Week 6 -- The Weekend Trip That Took Five Days

They have a saying here, jam karet, literally it means “rubber time.” It’s a phrase used to describe the attitude of Indonesians towards time. Essentially they don’t follow tight schedules, but believe that time is flexible and there will always be more time to do the stuff you didn’t get around to doing today. It sort of explains why people don’t feel the need to come to work everyday, or stay at work all day when they do come. I got a crash course in this philosophy over the weekend.

Friday after work I caught a train with Nina from the office to Jakarta. The train was late, of course, but it was the weekend so I didn’t care. In Jakarta we met Rendra at the station and together we all walked to Jl. Geksa, which is the backpacker hostel/nightclub part of town. To get there we had to walk past the American embassy. There was a barbwire and cement median blocking off the lane closest to the embassy wall and soldiers with guns and other security stuff. I asked if it was like this because of the recent threats, but Nina said it was always like this, there are demonstrations here at least once a month.

Jl. Geksa is just a street that has a lot of cheap hotels and bars that foreigners like to visit. I found a room at the Hotel Borneo, the last room they had, and then went for dinner with Nina and Rendra. We found a place to eat and were constantly badgered by panhandlers and buskers while we ate.

After dinner Nina went home, she is Muslim and wasn’t interested in going for drinks. Rendra and I hit a couple of bars looking for a game of billiards, but we couldn’t find an empty table so we just drank a few beers and talked. He said I drink fast, but I was only one beer ahead of him. Rendra is Catholic and the grandson of my landlady so I slowed down on the drinks and we eventually headed out. Rendra helped me find my way back to my hotel then he took off.

I snuck out for a few more drinks after Rendra left since I was still up for some adventure, but didn’t want to ruin my reputation at work. I went to another bar on Jl. Geksa where there were singers and a fair number of people. Within seconds of ordering a drink at the bar I was approached by a transvestite barfly. She was pretty friendly and I didn’t want to be rude, but the whole time I just wanted to ask “You’re a boy, right?”

I joined her and four sisters at their table and we laughed and drank until the bar closed. The transvestite kept giving me back rubs and making none-too-subtle remarks about “dancing in the bed” and “massaging my pants.” After I paid my tab I made a quick exit back to the hotel while the transvestite was in the bathroom.

The next day I went shopping with Nina at a big shopping mall. Each floor was designated to certain products, like sports, furniture, handicrafts, etc. We wandered around for most of the day and I bought a batik shirt for the wedding we were going to the next day.

That night Pak Adi, the driver for LATIN, picked us up in Jakarta and we headed out for the wedding. There were seven of us all together. We headed west to catch a ferry to Sumatra, but it was dark the whole trip and didn’t see much on the ferry ride. We spent the night in Lampung on Sumatra to get some sleep and wash up before the wedding. But this is when we found out the wedding was actually in Krui, another seven hours drive away. So we loaded back in to the van and headed out.

The seven hour drive took nine hours. We dropped our stuff off at a friend’s house where we would be staying and then finally made it to the wedding. The actual ceremony had already happened but we were there for the party at least. There was a band playing Indonesian pop tunes and it seemed like the whole town was there to listen. We didn’t stay too long since we had been driving all day and were planning on heading back the next day.

The next morning I woke up feeling horrible. I had a wicked headache and hobbled to the shower like an old man. They took me to a doctor who said I had a “throat disease.” Whatever it was he gave me a bunch of pills that slowly eased my suffering. The long drive home wasn’t much better though, every bump in the road tossed me out of my seat and it felt like my brain was bouncing around in my skull.

We drove all through the night again so no views from the ferry and arrived in Bogor in the morning. I took the next day off work to recover. I’m back today and took the last of the medication at lunch today. I feel fine, but the drugs really mess with my head. That’s why this post is so lame.