The bus pulled into Jakarta in the early evening to a station on the outskirts of Jakarta, instead of the main city station. There was no telephone here nor anywhere near it. Even the police station, a few blocks away, did not have a regular telephone. We absolutely had to call our friend, who had planned to be in Jakarta staying with good friends of hers, to find out where she was and where we were. No one around knew where a phone was. A man came up to us and began talking and walking with us.....again he was a teacher and wanted to practice his English. He was from the same school of bus stop hustlers. After inquiring about a phone, he took us to a hardware store which apparently, had the only phone around. We were able to get in touch with the office where her husband worked and got directions to the house. The store proprietor was originally offered money for the phone call now refused to take it. Or more accurately, the man who brought us here refused. This was beginning to get suspicious. The man walked with us back to the bus station, then amidst our protests, accompanied us on the bus. We found that he intended to follow us into the home and that he wanted to be introduced to the home's owners. We tried to explain to him that our friend, who had planned on being there was still in Singapore and that we did not know these people, had never even spoken with them, and that this was going to make it extremely awkward for us to begin with. He kept insisting and saying that if these people don’t welcome us AND him, they should not be friends. We knew this would be a disaster. They were very wealthy, private people. We pushed some money into his hands for the bus trip back and told him to just go, then ran across the street to catch a becap (motorized trishaw) and lost him.

We entered a beautiful home in Jakarta. The husband of the enchanting woman in the Singapore apartment’s paintings, greeted us briefly. We were a mess. Sweaty, smelly, dirty and exhausted to the point of incoherence. He was a gracious host for a minute, then vanished into his room and office for a week. We did not see his wife until late the next day. However we did see red high-heeled shoes sitting outside here bedroom door.

It was easy getting caught up in the rhythm of Bangkok. Jakarta was an enigma at first. It is more like a few distinct cities. Sections full of new ritzy hotels and convention centers and malls are interspersed with vast old markets. Wealthy suburbs appear in the middle of slums and shanty towns border wide new roads.

It is unbelievable that people still bathe and do their laundry, excrete, collect water and harvest water plants from the canals. They are sewers covered with floating trash. Old country habits have not changed to meet city living. Water is the life giving force, from irrigated rice paddies to using water to cleanse oneself instead of toilet paper.

While in a canal side market one day, a monsoon rain began. Within minutes, the streets were flooding. We ran across a bridge over the trash filled, almost dry canal to get some coffee in a small food stall while waiting out the rain. After a short while, we looked out the window and saw the trash begin to rise in the canal, then looked over while the proprietor pumped water to make some more coffee. We stopped drinking the coffee and just looked out the window until the monsoon was over and the canal was about to overflow into the shops and the food stall. It was at peak level and solid with trash. Cats were walking over it. Just as miraculously as it rose, it subsided, and even more miraculous - it was clear. All the trash had gone from it into still larger canals, main canals, and then the ocean.

Visiting cemeteries can usually add to an understanding of a place. There was an old walled-in Dutch cemetery where a billy-goat was tending the grounds, regally enjoying his role as Cerberus. The cemetery felt isolated, the dead - out of place in this country they ruled as a colony. A very different time long gone, respect for them long forgotten.

Maybe a Muslim cemetery would seem more alive? One was clearly marked on the map not far from a park by the ocean. The becap driver stopped at a place just past a long metal fence. He asked several times if this is really where we wanted to go, and after being reassured, left. Only then realizing that there was no cemetery around, just a very rundown area, a shantytown on the left and a government housing project to the right. Walking off to the right, still looking for the cemetery, we found many people on the three foot wide cement sidewalks that served as streets between the small packed-in houses. Open cement sewers bordered the walkways. Two determined looking youths with red headbands rode swiftly by us on motorcycles. The communist party still made sense here, arguing against a corrupt “democracy”, but for obvious reasons was still banned. Being part of the west, we began reconsidering our turn into the complex. A few laughing children emerged from their homes and began to follow us, more and more children...until surrounded by a sea of friendly smiles. Wide smiling adults joined the group and wanted pictures taken of their families inside their homes. The group continued to grow as we slowly made our way back to the main road. Adults stayed behind and waved, while the children continued to follow for a while, waving good-bye. Every time we would turn around to wave they would all giggle and fall into a group so that their picture could be taken again and again. Places where most local people spend their time are never visited by tourists or travelers in Jakarta - its wealthy areas like a stage front, thus this reaction. This was back in the 1980's when people were excited to talk with people from the USA and treated them with kindness. Unfortunately, this friendly reaction from the neighborhood folk would probably not occur these days.

