and who isn’t? – for the link.

We catch a comfortable, executive-class train to Jogjakarta.

First stop after arriving is the Kraton, or Sultan’s Palace. We come across a performance of gamelan music.

Nice pergola.

In another part of the grounds, we come across young men practicing Javanese dance.

We sit for an hour enjoying this.

We visit the Sonobudoyo Museum, a small gem of a museum nearby. At first we think this is an insightful installation on Indonesia, with shadow puppets appearing against an inverted Indonesian flag…

….making some kind of statement. We decide we’re just overthinking it. This museum is in much better shape (less neglected) than the Kraton.

We visit the Beringharjo Market. Lots of batik clothing around, of course.

Piles of material at Batik Keris, a more upscale batik chain.

We take local transport to Borobodur.

I visited here many decades ago. I distinctly remember renting a bicycle. It’s over 40 KMs from Jogjakarta, so I must’ve bussed it to some small town and biked from there.

Borobodur is as impressive as it was 30 years ago.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Jogjakarta and Borobodur

When we leave the Krui Surf Camp, Zane drops us at the bus terminal. We realize that we forgot to pay the remainder of our beer tab (an honours system for grabbing cold ones from the cooler). In an email, we offer to send Zane the cash. He suggests donating it to a mosque instead. We wait until we find a modest mosque that can use the money – not a giant Saudi-backed showpiece.

In Jogjakarta, we come across the tiny Nurul Huda mosque in a narrow alley.

Back to Singapore. This is not a hardship for us. You may remember our fondness for the place.

It turns out to be simpler to get an Indonesian visa here rather than go through the rigmarole of dealing with the bureaucracy in Indonesia itself. A big shout-out to Max and Jade from the Krui Surf Camp for providing step-by-step instructions. Merci, Max and Jade! We stay at the recommended Chinatown hotel, too. It’s great.

We use our one full day in town to visit the zoo. We normally don’t go to zoos in non-Western countries because they’re usually concrete monstrosities full of sad, neglected creatures.

Needless to say, this is not the case in Singapore. It’s one of the world’s best.

All of the environments are spacious and well-planned.

We think it’s significant that the info about rhinos is prominently displayed in Mandarin as well as English. Where the text says ‘some people’, what they mean is ‘Chinese people’. Very timely, as the Chinese seem to view any creature precious and rare and on the absolute cusp of being snuffed out as a handy source of ‘traditional medicine’.

Strangely, this doesn’t apply to pandas. We wonder why not? We’re sure if you tried draining the bile ducts of pandas, you’d have a sure-fire cure for baldness.

The zoo has both Borneo orangutans and Sumatra orangutans, of which there are fewer than 5,000 left.

This handsome fellow is a channel-billed toucan, from South America.

As with many creatures here, he doesn’t mind being close to people.

A pair of pelicans groom themselves.

We marvel at the good behaviour of Singapore school groups.

Elsewhere in Asia, kids are absolute hellions in public places, where they scream like banshees in echo-ey museums and race around without interference from indifferent staff or their own indulgent parents.

The zoo has an impressive reptile house.

The zoo has several examples of animals in unenclosed spaces. Like this gibbon.

And this cotton-top tamarin.

The next day, 2-month Indonesian visas freshly stamped, we fly to Jakarta with Lion Air. This is our 16th flight in six months. (19th, if you include the flights from Ottawa to Bangkok.)

We stay in the Kota Tuas area, the site of the original Dutch city of Batavia.

The square is popular with young Jakartans as a meeting place.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Back to Singapore

We mentioned that at the Singapore Zoo, many creatures don’t mind being close to people.

This includes the wilder creatures. We come across this snake dropping from a bush on a quiet side path.

Afterwards, we try looking up what it may be. No luck. Hope it wasn’t poisonous.

It’s time to say goodbye to Krui. We feel so at ease here in Zane’s place – easier to say than any of the three other names that it’s known by.

We’ll miss the beautiful ocean, and watching surfers from the tree house.

Most of all, we’ll miss the relaxed ambience and family-like groove that is so easy to slip into here.

Our little group is joined by John and Martina, a hybrid USA/Slovak couple, to round out our mini-United Nations.

