Sarah: In which I try to fill you in on everything that's happened in the past week and a half in just a couple of pages...

It has been almost two weeks now since we left the U.S., although it feels like far longer. We’ve barely had time to sit still over the past weeks, let alone write much, so I apologize for the lag here on the blog. Here’s an overview of where we’ve been and what we’ve done:

August 18, Bali:
Our first day, which Patrick detailed in the last entry.

August 19, Bali:
Talia, Allegra, Seiji, Patrick and I set off for a beach on the eastern side of the south coast, Nusa Dua, to see about snorkeling. I decided to hang out in the boat due to a mysterious swelling under my right eye from some sort of bug bite, but the others saw some amazing fish, including some sort of eel or sea snake.

After a late lunch at a warung, we suddenly realized we had less than 40 minutes to get all the way to the other side of the southern part of the island, where we were supposed to meet Aryani and the others to watch a sunset performance of kecak dance. Our taksi driver maneuvered the narrow, curvy roads like an expert video gamer, passing motorcycles and trucks with brights flashing and horn tapping and just inches to spare. But he got us there before sunset, and moments before the others arrived.

We made our way up a narrow cliff-side path to the small amphitheater setting for the kecak (pronounced ke-chak). Some 60 or 70 men sat in a circle, their chanting forming the instruments of a human gamelan -- ke-chak-ke-chak-ke-chak they chanted, and a high hoo! hoo! hoo! kept the beat, and singing would rise up out of the harmonies and their fingers would rise up and shimmer into a forest surrounding the dancers, who made their way into the center of the circle to perform scenes from the Ramayana. Rama and Sita and Hanuman, the white monkey, and the cliffs of Ulu Watu and the setting sun in the background. The performance was a high point for all of us, I think.

Afterwards, we headed to a different beach, Jimbalan, for seafood. A line of beachfront restaurants there grill shrimp, crab, and lobster over huge grills that pour thick black smoke into the night. It is hard to get used to the fact that night falls so early here -- sunset is at 6 p.m. and the sky is thoroughly dark before 7. So we sat on the dark beach, under torchlight and stars, eating plate after plate of sweet sticky grilled crustaceans. My favorite, of course, was crab, dipped in fresh sambal and kecap manis. The Pacific lobsters were so different looking from Maine lobsters -- instead of claws, they have long spines and a horn on their head, which we kept menacing each other with from across the table.

August 20, Bali
I woke with the unsettling realization that my left eye was swollen shut. Whatever had bitten me the day before and caused a slight swelling under my right eye must have returned for more, and really gone to town. I think I looked like the Toxic Avenger, which seems funny now, but was freaking me right out at the time, so Patrick quickly packed our stuff up and we took a cab to Aryani’s family’s villa in Seminyak. They called a doctor, who made a house call from a local clinic and prescribed anti-inflammatory cream and a strong antihistamine. I lounged around the villa with an ice compress on my eye for most of the day, and was feeling better enough by evening to accompany Talia, Allegra and Patrick out to dinner.

August 21, Bali to Jakarta
After an uneventful but veeery early flight to Jakarta, T, A, P and I checked into our hotel in Jakarta and then set off to explore Glodok, the old chinatown neighborhood. We spent a couple hours wending our way through tiny alleys bustling with activity. We saw flayed frogs, a box of tiny live turtles no bigger than silver dollars, produce vendors and colorful plastic displays and food vendor after food vendor. After some martabak manis at Mangga Dua mall -- a ridiculously rich treat that involves spreading a thick pancake-like fried cake with globs of margarine, followed by chocolate sprinkles, cheese, peanuts, sesame seeds and condensed milk -- we headed back to our hotel, where we hung out with Seiji and his friend Evi and had a wide range of interesting conversations. We went over to the Dharmawanga Hotel for the rehearsal for the next day’s wedding reception, which wasn’t in and of itself super exciting, but we were all incredibly glad the next day that we had seen the hotel in its pre-decorated state, to be able to fully appreciate how much it had been transformed. Afterwards, a group of us headed to another mall, Cilandak Town Square (nicknamed “CiTos” -- Cheetos -- by locals), to grab dinner and watch a movie. We saw Thumbsucker in perhaps the coldest theater I’ve ever been in. We were all shivering by the end, but enjoyed the movie nonetheless.

