A haphazard spot to dump partial notes and thought-tries on Indonesia.

Indonesia is the first predominantly Muslim country I’ve been to.

Indonesia is comprised of “over 17,000” islands and it is unclear to me why the number isn’t more precise. Are we talking 17 or 18 thousand? Or 17,000-17,100? Is it because the islands are sometimes eroded into nothingness, or sprout from new volcanos? Is it because no one has taken the time to count? Is it because the precise definition of what counts as an “island” is imprecise or debatable? Mysteries abound.

Indonesia is home to some 17% of known bird species.

There are about 277 million Indonesians, over half of which (154 million) live on Java, making it the fourth most populous country in the world [1. India (1.5b); 2. China (1.5b); 3. USA (345m); 4. Indonesia; 5. Pakistan (250m); 6. Nigeria (230m)].

Because of the isolated nature of those 17,000+ islands, there is not only great biodiversity, but ethnic diversity: 600+ distinct ethic groups, each with its own language.

Everyone in Indonesia speaks, at a minimum, four languages. This fact says a lot about the Indonesian people, their sense of hospitality, their desire to communicate, their cosmopolitanism, their gregariousness.

Balinese people are among the most grateful people I’ve ever met. Perhaps this is true in India, too, but everywhere — absolutely everywhere — you go, you’ll see tiny offerings to the gods. It’s delightful.

Indonesia is a lot bigger, geographically speaking than the Mercator map projection would have you know. Here it is compared to a country I am more familiar with, the USA:

Or Europe:

If you are what you eat, Indonesia is volcano. 130+ active ones.

And I am going to do my best to motorcycle across some section of this colossal island volcano nation, starting in Lubuan Bajo, a homebase for those of us (me) interested in Komodo dragons, which is a giant lizard that has, for some reason, only managed to survive on three of these 17,000+ islands, despite it being the definition of an apex predator.

But before we get to Lubuan Bajo, and all these other places—if we/I ever do—Jakarta, which is where I started. Jakarta, a place I’ve wanted to visit for many reasons, the greatest of which is it is home to the biggest dump in Asia, Bantargebang [ban-tar-ge-bong]. With the help of my trusty deputized research assistant, Fahmi P. Because Indonesia is not just home to the largest Buddhist temple, the largest Mosque, the largest Hindu temple, it is also home to the largest pile of trash, a veritable equivalent of the Great Pyramid of Giza (140 meters tall)–though the dump a mere 40 meters tall (so far!), its base is dug another 30 meters into the ground.

All in one afternoon, I went to Bantargebang – SE Asia’s valley of ashes.. with people living in it as well, just like Gatsby. After that I went to the 90^th floor of a luxury hotel overlooking downtown Jakarta. The bar was called “EDEN”. The contrast was remarkable. When we got to Bantar Gebang, the officials there would not let me into the dump itself. Apparently one needs to book some sort of appointment to visit the illustrious dump, and my efforts to bribe my way in were not successful. However, Fahmi was very successful — after talking to a few people around the dump, he introduced me to a man who was glad to show us around his community, which consisted of a few hundred people who lived on the outskirts of the dump in shanty towns. He was a second generation denizen of the dump, and was raising the third generation there. Their primary source of income came from sorting the various plastics into piles of the same color (red, white, black, grey, green, etc), rolling them into bales, and selling them to recyclers who — I presume — would make some sort of re-use of the materials. Of all the structures in the village, far and away the nicest building was the elementary school. There was also a small mosque and a small place that served as a medical facility. When I asked my guide if he was concerned about any health consequences of living here, he explained: “I think my children are stronger for living here.”

Sunday 1-19 – Flight to Labuan Bajo, Flores Island. I’m staying in an absolutely stunning resort-hostel for 10 dollars a night called Seaesta. There’s no beating it.

Monday 1-20. Motorcycle Day (Lubuan Bajo).
Trump is getting inaugurated and I am staring at a Honda CRF-150 [link], a bike that looked much smaller in the picture on the company website I rented it from. I am expected to go up a steep cement path that empties out onto a relatively busy street for my first attempt at shifting. This challenge means I stare at the bike, variously sitting on it, turning it on, revving the engine, turning it off, and fiddling with first gear and neutral before deciding to push it on foot to the side of the street. Overall, not my proudest moment.

