Saturday, February 19, 2011

Indonesia 2011




I have never previously been able to get a clear and full shot of the A380. This is the one I flew on from Singapore to Hong Kong on the way home. You will notice two rows of windows, and on this flight I was on the upper deck, back, just over the red flag. The flight was full with 492 passengers of which 399 were economy and the rest business class plus a huge crew. I thought Emirates handled their A380 well when I flew that, but Singapore airlines is so superior to every other line that their food and service were way superior even to Emirates. The craft looks like a normal one - especially when you cannot get a comparative view of the length of the wings. But once you look at the immense engines, you can see it is a true giant.
Every Lunar New Year, many Chinese families buy a new outfit for their kids - often bizarre. This little boy was in a pure linen set of a formal vest (tuxedo cut) and shorts. He looked like he was from about 1890. His big sister was more Lady Gaga and truly bizarre, but she could not have been happier.
I think I will not ever return to Bali, and probably not to Indonesia. Indonesia only because I have done the easier parts. Now that I am not young, I am losing the appetite to go back to 12 hour bus rides in dreadful conditions to see marginal sights. But I had always thought I would like to spend much of my retirement in Bali; not anymore. It is so overbuilt, so much noisy motor traffic, so much damage to the environment, that I think it is pointless to return. The local people are making a little more money which allows some of them to build a (junky) house in what had been a producing rice paddy. They worry about tree branches falling from big trees - like the Banyan trees - during the annual typhoon, so they are cutting down all the great Banyan trees. Yes, you do see some, but they told me they are mainly the ones close to temples or historical sites and protected. As a result of so much building on what was their best arable land, they are switching from a 2x annual rice harvest to 3x - like the Thais. This means they use much more chemical treatments which has a toxic impact on the birds, snakes, frogs, fish etc. Of course, no rice farmer ever regrets the death a bird, not to mind their extinction.
The absolutely insane obsession of western women with "shopping" has tured many of these places into outdoor malls. Sometimes you see a wall of t-shirts six feet high and a block long. One day in Lombok, I ate a v. slow lunch in a seaside cafe. When I arrived, there were two mid-aged women eating and shopping by pawing thru walking vendors' display cases of earrings, rings, necklaces, bracelets, watches, fabricis, etc etc. They spent at least 90 minutes while I was there "shopping." I moved over to a lounge chair a bit back from the ocean and rested there another 3.5 hours and those same women were about 25' in front of me on the beach sand. There again, for the whole time they were shopping. Sometimes there were eight vendors lined up to sell them something. This is great for the locals who are poor and need the chance to make some income. But it does overwhelm any charm of the place.
It is common to all who go there and to many Asian places, that all foreigners, all day long face shouts of "Hey mister, Taxi? Transport transport." over and over probably 300-500 times a day. Every 20 feet there is somebody shouting at you. If you do nor respond, they quite often think you didn't hear, so they increase the volume and frequency or chase after you. It becomes so irritating and inescapable day after day every minute. You are no longer a person - just a set of dollar bills walking past an opportunity. The locals have by now heard it all and really have no sincere interest in who you are or what you are - just how much can you contribute to my personal economy.
If you happen to want to go to Bali, and can just do - or mainly do - resorts, they are amazing. Just look up Jayakarta resorts/hotels on the internet. They are all v. large and magnificiently groomed, and not that expensive ($100 day for a grand bungalow or room in a fantastic resort with several pools, activities, and restaurants). They insulate you from the irritants and give you the best of everything.
A funny thing to me was the huge number of white men and women there taking up local love affaires. One was an anorexic, bleached,face-lifetd French woman at least in mid-60s, with a giant brown guy who was obviously a model and body builder - I thought from Fiji. She actually was constantly crawling up one of his legs to kiss him. I heard her say they were travelling there for a month, so by now she probably has been at the bottom of the ocean for at least a week. There was no future in that relationship.
I saw a lot of men from early 20s to retirement age with Indon women - always over 30 years of age and some way over that age. The varieties were astonishing. I never (as usual) saw anything resembling prostitution.
It was a fortunate break to be out of Toronto in February and I am pleased that I went.

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