We’ve learned more about surfing and its attractions in the last 11 days than in our entire lifetime. The world needs less Donald Trump, more surfing.

We rent a scooter on an overcast day and drive up the coast.

Mealtimes are a social event. Nita and Lisa keep everyone well fed.

On another day, David, Maria and I rent scooters and make our way to the nearby waterfalls.

It’s a bit like the Amazing Race getting there. We wade through rushing waters.

Hike through somebody’s cow pasture.

We arrive for a cooling dip at last.

Another attraction at Zane’s is puppies. There are adult dogs around. They are not actually Zane’s – they come to the property because they are treated well here. A neighbour comes by with a gunny sack of puppies and leaves them. Everyone knows that Zane is a soft touch.

They bolt under the porch and gradually venture out to explore.

We’re not even sure how long we’ve been here. We have to leave to get our Indonesian visas extended. We’ll miss the sound of the sea outside our window. (Accompanied by barking puppies.)

If any surfers read this, you should make your way to Krui, Sumatra, and stay at Zane’s. But only if you’re not an asshole.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Goodbye to Krui

Without a doubt, what makes our stay here so special is the character of Zane.

He has such obvious affection for the people of his adopted country. He’s a fair and honest man in a part of the globe that is often neither fair nor honest. He’s the perfect bridge between his western guests and the Indonesian way of life because he’s at ease in both worlds. He is a surfer to the core.

Zane went to Bandar Lampung for a few days to visit his family. In his absence, it’s as if the soul of the place was missing. Everyone – guests and staff – is so happy to see him back. People are always dropping by for a chat or advice. Kids love him.

Zane is one of those rarest of creatures – a man who is comfortable in his own skin.

From Bukittinggi, we take a shared taxi to Padang airport. We fly from Padang to Bandar  Lampung – via Jambi – then take a seven-hour bus trip next day to Krui.

Krui is little-known on the farang circuit – except to surfers.

The few foreign visitors here are all surfing people. We can see where their passion comes from.

From what we can absorb, surfing is part art, part science, and part lifestyle philosophy. My misfortune to be born 1,000 kilometres from salt water.

‘Surf’s Up, mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children’s song’

– The Beach Boys, ‘Surf’s Up‘ (alternatively, a stripped-to-its-essentials version. )

(This song has little to do with surfing, apart from the title. I just like the enigmatic lyrics.)

Krui is not an easy place to get to. But once we’re here, it’s extremely pleasant.

Our guesthouse has several names, for example  ‘Mutiara Alam’ (Nature’s Pearl), ‘Hotel Zandino’, and ‘Krui surf camp’.

Stumbling across it was a happy accident.

It’s owned and operated by Zane, a transplanted Californian from San Diego who has made this place his home for more than 25 years.

The other people here are Max and Jade, a lovely young Mauritian couple, and David, an adventurous young South African who has been crewing on yachts. (All surfers, of course.) There’s a relaxed atmosphere that threatens to trap us here for a while.

Eddy, Zane’s majordomo, climbs a coconut tree for some refreshments….

…then he hacks off the tops.

David and I enjoy the fruits of Eddy’s labours.

Our accommodation faces the ocean. Delicious meals are included. Beer is freely available. (Not a thing to take for granted in this conservative part of Sumatra.)

We walk everywhere, which makes us conspicuous. Everybody in Indonesia rides scooters at all times.

The sun sinks into the Indian Ocean at the end of our first day.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Krui

One of the best places to hang out is the tree house. Not only does it overlook the ocean, it overhangs the ocean.

It’s also a good place for a sundowner.

This is the view of the beach from the tree house. Whenever we’re by the ocean like this, Chris Rea’s ‘On the Beach‘ runs though my mind like a soundtrack. Hell, the whole album is a classic. Takes me back to my silo-building days.

We eventually wrest ourselves from the sloth-inducing grip of Lake Toba and head for Bukittinggi.

Still in Tuk Tuk, we discover that chickens love Marie biscuits. We throw a few crumbs to a sociable hen. She returns with her friends and mobs our veranda. There goes the rest of the pack. And some cream crackers to boot.

