Fish and Fins

Due to airline weight restrictions, Dan and I decided not to bring our diving equipment. (OK, we probably could have brought it but it was old and we didn't want to pay extra to haul it.) Last week we got a chance to replace our masks, fins and snorkels at a shop in Sanur. We probably saved a couple hundred dollars over what it would have cost in the States.

Our villa is located a couple of kilometers from Petitenget Beach, on the Indian Ocean. Dan and I walked down to the beach a few days ago. The water is warmer than the Gulf, but be warned: These waves can knock you over! This side of the island is a surfer's paradise. Dan and I, however, have decided to look for a place to stay on the other side of the island where the ocean is calmer and meant for those older, out-of-shape types who prefer masks, fins & snorkel.

Guess what snorkelers can see here? Raccoon butterfly fish, Moorish idols, skunk clowns, decorated dragons, mini seahorses, and bumphead parrotfish. If we go diving on a reef we can see mola-mola, blue-banded octopus, mimic octopus, nudibranches, various sharks, sea turtles, eels, all kinds of clownfish, anemones, and shoals of anthias. (Eat your heart out, Andrew!) We'd love to take photos, but our cameras are not waterproof.

Speaking of eating, back in America giant gourami are sold in pet stores. Here, they're dinner. (I have a photo, but can't upload it. Suddenly having problems. Oh, well, maybe I can upload it later.)

Soe (So-ay)

We are in Soe, which was supposed to be a 2-hour drive. We were going to leave at 10 but – jam karet – we left the hotel at 10:30, drove over to pick up Vonce’s sister Fonny and her family and everyone got out of the car to say hello to Mama and Papa and wait for Fonny to finish packing. On the way out of town we stopped by “Paris Bakery” for Kupang baked snacks. Dan and I shared a brownie-sized item that Vonce said is a Kupang specialty. It was moist and wrapped in plastic. The consistency was like sticky rice, and it was slightly sweet and a tiny bit coconutty. After driving for an hour or so we stopped so Fonny could buy some fried snack cakes from a roadside vendor. Dan joked, “That’s why Indonesians take so long to get anywhere, they’re always stopping to eat.”

We drove for quite a while before detouring down a dirt road to stop by a river so we could get out and take pictures. It was a rapidly-moving river, but small. Fonny’s husband Johnny told us that he’d once had a maid from the area whose parents were both washed away during the rainy season, when the small river would grow to cover the entire area.

Meanwhile a man walked over to watch us. He just squatted down and watched. Indonesians do not have any problem squatting for long periods of time. They also do not consider it impolite to stare. Many people seem to spend their idle time outdoors watching everything. That seems to be their entertainment, more than TV. I haven’t seen anyone yet sitting on the porch steps reading a book.

Nearby was a van parked in the river. The locals lifted the tailgate and we heard a pig start squealing. Johnny told us that they were making a sacrifice and they might throw the pig’s carcass into the water as part of the offering.. They took the pig’s head and slit its throat, dripping the blood into the water. When it was done they washed off the bumper, closed the back, and drove away. I guess the pig was going to be someone’s dinner.

We stopped for lunch about 2:00 at a beach along the Timor Sea, 250 miles from Australia. The beach was full of locals. As soon as we got out of the car a group of men sat down nearby to watch us eat. I guess Westerners are rare on this remote beach. We watched the teens play “shirts and skins” soccer on the beach … Richard said, “Some things are universal.” I walked down to the waves; the sand was powdery-soft and the water warm. The local children seemed truly fascinated by us, though they were shy: They would run or hide if we approached or turned our cameras on them. The kids followed us from a distance as we walked down the beach. I got some truly priceless photos and by the end of our visit they trusted us enough to let us give them what was left of our liter of Coca-Cola.