After parting company with the children, walking past the long expanse of corrugated metal fence in front of the elusive Muslim cemetery, we noticed that there were beautiful water lilies floating in a trench running along the sidewalk. We then noticed that people were defecating off the sidewalk into the trench. Upon closer inspection, found that water lilies are able to support feces.

The trip to Bogor Gardens, a nature reserve outside of Jakarta, began with an hour’s wait. The train pulled in fully loaded...no standing room only. All the people on the station platform began to pile on, so we followed suit. Sweat began to pour just on the several more stops in Jakarta. We paid to experience the life of a sardine in a sauna for 1 1/2 hours and felt humbled that many of the passengers commute every day on this train. Child vendors selling ice squeezed a child-height aisle out of solid humanity. I began to wish for them to push by because their ice bucket would rub against my legs and a slight puff of chilly air would linger for a fraction of a second and rise up my skirt. Blind people singing Muslim songs were constantly elbowing their way through the cars asking for money.

Conveniently located at the train stop in Bogor was a vendor selling cold drinks to all the dehydrated people. Beyond that was the main gate to Bogor Gardens that opened up into a spectacularly controlled jungle set in a hilly landscape next to a river. The Gardens were created by Sir Raffles for his wife and became a favorite spot of President Sukarno’s. It seems that Sir Raffles planted about everything that could exist in this climate, all plants presented with name tags. No fauna to be seen, except mosquitos, but monkey talk could be heard, as well as loud screeches coming from insects that must have had 50 foot squeaky cranes for fathers and opera singer mothers.

Sunda Kelapa is an old Dutch port, now used mainly for colorful wooden prow to anchor and unload their goods from the other islands. A man and a canoe could be rented to take a ride out into the harbor. As he meandered through the vessels, he had to be careful not to glide underneath the protruding sterns as toilets were being flushed. On the outskirts of the harbor, white billowy clouds emerged above the thicket of vibrantly colored, gently rocking prows.

After coming ashore, we asked the rower if he had a knife so that a Durian fruit could be opened. He sliced it open and we gave him half. He screamed in delight, “Durian !!!!”, which caused two of his fellow rowers to stop doing whatever they were involved in and run for him. Eating our pieces, walking away, we looked over our shoulders to see three people tearing into the Durian flesh like pirañas.

Close to the harbor was Chinatown. Old Dutch buildings in decay, listing gracefully with time, now housing a bustling merchant district. A charm, though a bit tarnished and dirtied, still came through, shapes reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting.

One day, we were invited to join the family on a visit to their cottage at Puncak pass, a town about 50 miles from Jakarta frequented by wealthy city dwellers. Two vehicles stuffed with people and belongings were driven 120 mph by chauffeurs on the only expressway in Indonesia at the time. The “cottage” was situated in breathtakingly beautiful highlands surrounded by a garden of fragrant flowers, peaceful, misty and eventually rainy. There was a feast for lunch.

Oh oh, Agfa scanner quit,, done for good I think

Reluctant to leave, but feeling we had overstayed our welcome, the time had come to move on to Bandung. The search for a place to stay took us down a hill and off a side road, to the proprietor who sat all day on the office stoop playing his guitar. The place had the right feel and was close to the main part of town, though the surroundings said country. At 4 o’clock in the morning a cry of “Buber ayaaaam, buber ayaam I am I am” startled me awake. From my dreams I was transported to the days of the Arabian Nights, but it was just a vendor selling buber ayam, chicken soup, from his cart right outside the window.