We fly to Padang (via Medan) rather than face a 16-hour bus ride to Bukittinggi. Getting to the local airport is a journey in itself. At the airport (and elsewhere), Maria is requested to feature in family photos by complete strangers. This never happens to me.

On the flight back to Medan, we pass this volcano emitting a puff of smoke. It might be Mount Sinabung. No guarantees.

Bukittinggi is a hill town. Like Lake Toba, it’s cooler than the plains below.

Our guesthouse is surrounded by mosques. (Technically, so is every location in town.) At prayer times, it’s like a titanic Battle of the Muezzins. The reception desk provides complimentary ear-plugs at check-in.

For lunch, we have a nasi Padang, elbow-to-elbow with the townsfolk in a popular eatery. Nasi Padang is basically rice and a dozen or so side dishes.

A park in town overlooks the Sianok Valley

In town, we visit the ‘Japanese tunnels’. This roomy network of tunnels was built – using slave labour, of course – during the Japanese occupation of Sumatra. Interestingly, the gardens outside have a recent statue/memorial to Japanese soldiers. There is no English information, but it looks sincerely flattering.

Possibly because the occupation paved the way for the successful post-war independence struggle against the Netherlands. Apparently, the modern government won’t let the death of four million Indonesians due to the Japanese occupation stand in the way of saying ‘Thanks!’ for getting rid of the satanic Dutch.

One day, we hire a guide and a driver and tour the area surrounding BT.

We walk through beautiful rice paddies.

We stop in a plantation that grows things such as turmeric, cloves, and cinnamon.

Cinnamon, in case you don’t know, is made from the bark of the cinnamon tree.

The proprietor climbs a papaya tree to provide us with a snack.

They’re juicy.

This is where chocolate gets its start.

We visit a couple of villages, Rao-Rao and Balimbing, that have many Minangkabau-style houses. Similar to Batak houses around Lake Toba. But different.

Notice my new hat – my third since we began this trip six months ago.

Balimbing is also a rice-farming centre.

We come across a small enterprise of women producing some kind of biscuits over a wood fire.

Like many places the world over, women seem to do most of the work. Men spend their time hanging out in groups, playing games, smoking, and gossiping.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Bukittinggi

During our motorized tour, we stop for lunch at the Pondok Flora restaurant. Besides a pleasant outdoor setting, the property has several resident birds of prey.

This professorial-looking owl isn’t shy about being around humans.

Another owl.

And an eagle.

As mentioned in the previous entry, we find it hard to move beyond Tuk Tuk.

At last, we rent a scooter from our guesthouse. (One of our guesthouses – we move between two, to spread our business. The other one is the Sibigo.)

This street sign in Batak script piques our linguistic interest. This script pre-dates the arrival of Europeans.

We can’t get enough of these traditional Batak houses.

After a few more days of idleness, we travel around the island clockwise.

Lake Toba from the heights of Samosir Island looks almost Scandinavian.

We’ll miss this place when we leave. The people are very musical. Lots of singing going on.

In one of our guesthouses, everyone in the family is musically talented. It’s like staying with the Partridge Family.

We stop for a lunch of instant noodles at a roadside stand.

Another similarity with Madagascar – terraced rice cultivation.

Sight or Insight of the Day – beyond Tuk Tuk

When in Madagascar a few years ago, we learn that that island was populated -fairly recently – by people from this part of the world (that is, the Malay Archipelago). Among other things that may have an origin here are unusual funeral customs.

In Madagascar, they have parties for the deceased after a few years, give them gifts like new clothes, then rebury them.

In the Lake Toba area, people dig up the deceased, throw them a bash, wash their bones, then place the bones in little buildings called ‘tugus’.

We come across this unique structure below. The sign says:

‘The monument and the grave of Ompu Landit Simanihuruk and all of his offspring.’

A Google search turns up nothing.

The interior contains hundreds of niches, presumably for the bones of generations yet to come.

Mr. Ompu must be optimistic about the continuation of his line; only a dozen or so niches at the top are filled, leaving over 700 for the future.

Note the crosses. People here are nominally Christian, but we suspect it’s a case of Christianity grafted onto traditional beliefs. Like many places subjected to foreign missionaries.