If you are not used to mountain roads I recommend you take motion sickness tablets before you leave for Soe. They took those mountain curves quite fast. We didn’t arrive until after dark. Our hotel-keeper offered us a “deluxe room” for 400,000 rupiahs a night (about $44), or a “standard room” for 250,000 a night (about $27). The standard room consists of two twins or a queen bed, a TV on a desk and a sink, with an en suite bathroom; the deluxe includes a huge waste-of-space bathroom with a tub on an elevated platform. So as not to have to change rooms the next day, Dan and I took a standard twin room and pushed the beds together. All available rooms were on the 3rd floor; the stairs weren’t finished, the handrails weren’t completely in place, but the rooms were ready for guests. How different from America.

Dinner at a local restaurant: Two big bowls of white rice, 10 skewers each of beef and pork satay, a delicious green swiss chard-like vegetable, fried chicken, fried shrimp, and two other plates of vegetables-and-meat in sauce that I can’t remember, plus 8 drinks. We fed everyone for a total cost of about $17.

Adventures in Food - Part 4

Restaurants in Indonesia vary from the very upscale to the street vendor. In-between is my favorite, the warung. A warung is a hole-in-the-wall shop run by a local. They offer a few choices, such as grilled fish or bakso.

In Kupang we stopped for a local favorite: bakso. Bakso (pronounced bah-so) is a noodle soup with meatballs. We could choose either rice, spaghetti-like wheat noodles, or both. I ordered both.

Not sure what meat the meatballs were made from ... most likely chicken or beef. The meat was finely ground and they were boiled in the broth (as opposed to baked first), making the texture dense. The broth had a slight kick to it, but as usual the vendor had sambal and sweet soy available for the more demanding palate.

Bakso seems like Indonesia's answer to the Vietnamese pho. It's good, but with so many options available, I think it's not often going to be my first choice.

Adventures in Food - Part 3

went to KFC for dinner tonight. They serve rice instead of mashed potatoes in their value meal. Dan had a fish sandwich and I had a chicken burger, which was a deep fried ground chicken patty served on a bun with a few strips of lettuce and a dab of mayo. It was OK but the drink was better: lychee float. It was a lychee-flavored syrup in ice water, with soft-serve ice cream on top. Even the soft-serve seemed less sweet than DQ's.

Afterward we drove downtown to the night market. After dark they city closes down a few blocks on one street and people open up shop, little carts or just a table. We could get bakso, fruit drinks, roast corn, grilled meats, and more ... they often had a wok on top of a propane tank, usually containing either oil, nasi goreng (fried rice) or coals for grilling. We saw really fresh seafood available - from catfish to grouper to shrimp - and we wished we'd eaten there instead of KFC.

I also wished I'd brought my camera.

Lesson 2 on living in Indonesia: Learn the language

Indonesian is, to say the least, an obscure language. Few people outside of the country speak it, with the exception of Malaysia. (Apparently Malayu is to Indonesian as British English is to American English.) Many of its words come from Dutch (thank the traders), Arabic (thank the Muslims), or English (thank the media).

It’s the easiest language I’ve ever tried to learn: no past/present/future tenses, no masculine or feminine, no agreement according to first- or second-person. Very little grammar, actually. Words are pronounced as they are spelled, but when you see a c (which we English-speakers could easily do without), just make a ch sound, and you're set.

Vonce taught me a few words, numbers and phrases in her language. When I realized we might actually be visiting the country I found free language lessons online (www.learningindonesian.com), downloaded the lessons to my Fuse, printed out the study guides, and got serious. OK, not that serious. I studied for a few days, then forgot about it for a week or two, then picked it up again for another few days. In my travels about the internet I came across a free online flash card site called Quizlet, and surprisingly enough, someone had already created the flash cards for the Learning Indonesian lessons. I cannot tell you how helpful Quizlet was. Many of its learning exercises are games, and because it’s fun I sometimes lost track of how much time I’d spent on it. Wish school had been like that ...

I have been in the country for all of 6 days and I’m surprised by how much of this language I can actually understand. I have been trying to use my language with the hotel staff and Vonce’s family and made some absolutely horrendous mistakes, yet no one has laughed at me or corrected me. Perhaps they’re in shock that a bule (foreigner) would make the effort to speak with them. Or maybe they’re just kind. No matter: I enjoy trying to communicate with them and it’s fun pretending – even if only for a few minutes – that I’m a local.