Tangkuban Prahu (overturned boat) is Bandung’s “tourist” volcano. A minibus took us two km from a jungle path that led up the volcano, a jungle which never ceases to amaze me. A roving mist’s calling card is a drop in temperature and rise in humidity, greeted with clammy skin and shivers. Sudden still fullness, then a cloak of white, racing through the jungle, rattling trees and sighing long, heavy exhalations.

Through the dense verdure on one side of the volcano were the sulfur springs. We knew we were close when we both looked at each other suspiciously, eyes squinting. Around a turn in the path appeared violently boiling sulfur vents sending clouds of smoke up a deforested yellow-green wasteland. The earth was alive and farting like it had eaten a dozen of the sulfur spring boiled eggs sold by a nearby vendor.

A Dante’s Inferno staircase led to the crater top, a sphere of stairs was revolving, seemingly taking forever to climb. Stairs are much more difficult to climb than steep paths. Weak kneed, peering into the crater, watching swifts swish by and on down towards a pasty green pond far below. The edge around the crater was covered with multicolored clay and soft red and green moss, but one step over the edge were cliffs of black pumice marbles ready to give an unwanted roller coaster ride to the rocks below.

On the walk back, entranced by a crystal clear stream having such a sensuous earthy scent that we walked through it as far as possible to the point where water was just seeping out of the moss covered mountainside and creating crystalline rivulets just up from the bowels of the same sulfur smelling earth that held up the crater on the other side of the volcano.

It was almost dusk by the time we got to the main road. My companion was wearing a red shirt. While waiting for the minibus, a red van stopped and asked if we wanted a ride into Bandung. The van door was opened and everyone inside was wearing a red shirt. We squeezed in to the van and began to talk in English with some Indonesian thrown in and got a lesson in Indonesian politics and the coming election there. The three colors of flags we had seen across the land were for the three political parties, each also had their own number (1, 2, or 3) and symbol. Red was the socialist party, the PDI, ex-PKI - the communist party that had been outlawed since the 60’s. President Suharto’s party was called Golkar and their color was yellow. The green was the Moslem party, or PPP. I started to get the feeling that we were making them feel uncomfortable with all of our questions. They were on their way back from a PDI rally where they had delivered speeches. All political parties were required to have their speeches approved by Suharto’s party beforehand and all rallies had to show support for him, most commonly by holding up his likeness on posters at the rallies. We gathered that had not been done as they became increasingly concerned among themselves, speaking in Indonesian in disagreeable sounding voices. The subject was changed for the rest of the drive to town.

The next day at the Tourist Office we met an American who turned our heads with the Indonesian he spoke and also turned up in the room next to us. He walked down the stairs from the street with the young Indonesian he was speaking with at the tourist office and introduced himself. Bill Dalton, hmm sounds familiar - oh ! He turned out to be the author of the guidebook we were using - Moon publication’s Indonesian Handbook. They joined us for tea. The young Indonesian was an up and coming journalist who was also interested in promoting Bandung as an intellectual, historical and cultural center.

The young man suggested that we all go to a Wayang Golek (puppet play) after eating dinner at his choice of a restaurant. This Wayang started at 9:00 p.m. went on into early morning. The puppets were accompanied by two female singers and a gamelan. Love notes from the audience were delivered to the singers throughout the performance. They would slowly and delicately unfold them, smile and look with knowing eyes into the audience while reading and discussing with each other whose voice would be more appropriate in putting the words into song.

In the very early morning, we set off for the train station and were immediately pounced upon by trishaw drivers. These hardy men don’t have a schedule, they sleep in their vehicles and wake up whenever there is business.