August 22, Jakarta
Talia, Patrick and I visited the Textile Museum in the morning -- we paid 2,000 rupiah each (about 22 cents) to get in, and were the only people there for most of the hour or two we spent. We wandered around, examining the range of ikat weaving -- a style where each thread is bound and tie-dyed before being woven into the fabric, in order to create specific patterns that have fuzzy, dizzying edges, like sound waves or EKGs. In the afternoon, we wandered around Kemang, the neighborhood where we were staying, and then prettied ourselves up for the wedding reception. The next day, we played a little bit of reception mad-libs, trying to find adjectives that would properly communicate its scale. Jaw-dropping? Opulent? Nothing quite gets across the smell of jasmine that saturated the air, from the flower arrangements everywhere and the beaded strands of jasmine blossoms that adorned the bride and groom. We feasted on incredible food, marveled at Aryani’s intricate outfit, were amazed.

August 23, Jakarta to Ciawi
The day after the reception, everyone was in the mood to relax, so we took a caravan of hired cars south to Ciawi, where Aryani’s mom has a country house. We relaxed in her beautiful home and wandered the gardens, admiring flowers and butterflies and the view of mountains and rice paddies. We met a large white owl, which we tentatively identified as a young barred eagle owl, and excitedly watched it devour a frog on the lawn just below the house. Later, we learned that the owl had been purchased as a pet by the gardener, which took away a little of his mystery, but we still enjoyed having him stare at us from huge black gremlin-like eyes from the corner of the porch.

August 24, Jakarta
A day of shopping -- we visited Pasar Raya, a large department store with an entire floor of batik and a separate floor of local handicrafts. Then some of us headed to Mayestik, an open-air market and block of fabric shops, where we looked at an overwhelming array of fabulous fabrics, but didn’t purchase anything. We ate a late lunch at Koi in Kemang, then said our sad goodbyes to Talia and Allegra, who were heading back to Philadelphia. We accompanied Aryani, Scott and others to a dinner party at the home of Ronnie, the high school friend of Ary and grad school friend of Scott who had introduced them.

August 25, Jakarta
Our main goal was acquiring a cell phone and Indonesian SIM card, so that we could finally communicate with each other and other people. We went to the ITC at the Ambassador Mall, which Aryani’s cousin Bonita had recommended, and discovered a Motorola repair shop where we were able to get our U.S. phones unlocked. We purchased SIM cards and immediately started texting people to let them know our new numbers (texting is called SMS in Indonesia and is used by everyone because calling rates are pretty steep but SMS is very affordable). We checked out of our hotel and moved into Aryani’s Jakarta home for the night, which was lovely. We spent Ary and Scott’s last evening swimming, eating a delicious home-cooked meal, and helping them open and record the hundreds of wedding gifts they’d accumulated at Tuesday’s reception.

August 26, Jakarta to Sumatra
We said goodbye to Ary and Scott early early, then a few hours later woke and had breakfast with Ary’s mom and sister before beginning our long journey to Sumatra. We met up with Anita at the Bloc M bus terminal and through a combination of bus, ferry, taxi, and more, made our way to the town of Kalianda on the south coast of Sumatra.

August 27, Kalianda, Sumatra
Our first day waking up in Kalianda, we headed out to explore the town, which is very close to the shore. We ended up stumbling upon a continuing independence celebration (independence day was August 17th) that involved karaoke and dancing. We were immediately presented with snacks and drinking water and welcomed into the party. We ended up staying for a couple hours, and allowed ourselves to be convinced to get up and dance. We were a hit with the little kids, and by the time we left, had become the guest presenters who bestowed the prizes on the winners of the karaoke competition. We said goodbye to our new friends and headed off to lunch, and then to a beach further north to go swimming.

Now it’s the following morning, and as you’ve noticed, these entries keep getting shorter and shorter for each day, because we need to head out soon to find an internet cafe and do some emailing. I’ll need to get better at striking a balance between experience and reflection, because there has not been enough time for the latter, but for now, at least there’s an outline of what we’ve been up to.

Love,
Sarah

August 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Patrick: If every day on this trip is as eventful as today [yesterday at time of posting], my brain is going to crystalize and shatter.

