Wednesday

Well, it's Thursday morning here, about 9AM, so I guess that's 1PM your time. Thank you all for your comments on the previous blogs, it's really really nice to still feel sort of in touch with home - you all know how much I hate travelling!


Don't think I mentioned it yesterday, but we are woken at five-ish every morning by the call to prayer. I know that some people think it's a creepy sound of Islamic evil or something. I think it's really nice, I do wish that I understood the words, but it's easy enough to find yourself adding your own little prayers or thoughts for the day as it's quite a pleasant (to me) sounding drone. Tari was saying that you can also get automatic SMS and mobile calls with the call to prayer on it for when you're indoors/busy etc. Ahhh good old technology!


Just finished a very leisurely breakfast including (but not the totality) fish and chips, fruit of every description, beef bacon (can't get enough of that), guava juice (very sweet), apple juice (kinda nicely sour), nasi goreng (rice dish), sausages, croissant... there was other stuff, but you get the idea.


Feeling much better today head-wise. Those flights really do my head in, sinuses implode then explode and leave me feeling pretty ordinary for a couple of days, but today just a dull ache rather than stabbing pain. It turns out that researchers have shown* that 30% of people suffer such pain when flying. For those of you that don't I have a small experiment that you can do for a demonstration. Firstly you need to be on a nice long flight. Secondly you'll need a plastic water bottle, easily purchased before boarding in the pre-flight lounge for a discounted price of 142 times higher than normal. Thirdly, once you're in the air and watching your movie, open the bottle of water, drink half to 3/4 of it and seal it back up nice and tight. Now put the bottle aside and finish your flight. If you've done it right, by the time you've landed and other people are getting off the plane you should look into your seat-pouch at the bottle which should have been sucked inwards as though it had drank lemonade without sugar. That's what happens to your head. It's science.


So... I suppose you are interested in more than just my meals. Well, I'll give you a break from food discussions then. Today I'm showing you random pictures of the place we're staying in. Firstly, here's one of the many large carvings adorning the walls:

It's a bit hard to make it out, but there's a pheonix in the middle, I saw them all over the place and commented to Tari who, without actually saying "well duh" because she loves me so much reminded me that this place is also called Hotel Pheonix. I guess that would explain things. I then felt honour bound to explain all about Pheonix mythology. You can imagine the interest this held for people. Moving right along then...

There are quite a few of these massive flower pots around. If you look closely there's a pheonix on this one...

So anyway, Tari worked until about 2ish yesterday (from 7:30 with no break) so was pretty tired. She will have to tell you all the great stories, but here are two that I remember:

When conducting interviews at one hospital with a nurse she asked "Is (insert hospital name here) your hospital?" There was apparently some confusion via her responses and the translators so they asked the questions in a couple of different ways finally working out that yes, she did work at that hospital, but it wasn't hers, it was (insert doctor's name here). That caused a little more confusion, the short of it being that the hospital that they were talking about was actually owned by this doctor. It was quite literally HIS hospital. They all realised that from then on they should probably be careful about saying that Monash was their university etc.



Second story... For lunch (at 2:30) they were taken to a nice little place where people put out dish after dish after dish in front of them. A little taken aback they had it explained to them that they just ate what they wanted and you get charged just for what you eat, like your own personal buffet. Anyhow, one of the dishes looked particularly unappealing and they were told that it was lung. mmmm lung. They didn't really want to offend so they asked their "keeper" about the dish. She looked at it with disgust and said that they could eat it if they wanted to, but that she never touches the stuff.


Tari got back about 3:30 or so and, though very tired, wanted to go out for a bit of a walk. There's a shopping strip down the road from where we're staying so out we went. I think I was plastered with sweat before we'd exited the hotel grounds! It was very simple to get to the place, quite literally only one turn and then straight on until Maccas.



We had to cross two roads and one railway. The road crossing seems to go like this:
Stand at side of road. Watch several hundred motorcycles go by in an endless stream. Watch other pedestrians. Follow their method. You wait until you feel like you're not going to be hit instantly then just walk across the road at an even pace. If you've seen those cartoons where the sleepwalker goes across the highway somehow avoiding being hit then you'll know exactly what it was like. It's a bizarre system, but it works, bikes are maneuverable I guess.



The train-line is barricaded by wooden fence pieces on wheels. When the train comes, some guy in a uniform (didn't see a gun this time) pushes them into place to block pedestrian and bicycle traffic until the train meanders past. Then he just wheels them back and across you go.



Took maybe 15 minutes or so to walk to the top of the shopping district and then another 15 until we reached an air-conditioned mall with a maccas. In that first 15 minutes we saw numerous stalls selling stamps. Wooden ones. Stampi stalls. No idea why yet, will try to find out. I'd stop and ask, but at the moment my lungs are working full time just to suck oxygen from the water logged air.



Met a nice shop-keeper who has a sister living in Melton. He offered to take us to a special government funded art exhibition put together by poor local people. Tari read about this, it's a total scam to make white "rich" people buy art for which the guide gets a cut. We were offered the same thing three times, it was really hard not to laugh at it eventually. Of course, it would have backfired on them anyhow. They didn't realise that for me an art exhibition is something you get dragged to and certainly not something you ever spend money at!