The train pulled in and left before sun up. It was the first time I had ever seen “the rosy fingers of dawn” creep up from behind a volcano, its new light shining on a terraced, liquid valley, over-punctuated with delicate rice shoots. The pastel balloons of women’s skirts were clustered in the fields, tranquilly tending to tender plants. Rice fields are interspersed with a few houses and pendulous purplish-red banana buds dangle like Christmas ornaments. Flags of dead kites and torn ghosts keep the fields free from birds.

In Jogya we stayed in a very clean rooming house run by an Indian man. Rooms ran on either side of a long, wide corridor in the center of which was a long row of tables. Each morning and evening, the clientele, made up of mostly Australians and Germans, would pull out their maps and notes to plan their days or destinations.

The beds were rather unique. They looked like Golden Gate Bridge suspension beds and squeaked for about 5 minutes when so much as a finger was placed on them. The mandis occupied a large area in the back of the building, straight out of Amsterdam, with its exposed post and beam construction and ceramic roof tiles.

The first trip to environs around Jogya was to the Prambanan Plain, an area where ancient temples were widely spaced over the hilly countryside. After getting off the bus and having lunch at a roadside restaurant, we walled a long way down a dirt road past banana plants and palms in immaculately swept dirt yards. Not knowing exactly where any of the old temples were, an obvious first sign became the sight of decoratively carved stones put to use as part of house stairs or walls. The path took us behind a man trying to coax his cow up a very steep stone walkway. At the top was a turn that led up some ancient, widely set stairs ascending to the middle of a rice paddy where women were smiling, jabbering away and tending to the rice. One woman was herding her Brahma bulls to the temple complex and having a few problems with wayward ones who preferred rice stalks to grass. On the top of the hill looking down, was a flat area where the most delicate, young, green grasses, cropped by cattle, created a fine carpet around the blackened ancient temple’s foundation walls and arches. Ratu Boko. A man was tending to his goats and children ran around their bulls, herding them into line. Chh chh chh chhh, chh chh chh chhhh, chh, a woman on the top of what was left of an old tomb, winnowing rice by moving it around a large flat basket a few times then tossing it into the air off the front and catching it with the rest of the circular motion. Off in the distance Gunung Merapi, one of the most explosive of volcanoes, was sending its clouds of steam and smoke around its sister, Gunung Merabu.

Our wanderings took us down the other side of the plateau through a creaking bamboo woods, past a small, quaint village and into a cane field with croaking toads. Another temple slightly protruded above the cane. A disturbed child began to follow us. The tone of his voice was at first demanding, then sobbing and pleading. Only having a rudimentary understanding of the Indonesian language at the time, we thought he was asking for money, although he looked very well fed, in fact overweight so maybe he was asking for candy. Closer to the temple he became increasingly demanding and the look in his eyes was half-crazed and manic. Nothing could calm him. The similarities between the appearance of this child and the elephant god carved into the temple blocks was beginning to become eerie, as he stood by the temple stamping his feet and clenching his fists like a protector incarnate of the shrine, as well he may have been.

The walk back was confusing until the main road could be spotted. Next to a 300 foot long barn, a man herded his numerous geese by in a quacking straight line. Red shapes moved in slow motion unison, ti-chi reflections on a watery rice paddy.

The food in Joyga was very different; jackfruit, chicken and tofu cooked in coconut milk, palm sugar and chili sauces, a combination of sweet and hot. The time to eat dinner was 10:00 in the evening when all the vendors would set up their kitchens, mats and foot high tables on the sidewalks.

We got in touch with the student recently met on the ferry from Sumetara to Java. He suggested a motorcycle trip with him and his friend to Borobudur, a colossal Buddhist/Hindu temple. Its mandala shape begins at the top of a gentle slope where the 10 stepped levels begin, walls covered with reliefs depicting 10 levels of conscienceness, beginning in the physical realm and rising to the level of selflessness and perfection. Its massive scale is not realized until the peak is reached and it feels like the top of a towering mountain. The structure was in bad shape some years ago, but since then much work has been done to shore up the collapsing walls, sometimes temporarily in a desperate manner with no concern as to where the stone blocks fit in, except they fit into the necessary space. The bottom level was in the worst shape. The physical for all this time supporting all the transitional layers between it and the spiritual. No wonder. The reliefs that covered both the inside and outside walls began to look like Hieronymus Bosch had been there first. Torsos were turned around on a line of dancers, an elephant tiptoed on a man’s feet, legs were marching in a line upside down. I suppose this made sense when after walking around all the levels to the top, stupas were occupied,sadly, by beheaded Buddhas.