First gear is the most challenging. The rest of the gears are easier. Once your moving, the engine is more forgiving. It’s that initial step, the infinity between static friction to dynamic friction, in which a clutch punishes you. I do a loop around the island, three times forgetting to drive on the *left* side of the road. Locals are remarkably friendly about these extremely dangerous failures to drive on the correct side of the road. Driving on the left side of the road means making left turns is easy, and making right turns is more difficult. I find the bike is quite friendly overall, though the neutral gear can be finnicky to find. I’ll get better at it.

Motorcycles are super stressful and require one’s full attention. When I told my dad I was doing this trip, he, an avid motorcyclist himself, and he stopped me right there—I’ll buy you a beginner motorcycle class for Christmas. Thank god he did that. I’m officially kitted out with a great helmet [pictures] with Bluetooth headphones, anti-fog, and action-camera mount, good gloves, good shoes. I still need to get a decent jacket of course, because, in the venerable words of Old Man Price: “you dress for the fall, not for the ride.”

There are a few major challenges ahead regarding this motorcycle, apart from the fact that I am a total beginner. One is that Indonesia is entirely larger than I expected and the distance I hoped to cover (Lubuan Bajo to Jakarta) is not possible, and my revised distance (Lubuan Bajo to Yogyakarta) is also quite a challenging stretch given the time constraints. The other thing is I hope to get scuba dive certified while I am out here (maybe in Bali?) and this means another couple days without travel. All and all, I’ve signed myself up for a rigorous touring schedule, and that doesn’t account for the time it will take for me to get comfortable with the bike and higher speeds (I’m topping out at 50km/hr currently). It is also the rainy season (“winter”), so it is cooler, but also, significant rain will sideline me. Goals: Komodo Dragons; Lombok/Mt Rinjani; Bali/Monkeys/PADI licensing; Mount Ijen (“blue volano”); Mount Bromo; Borobodur; train to Jakarta; flight back to China.

Tuesday – Thursday Jan 21st-23rd – Lubuan Bajo

Seaesta Hostel times. Komodo Island. Motorcycle helmet. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Switch to Boheme Hostel. The ferries are tricky to schedule! I was delayed a day, which was no shame, because staying in Labuan Bajo is no chore.

Friday Jan 24th – Labuan Bajo to Bima.

The ferry of mysteries did indeed arrive today, so I shipped out at 10am. The ferry was incredibly hot. I spent the day on the top deck in the shade trying to catch breezes and taking sweaty naps. Below deck it isn’t much better. The bottom deck is for vehicles, the middle deck is half filled with plastic bunk beds for people to sweatnap in and rows of chairs to sitsweating. Worst of all, one giant speaker blasts indescribably bad Indonesian pop-techno—I should have shazam’d it for the sake of proving to you that there was only one survivable place for me: top deck.

We arrived to the port city of Sape which is quite rundown but a welcome sight for anyone stuck on a ferry for seven hours, even at “business class.” After downing 2L of water and a bag of chips I suited up [photo] and headed towards Bima, about 50km away. Little did I know I was about to drive up and down a gorgeous mountain range [picture] that separates Bima and Sape. My standards for Indonesian motorcycling have now been set very high indeed. Sights along the way included: villages, monkeys, cows, stray dogs, chickens, waterfalls, sunsets, anthropomorphic fog, more waterfalls, neverending roadside huts (Indonesians just chill in these things—not sure what they are called), half-mined hillsides, farm fields, certain slants of light, and probably a bunch of other stuff that has already slipped my mind in the gorgeous sensorious chaos.

Saturday Jan 25^th – Bima to Lamboe Djamboe.

Had some trouble deciding how far I wanted to drive to day, but settled on about 150km when I found out that if I make it to Lamboe Djamboe, I can pay $40 dollars to swim with whale sharks. Deal. Nota bene: 150km is about the maximum that is unpainful to drive in a day in SE Asia. 200km is possible but it’s progressively more grueling. Today’s ride was not super exciting, just your regular run-of-the-mill beautiful. Got caught in the rain in the afternoon, which I think is probably going to happen every day. Found an incredible café a bit off the beaten path. Bima hostel was perfectly adequate (a Muslim homestay for 120,000 IDR). Lamboe Djamboe’s hotel was one that sells itself on whale sharks and was excellent.

Sidenote: everywhere I keep being told that Bali isn’t that cool anymore because Eat Pray Love turned it into a congested tourist hellhold. I’m thinking I may mostly skip it and instead get my diving certification elsewhere: Lombok? One of the Gili Islands? TBD. I’ve never got more than 24 hours planned, and a vector of travel.

Sunday January 26^th – Laboe Djaboe to Sambawa Sewar.

