We have booked a trip on a boat over to the city of Surabaya on the island of Java for August the 2nd. With a couple of days to spare before our boat heads out we decided to go to a local beach a couple of hours north of where we are staying. We were told it could get busy on the weekend so we booked a room using most of our reaming cell minutes trying to convey my name to the hotel receptionist.
D as in dog. I hear her repeat "B" no D as in dog. A as in apple "pinapple".... eventually we ended up with "Ohh!! Mister David".
This and the fact we are staring to tire of eating mee goring(fried noodles) and nasi goring (fried rice) has led us to try and find a Indonesian phrase book to try and at least pick up a few basics as most people here only have limited English. With our hotel booked we head out in a shared taxi which ended up being just Marina and I. The first part of our drive was very slow as we wait in a traffic jam to get out of the city. Once we are out of the city we are able to pass and travel at speeds up to about 80 Km/h including times we pass next to the road congested with school kids. This made me nervous but kids here must be trained to not go onto roads and to listen for horns to warn of vehicles traveling behind them. We arrive at the hotel around noon and check in. The hotel wants a deposit for twice the cost of the room we decline and assure them we won't break anything and check out when we leave. Our room is basic and appears to be in a building shared with hotel employees or family members. We go out to check out the beach and area. It's very nice but empty. Usually this is a good thing but this has strange feeling to it. There are probably over twenty restaurants with seating for well over a hundred people lining the beach but they are all empty. Strange, but we enjoy the empty beach and eat at the hotel which also has very few guests. It does pick up a little bit on Saturday and even more on Sunday so by that point we are feeling the place is somewhat normal. Perhaps even though it's peak season for foreign tourists maybe it's not the peak for local tourists as that is almost all of their business.
We ask at the hotel about a bus back to Pontianak and are offered a ride to the bus terminal not far from the hotel. We get dropped off at the station and look for a bus after handing a map with the name of the town to a group of men they all study the map and eventually end up pointing at a bus. The bus they point at is having some kind of repairs to it which isn't a good sign but we are in no hurry and the driver tells us to hop on so we do. They finish the repair and we head back to town. About half way back we pull over to the side of the road with a flat tire and all four bus staff (the bus only seats about 15 people) jump out and change out the tire with great efficiency. Probably not the first time they have done it. The spare tire doesn't look to be in very good shape either but we made it back. People here have an incredible ability to take things in stride. Whether it's the lights going out a couple times a week or constantly making the same bus repairs. I hope as we experience the different way of living here we are able to learn from it and judge for ourselves what we feel is important as we reenter a western culture.
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