I don't know how often I've been offered Rolex watches either. My watch on my belt clip escapes notice and apparently it's very important that I have a Rolex on my wrist. I should buy a T-shirt that says "Less rich than you think, don't need a watch, not really interested in art."

Anyhow, on to Maccas, good old rice soup, crispy chicken, less than crispy chicken, totally not crispy chicken and did I mention the soup? The air conditioning was bliss, I could breathe again! Had a coke, before you pick on me it was my first for days! Did a circuit of the mall, had to buy Tari some band-aids for her blistered feet.


We were trying to work out who got to complain more, me with my one bad foot or her with two blistered feet. They need to invent some sort of scale to settle such arguments. I wanted to buy some pants, only have a normal pair of slacks plus my jeans, can't wear shorts here (culturally unacceptable) so was a bit short on the clothing department. The mall had a Myer's type place there so in we went. Imagine Myers with all of the aisles full of those "discount" tables. There was sort of just enough room to slide around in. Add to that the most densely staffed store you can possibly dream of. As Tari said later if you stood still and extended your arms you could touch at least two shopping attendants. Helps with the unemployment I guess. Anyhow got some cotton pants which are much more comfortable than the jeans.



Most amusing moment for me was watching Tari walk past an itty bitty gorgeous Indonesian girl. The kid's mouth was totally gaping open and her eyes were as big as saucers as she swiveled her head to watch this gargantuan white woman walk past. If she'd been holding an ice-cream, the ice-cream would have fallen off the cone - it was that kind of moment.

Downstairs was a supermarket at which we purchased some munchables. Didn't get much 'cos we had another half hour walk back to the hotel in front of us. One liter water bottles for about 17 cents. Should have used THAT on the plane for the experiment! Got a couple different brands of root beer to try out, they have A&W but I wanted to try something new. Also picked up some cadbury chocolate (slightly cheaper than at home) and miscellaneous lollies.



Most of the people around seem genuinely nice. It seems just common for them to dip their head, smile and say "halo" or another equivalent. They're a very smiley lot. It's very different to the Ozzie "g'day owareya" which can be said by the checkout dude without eye contact or facial expression or recognition of response. You find yourself kinda cheering up because it's hard to be miserable with people smiling at you and you have to smile back and dip your head as well.


The walk back was uneventful, the afternoon thunderstorm was rolling in so it was even more humid (which I hadn't thought possible) and getting back to the air conditioned hotel was like lifting a pillow off your head in the morning. Hmm. Might have to work on that metaphor.

Some more shots of the hotel... This is an ornate wooden door. It doesn't go anywhere. I tried.

And the hotel pool, looks very nice, waiting to see someone else actually in it before I give it a go, don't want to offend anybody with the wrong dress code.

Didn't take any photos on our walk for similar reasons given yesterday. 1. It was in the bottom of my satchel. 2. I didn't want to look even more like an idiot tourist than I already do. 3. Couldn't really be bothered. Really must be missing a gene I think.

A round of showers and then it was dinner time. Haven't convinced Tari to try the cheesy banana yet Paul, sorry. I had Gudeg Komplit Yogya. What is that you ask? Hmm. Good question. It was yummy. A plate with four types of brown on it. I think there was chicken in there and various curry sauces and condiments. Oh, and rice. The drinks are interesting. Tari's work pays for her stuff so she's been lashing out and having drinks. Her iced coffee cost as much as my entire main meal. Some fruit juices (the ones I have) don't cost much, but most other drinks are quite expensive (relatively speaking). My meal cost 38,000 Rp (same amount for that iced coffee) and the exchange rate is (very roughly) about 7,000 Rp to the Oz dollar.

Tell you what, my divide by seven in my head maths is so far coping well, but geez, couldn't it have been, like, 5 or something? Still, it makes me feel really rich, opening my wallet and pulling out a note with 100,000 on it (also a picture of a guy with a machete).

The waiters and waitresses are fabulous. Very well trained. They serve the ladies first, no matter how we are seated. I'm trying to learn how to say please and thank-you but I'm not

doing very well so far. I'm always amazed at how so many people here speak English, some quite fluently. So far they've been quite amused by our efforts to reciprocate their English with our Indonesian. Tari does quite well, I'm not quite so good. I'm also disgusted by some tourists who sort of expect it and get a bit grumpy when they can't be understood properly. Like it's the rest of the world's job to learn English. Sigh.

Not much else to report at this stage I don't think. If I remember anything else I'll make amendments. Tari has a shorter day today and should be back by 2ish, which is about four or so hours for me to, um, do stuff. Like drink my root beer. Read more Tom Clancy (I'm sure something will happen soon, it just has to). Play some more Nintendo (thank's Paul for the lend of the games). Watch some more National Geographic and Discovery channel - always something half worth half listening to. I imagine we'll go for another walk in a different direction today when TJ gets back.

Next week we'll be doing some touristy things so maybe it'll be more interesting then. Until then I'm enjoying doing as close to nothing as possible. Oooh, coming up next on the Discovery channel is something about Nefertiti. Always wanted to know more about her. Aaaaaah holidays.

Sim.

* This research was painstakingly carried out and you can find it in all the best medical journals. I just happened to see it on the back of a toilet stall door, but I'm sure it's also in the BMJ.