That night we took a becap to a Wayang Kulit (shadow puppet play) on the other side of town. All the becap drivers waited the whole night until the play was over so that they could get the return business. The play had just begun. It started at 9:00 p.m. and continued till sunup We sat in front of the stage in folding chairs and could see the Dalang, the orator, the gamelan musicians, and all the flat, leather shadow puppets across the back of the stage waiting in line to be brought to life. The room was brightly lit, and we could watch the Dalang’s expressions, observe how he worked the puppets in front of an oil sheet, see how all the gamelan instruments were played, and watch the audience who would at times doze off snoring and at other times laugh in delight. I kept wondering why this was called a shadow play because I had expected to see dreamlike shadows with more left to the imagination and less of the process, interesting as it was.

A while later, nature called and I made my way outside. When coming back, I saw an open door to an area which must have been the back of the stage and entered into a narrow space between the back of the oil sheet and a wall. Here was the shadow play I wanted to see. We joined the few people who were watching from this side, sitting on mats. From here there were only shadows, the voice of the Dalang, the rhythmic thumping of his foot peddle cymbal that punctuated the narrative, and the captivating, rolling music of the gamelan. In days of old, this was the only place that women could watch the plays. The men sat in the real level, in the front. The place we were now in was one of shadows and yellow light, an ambiguous creation that lasted until the sun began to rise. The plays do not deal with right or wrong, instead are about humanity and gods, reason and emotion, and the play has an actual front and a back, an inner and an outer being which can be seen either from the the side of the practical and worldly or the trancelike realm of shadows.

The same students who took us to Borobudor, gave us a motorcycle ride to Panguritis, a beach on the south coast of Java. It is not a good swimming beach because the waves have a strong undertow and there are killer rip tides. The waves come from the Java trench and break on an extremely gradual, sandy slope. Nyai Loro Kidul, the Goddess of the south sea, lures people to their death if she feels so compelled, especially if they are wearing green.

The beach is about an hour’s ride south of Jogya. Rice paddies on the sides of the road were blanketed in smoke from burning stalks after the harvest. The soil finally became sandier and there was a faint smell of salt in the air. We pulled up to a river where an ancient, leaking longboat sidled along the bank to ferry us, the two motorcycles and many more people to the other side. The oarsman had no problem, although the boat seemed top heavy with standing people and very unsteady. The motorcycles had to be pushed up a steep, sandy path then ridden through tropical beach scrub until the Sahara Desert appeared in black sand negative, sculpted by winds off the Indian Ocean. The sand, grain by grain, slowly changing, swirling into deep navels of the goddess of the sea. The goddess is unpredictable, sea ebbing and flowing in no understandable manner. She will be calm and lap ankles with tickling curls. She recedes, so that her alluring ebony sands can be walked on further out towards the entrancing line of waves all breaking at once, piled up on each other far out into the murky green sea. Foam, playfully gurgles around toes and the setting sun bathes in a soothing gold...I turn my back to the ocean and laugh with a friend further inland, a wave breaking at thigh level almost knocked me down, struggling, trying not to let it pull me out to sea in its powerful grips. In slow motion running, through boiling, swirling waters to the motorcycles that were parked at least 50 feet from the wet sand line. Too late, the bikes are down and shoes are being taken for the sacrifice.

Getting the hang of things? My companion had to "use the toilet". A woman at a small snack shop pointed out back. He showed up a few moments later asking directions again. She laughed and pointed out back. He left again and came back, beginning to look a bit desperate this time. Our snickering friends finally told us that he was just supposed to dig a hole in the sand, do it and then cover it up.