After a woozy arrival in Legian, Bali on Thursday night, we met Allegra and Talia for an egg and rice (nasi goreng) breakfast at our hotel. We took a cab to meet Aryani, Scott, and their family gang at the superchic Laksmana Villas. There, after Aryani gave us a tour of the place, I had a second breakfast of a shiny danish and more excellent balinese coffee.

The group of us, now numbering around 12 or 13, took some hired-for-the day cars to the Sekehe Barong Sila Budaya. The Barong is a dance performnce set to gamelan music which illustrates a chain of posessions, devourings, and ascencions to Heaven leading to a kind of fanatic religious event where the participants go into a trance while they simulate stabbing themselves in the chest with wooden swords and a holy man sprinkles water on them. It was truly an amazing event, and the best part was a big four-dancing-legged tigercreature called a Barong who was fierce and terribly cute.

Scott and Aryani needed to have a wedding photo shoot, so we drove to the Four Seasons resort and wandered around in unreal manicured beauty while they did their thing. The roof of the resort is composed of a stone patio that kind of floats on a giant round reflecting pool filled with little black fish. Past the edges of the pool is only the void and then the trees of a public park, from which you can hear occasional water rafter shouts. The effect is unique and haunting. Curiously, the photo shoot location is the place where I had the first oppornunity to get to know Oetomo, Ary and Scott’s photographer. I guess the shoot was over only halfway through the time it took us to undrop our jaws over this crazy place. Oet (prn. OOT) is a successful, globetrotting photographer who is somehow also very easygoing and personable. He and I got along pretty well, and he’s going to be getting some calls from me about Java travel suggestions over the next few weeks.

We went to the Dirty Duck Diner for lunch. I don’t think it would fit in with Philly diners. It has its own rice paddy out back, a courtyard running through it with a six-childed nursing mom statue in its center, and thick wood tables arranged around a stone mosaic floor. I ate their crispy duck,, and It was Good.

Feeling like we had already taken a full day’s events in, we continued to the monkey forest, where there are a lot of monkeys that live in a forest, and a temple lives in the forest also, and the monkeys enjoy the temple. We walked among the monkeys, as they fought, screeched, and mated on the sidewalk with us. We have lots of pictures of monkeys. Monkeys with babies, monkies with mohawks, monkeys with oozing wounds, monkeys eating tubers, &c. You’ll see some photos soon when we get our photo blog going. The special tour we got of the temple was really cool, too, though we have no photos to document it.

At this point, some folks went shopping near the monkey forest. John, Scott’s brother, bought a carved white mask of Hanuman, a monkey-faced god of wisdom, devotion, valour, righteousness and strength. John approached the role from more of a jackass direction, which, it must be said, is more fun. He was wearing it on and off for the next few hours. I’m not sure, but he may tote this thing in his day pack for the rest of the trip so that he can put it on at a moment’s notice. Some of us went out for ice cream next, and he unintentionally scared the waitress with it when she came back to our table with the dishes. John definitely has an appetite. He ordered ice cream at this place, then, on his way out, he got a cone to go. This was despite the fact that he planned to be eating a mid-afternoon snack of a full rack of spare ribs in under an hour. You see, Oet had instructed us that we needed to go to a Warung around that area that sported “the best ribs in the world.” For whatever reason, this absolutely split our group by gender. The men went to get ribs, while the women shopped around at the Ubud marketplace. Oet, Scott, John, Scott’s friend Luke, and I sat down at a huge table made of a single board and had magnificent ribs. They were luscious, especially with the sauce Oet doctored up for us: sweet soy sauce, sambal, and hot mustard all mixed. Afterwards, Oet snuck over and paid for it all without telling us. We’re going to have to get him back for that somehow.