Got up at 3am and was escorted onto a boat about 1.5x the size of a whale shark to go see whale sharks. A tremendous success. We waded out about 100 yards in the mud at low tide to crawl on the boat and then slept on the floor of the wooden boat for the three hour ride to the last known whereabouts of the whale sharks. After watching three of them (each one larger than  the other, like the Billy Goats Gruff) feed on krill for about 45 minutes we dove in with snorkels and there I was next to this enormous creature, shark in shape, whale in size, cow in mentality. Apart from the surreal experience of diving as deep as I could and doing my best to avoid to touch (you’re not supposed to touch them) this enormous near-vegetarian shark, I realized that its eyes, set some four feet apart, slightly angled to look downward, would follow me as I circled it – one eye at a time. I kept testing it to see if it was indeed following me with its nearest eye and as surely as I could tell: I got Mona Lisa’d by a whale shark.

11am we are back on shore with the sad knowledge that a day that starts with whale sharks can only go become worse than it started. I had an old lady bbq me a fish and then

Motorcycle Update: I set off for Sambawa Sewar with significant more confidence on the motorcycle. I hit 70km/hr for the first time and got a lot better at taking turns at high speeds. I am stalling way less frequently when transitioning from first to second gear. I’m mastering the butt-wiggle technique that is excellent for dodging potholes / rocks / whatever might be on the road. And today I did battle with a storm that initially I pulled over for (it came down so hard it was flooding). But once it calmed a bit, I challenged it: For 40 kilometers I outran this storm, clearing it when the road headed north south, then nosing back into it every time the road turned east-west.

Upon arrival to Sumbawa Sewar, I found that almost is everything is closed in the city (perhaps because it is Sunday?), almost no where serves alcohol, and there are no significant landmarks. That’s ok because after my 3am morning of whale sharks, I just want to give my clothes time to dry out, go to bed, and wake up early again to watch the Chiefs vs. the Bills. Picked up a bunch of rambutans to eat for breakfast.

Monday January 27th – Lombok
Today I made it to Lombok, another big island-volcano. I’m doing my best to make it to Bali to meet up with my friend Autumn, which means I need to keep the pedal to the metal. This means another ferry, more terrible music, and arriving to the island with just enough time to make it to my hostel before sunset.

Unfortunately, this did not go as planned. The sunset faster than I expected, and the hostel I chose (as far up Mt Ranjani as I could find) was farther than I expected. As the dark closed in and the bugs proliferated I realized that the mountain roads I scaling up the side of the mountain were getting wetter and slicker and steeper. To my adrenal horror, I found myself sitting on the motorcycle, the wheels of my bike spinning, but the direction of my travel sliding slowly backwards, downhill. I fell over, bruising my right knee and tweaking my left knee. Luckily I didn’t tear anything in either knee, but I would be a full two days before I could walk in any way approaching normal.

Tuesday-Thursday Jan 28-30th – Kuta, Lombok
I motored my gimp leg to Kuta, to the Lost Inn — another amazing hostel. The manager of the hostel was very helpful, getting my set up with a bottom bunk so I didn’t have to climb, and a steady supply of Bintangs to nurse while I waited for my knee to tell me just how injured it was. The first day I just stayed at the hostel and took a cooking lesson with the hostel manager (beef rendang). The second day I hobbled around the beach town to resupply my sunscreen and see what I could eat. This is a surfing town and I am in no condition to learn, so I was mostly confined to healing while in Kuta, which was lovely.

~~~
I still haven’t had a chance to write about Bali, or learning to scuba dive in Tulamben, or my other knee getting an infected scrape (making it so I couldn’t walk well enough to see Borobodur), but I did have one major epiphany from this trip:

Tocqueville famously quipped “wherever you go, there you are.”
Which leaves you with the question: Why do you travel?
Especially in my case, I live in China, at a strange university, far from my family and everyone I know. Why do I do this?

Since I was 9 years old I was trying to travel (Sweden in that instance).

Why?

It is not to see new places,

(Though I love seeing new places)

or having new experiences

(and I love having new experiences).

I think I travel to prove to myself I can be at home anywhere.

Even China. Even Russia. Even Vietnam. Even Indonesian. I don’t really go to luxury destinations in any sense. I go where people and anthropology are.

I am trying to prove to myself that I can make anywhere in the world my home. I’m trying to make the whole world my Olive Garden. When you’re here, you’re family 😉

And I wouldn’t want to settle down in any one place or with any one person until I could be absolutely convinced that that person and that place is worth more to me than my world-family.