We bus it from Medan to Lake Toba.

We had never heard of this place until a few days ago. It is staggeringly beautiful. Squint your eyes and you could be on Lake Como.

We can’t understand why people aren’t thronging to this place. Its level of laid-backness is off the charts.

It’s apparently the largest volcanic lake in the world. When Toba exploded 75,000 years ago, catastrophe followed.  Bad news for contemporary cavemen, good news for the modern holiday-maker. The Singapore-sized Samosir Island that now takes up most of the lake is a joy to hang out in.

The inhabitants are Batak. Batak people around here are non-muslim, which we’re sure contributes to the serene, relaxed atmosphere.

It’s so mellow, we’ve been here for four days and haven’t managed to move beyond Tuk Tuk, the little village where the ferry from Parapat arrives. It’s like the land of the lotus-eaters.

There are scores of tidy, well-kept accommodation options here. The food is excellent. The tiny four-room guesthouse where we first stay serves the best satay – the signature dish of Malaysia/Singapore/Indonesia – I have ever tasted anywhere.

We regularly spend time in the restaurant of the Carolina Hotel for its great WiFi . It is so clean, charming, and comfortable that I would gladly check in my own mother here. And that’s a ringing endorsement, believe us.

(For a cost of about $CAD35.00 a day. The place we stay is much cheaper.)

We don’t say people should fly around the planet to spend a week in Lake Toba. But we would definitely target urban dwellers in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore – intensely urban environments with high-pressure employment – to jump on a plane for an hour or two and decompress here. At a fraction of Singapore prices.

Also, the temperature is perfect. The altitude and location in the middle of the lake keep things comfortably cool. Especially after the hothouse atmosphere of Medan.

It’s a lake, not a beach. But it’s still delightful.

It’s a shame to see guesthouse after guesthouse – lawns trimmed, gardens watered, well-dressed friendly staff waiting to serve you – standing empty, when there are so many overdeveloped and exploitative places elsewhere in SE Asia that attract capacity crowds.

The only things that disturb the tranquility here are the boats that go from dock to dock. They announce their presence with loud, nonstop music blaring out at ear-splitting volume.

Maria usually rounds off the afternoons doing yoga at the waterfront.

This is the waterfront area of our current hotel. There are about four guests. It has about 35 rooms.

Who knows, we might even make it out of Tuk Tuk one of these days.

So if anyone within a 500 kilometre radius happens to read this, try to make it to Lake Toba. You’ll like it.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Lake Toba

The bus trip to Lake Toba is, um, interesting. We travel on the Sejahtera Line, which travels direct from Medan to Parapat. A five-and-a-half hour journey for the princely sum of CAD4.00 each.

This is the bus station in Medan. We’re a long way from the spotless terminals of Thailand and Malaysia.

Our bus has no air conditioning or other modern conveniences.

Having said that, we arrive at our destination in one piece and on schedule – which has not always been the case, even with fancier buses in SE Asia.

We enjoy an entire week in Singapore and make plans to go to Medan, the 4th-largest city in Indonesia, on the island of Sumatra.

A good friend gifted us with some cash to enjoy a cocktail on arrival in Bangkok. Instead, we have been saving this to order a Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel, where they were invented. Unfortunately, the hotel is completely closed for a total renovation.

Accommodation is expensive in Singapore. We stay in a ‘capsule hotel’ in the Kampung Glam neighbourhood.

This is a room about the size of a large bread oven. Good thing we spend all our time outdoors anyway.

Singapore would’ve been a great place to exploit the hefty IBM hotel discount – there are scores of snazzy hotels that I’m sure offer a steep  discount to IBM people. Didn’t feel like pestering currently-employed IBMers for the list of applicable hotels.

We make it out to Tiger Balm Gardens, one of three started by the brothers responsible for the Tiger Balm empire.

It features concrete sculptures meant to inculcate good Chinese values by reference to folktales and traditional stories. Many of these are utterly bizarre to the uninitiated.

Some have explanatory plaques in several languages for background information. Many don’t, and leave us scratching our heads.

We comment on the rarity of dogs in Singapore. They are so rare that this pair of professional dog-walkers draws a crowd simply because they have half a dozen mutts in tow.