It was almost dusk by the time the motorcycles were cleaned up. On the way back to Jogya, the sun reflected its red light in the watery green fields while the light from houses began to outshine it. A single bulb or a few candles lit up the open air windows with flamboyant oranges, reds and turquoises contradicting the darkening green, moist fields, smoke still billowing from some.

The best way to get to Mt. Merapi came down to renting a motorcycle, a decision made either by truly brave people or complete idiots. I had not driven a motorcycle in 10 years and never with a passenger, and he had less experience than that. I made a fairly steady exit from the rental store back to the guesthouse, where I then attempted to balance with a passenger. This quavering machine made it through the city, pulling only one accidental wheelie. Indonesia is not the place to learn, or relearn how to drive a motorcycle. On the roads, there are zillions of bicycles and motorcycles never keeping to the lanes, pedestrians, horse drawn carriages, cars, and to top things off the kamikaze bus drivers turn into sadistic killers in the cities. Learning how to drive a motorcycle again was not that hard, but adjusting to left lane driving through a video game was harrowing.

The road up Merapi was deserted. I was so thankful until I realized that 100cc was not quite enough power to take 2 people up a 45 degree angle while crawling around 320 degree turns. Stopping to appreciate the scenery was not happening. It was just too hard to get the delicate balance of power necessary to start up the mountain again.

The closest access to the path up the volcano was the little village of Selo. The plan was to take a short walk, sleep until 1:00 a.m., then head up the mountain to see the sunrise. A wide dirt road from the center of town went straight up the mountain for a half mile or so, then ended abruptly in two small paths. The left path lead up a slope around a cane field. I was so burnt from being the tense driver and not having eaten since breakfast, I thought I could barely make it up this small slope. There was only 1/2 canteen of water, since this was supposed to be a relaxing little walk. Well, my companion wanted to keep going, so we did, and the body got into a swing of things, because the mind forgot that it had a body. The path continued around farmland, then moist, dense jungle to a steeper trail through forests of scrubland succulents, and the full force of a burning hot sun. Mt. Merapi’s twin volcano was off in the carousing mists and ahead was the top of the mountain? It was only a stone outcrop that the path went over to an even steeper path along an older flow’s ridge. In a valley to the right was a recent lava flow, a jagged, black thunderbolt striking down the hillside. Another outcrop of lava, not the top but beyond it was a path leading through volcanic rock and pebbles, some cemented in cooled lava, others loose.

The newest cone rose up out of the older crater, a relatively small pile of ash that smoke was rising from. Walking across the crater was like a making a soundtrack for a Western, a metallic cling, ching, cling, ching, each footstep reverberating on hollow ground. Small fissures created by the cooling process now lined with green moss, led to devil’s slides cutting through the side of the mountain, trapping whirling mists and howling winds and creating a dizzying view of the earth below. Feeling dehydrated and slightly faint, my body felt weightless as I walked upon this moonscape from the earth’s inner core. Around my knees, the soothing warmth of black rocks met with a chill wind beginning to announce the end of the day.

Turning around, I stared at several gargantuan, black boulders, monoliths protruding into a white sky and began to feel that this was a place that lent itself to sacrifice. Alone, isolated, barren and expansive. The day was waning and a cold wind took cover in one of the mists. I sat down to feel the warmth of the black rocks. Up here I feel otherworldly, in touch with the gods. I peer out from this moonlike crater, this lack of color, down to a green, lush, overwhelmingly sensuous land. From these heights, godlike I can see everything, be nothing and feel the power of the earth beneath me. (did I need food and water, or what?)

Sunset was coming soon and the path down was so steep that it was hard not to run, swinging around tree trunks to slow the pace. It was another two hour drive back to Jogya taking a different route that looked shorter on the map, but it went through steeper back roads to get to the main thoroughfare. It began to get dark and harder to avoid sandy and potholed parts of the road, especially with a cockeyed headlamp and a driver who had to constantly had to scrape splatted bugs from her eyes.