On the way back to Ary and Scott’s villa, we all got the Itis in a serious way and dozed off. Back at the villa, we hung out for a while and swam in the pool. Sarah, Allegra, Talia, and I didn’t head out to meet Allegra’s friend Seigi for dinner until after eight. We went to Warung Made for dinner, where I picked at a number of pretty good Balinese dishes; the ribs were still with me, so I wasn’t eating with my usual gusto. But it was good to meet Seigi, who comes up in conversation with Allegra every once in a while, but who, due to a semi-permanent post in Thailand, I’ve never met. He’s a really nice guy. Back at Talia, Allegra, and Seigi’s room, we found that he had brought not only his laptop, but also his IPod and IPod speaker mount with him from Bangkok. We had hardly opened the door before he had the indie pop playing. Sarah and I were pooped. After a brief conversation about the weird new term “Islamism” that’s been showing up in some newspapers, we broke off to do some laundry, filter some drinking water, and go to bed. Did I tell you we had a long day?

August 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Sarah: Months, to weeks, to days, to hours...

As I write this, Patrick and I are sitting in gate K11 at O’Hare, with two hours to go before our flight, and about eight or nine hours until we depart the country from Los Angeles. We’ve said our goodbyes to almost everyone now; to my mom and dad and sister, with long hugs at the curb beside the American Airlines departure terminal. To our friends, almost all of whom were with us this past weekend in Pittsburgh for the wedding. To my family in Maine and to Patrick’s parents a month ago in Minneapolis.

We have been counting down, measuring the time remaining first in months, then weeks, then days, and now in hours. We have been shedding possessions like snakes discarding their old skins. Reducing what we carry to the bare minimum. There is still shedding left to do, and there are still a few goodbyes to come.

With us now are our backpacks, checked through to Jakarta; an orange nylon totebag filled with snacks and sandwiches for the upcoming two days of travel; my blue rice-bag shoulder bag; and a small wheeled carry-on suitcase that holds our nice clothes for the wedding in Jakarta next week. That bag will return to Philadelphia with one of our friends, the friends who will constitute the last remaining goodbyes when they depart Indonesia and we stay on.

And all of this is about logistics. Packing up your whole life and preparing to be vagabonds for a year takes so much planning and so much coordination that it has felt like a more-than-full-time job since we left our full-time jobs a few weeks ago. There has been very little time to lean back in a chair, close my eyes, breathe. And so it feels like the emotional weight of all this hasn’t had a chance to catch me yet. I have been the dry-eyed one during all of my goodbyes so far, and it’s not because I won’t miss people, but I think simply because my head is buzzing with to-do lists, worries, and won’t have space for contemplation until I’m on solid ground in Indonesia.

There have been small moments -- waking up yesterday morning in my childhood bedroom in DeKalb, there was a cool summer breeze through the open window and a greenish slant of light through the tree branches and the low moan of a freight train from the tracks a few blocks to the south. And the sound was so familiar and the air smelled fresh and it was the first little glimpse of what felt like homesickness. Or maybe the first was that twinge when we drove past the Italian Market for the last time on Friday morning, and I tried to memorize those little details I love: the fonts on the produce vendors’ signs, the bright pinks and whites of cosmos and petunias, the peeling paint on door frames, the smell of coffee and smoke.

There have been a few of them, those small moments when it hits me what I have now to miss. What I have to look forward to is still vague, though it is exciting and enticing and I am leaning toward it, more and more as it gets closer.

...And now it is some 24 hours or so later -- I’ve lost track between the time zones -- and I’m sitting in a wireless hotspot in the Taipei airport waiting to depart for Jakarta. My head is swimming a little from the feeling that I’m still in motion after the 13-hour flight from L.A., but I’m awake, the sky outside is gray-blue in early morning light, and I’m happy to be more than halfway done with the long journey to Bali.

For those of you reading, welcome to our travel blog. I’m hoping that in the days, weeks, and months to come, I will find time to focus on moments and to share stories. And when the jetlag subsides and the homesickness and the emotion and the missing you all hits me, it will be all the more important to stay in touch.

With love,
Sarah

August 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Patrick: We are vacationing in Maine with Sarah's family before we go on to the rest of our trip. Today is our first anniversary. Salud!

We've been in Maine for seven days now. It's taken us about this long to relax after our move out of Philadelphia. We're still packing our backpacks, still getting our files organized for long-term kenneling at my Mom's, and still working on this website. But in between, we've been having a lot of great meals with Sarah's family, going on kayak rides, and sitting on the porch. It's cooler up here than in Philadelphia, by a lot of degrees Fahrenheit. We're still getting used to the idea that we don't have jobs or a home anymore.

August 06, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)