As we depart by boat from Singapore to Batam – a nearby island in Indonesia – we pass more buildings that look like they’re about to cave in.

After about an hour of travel through the thousand ships that lie in Singapore’s harbour – this is not an exaggeration – we arrive in Batam Island, where we catch a flight to Medan.

In Medan, we visit the Tjong a Fie Mansion. Tjong a Fie was a local  Chinese businessman/philanthropist.

Across the street from here, we enjoy the best soto ayam in Medan.

Our guesthouse is down the street from the Medan Mosque.

The palace of the Sultan of Deli. (Not Delhi.)

This place is popular with locals. They can dress up in period costumes and have their photos taken.

A group of schoolkids arrives for a visit. The colour of their uniform reminds us of watermelons.

On the grounds is the cutest stray kitten. His piteous mewing attracts our attention. We hope his mamma is around. If we could, we’d bring all of these homeless creatures in and give them the life they deserve.

We finally find a museum we’ve been searching for.

Medan is not the most charming city in the world. We have a specific reason for our sojourn here.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Medan

We are plunged into the deep end of third-world conditions once more. Thailand is visibly more developed than its neighbours. Malaysia is essentially a developed country. And Singapore is like a city of the future, where you could safely perform brain surgery on its sidewalks.

Instantly, we are back in insane traffic, crumbling cities, chaos, and open drains running thick with a noisome, viscous, disease-laden stew of God-knows-what.

People are very kind to us here. But the physical environment takes some adjustment.

We’re back to where the sidewalks are unusable because they either don’t exist or serve primarily as parking lots for motorbikes or someone’s cottage industry.

This means taking your chances in the road.

Often they disintegrate and never get fixed.

All good character-building stuff.

We take a bus from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca.

(On the journey, I catch up on episodes of the Walking Dead. I worry about possibly missing the scenery, but every time I raise my head, all I see are oil palm plantations. They carpet the peninsula from coast to coast. )

We stay in the Apa Kaba guesthouse, a family-run traditional Malacca house.

The wooden construction makes it feel like staying at somebody’s cottage. In a good way.

Malacca is an old trading centre. Through the centuries, it’s been run by Malay sultans, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British.

Wherever there’s commerce, there’s always a large Chinese community. There are lots of Chinese shophouses, that combine a shop and store-room downstairs with living quarters upstairs (and wherever else there is space.)

The river is the heart of town.

A local Nonya specialty intrigues us: a fiery chicken curry baked inside a loaf of bread. We have to try it.

The loaf opens to reveal a foil-wrapped generous portion of spicy chicken goodness. It’s messy to eat – this is NOT first-date food.

Strolling through the town, we come across the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy.

Maria falls into an open drain while taking this photo, so  maybe the Goddess isn’t feeling so merciful this day.

We come across the self-styled Buddhist Relics Museum.

Maria purchases a bracelet. Neither of us fall into a drain for the rest of the day, so the lucky charm must be effective.

The streets are still full of red lanterns left over from Chinese New Year celebrations.

Malacca is another recognised UNESCO landmark, like Georgetown.

Georgetown, Malacca, and Singapore were once collectively known as the Straits Settlements.

Beside the Maritime Museum is a full-scale replica of a nau, the Portuguese version of a carrack.

Atop St. Paul’s Hill are the remains of this church.

St. Francis Xavier , the co-founder of the Jesuit Order, was briefly buried here before being moved on to Goa in India.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Malacca

This is another place I visited 30 years ago. The chief attraction for me was its rich history.

Fewer people must’ve had an interest in history at that time, because it was nothing like the Disneyfied circus that is modern-day Malacca.

Like Kanchanaburi, Malacca has discovered tourism with a vengeance. A large part is probably that all Asians have a lot more extra money than they did thirty years ago, so every tourist attraction is turning into Niagara Falls. Can’t really complain about that. (Asians having a lot of extra money, that is.)

When we see these trishaws covered in stuffed Hello Kitty figures and Disney movie characters, we don’t think it can get any worse. But at night, they pulsate with flashing LED lights. And wait – there’s more: they also blast out painfully loud, distorted music as well