Little Things

There are all kinds of quirky little things that I have noticed about Indonesia; each doesn’t necessarily deserve its own blog entry, but they are interesting enough (to me anyway) that I thought I would put a few of them together…

Street Vendors – in Toronto there is a huge debate raging about what kind of food can be sold by street vendors, in the name of public health, I assume, or maybe it’s just the powerful Hot Dog Lobby that is keeping competition off the street. Well in Indonesia, they put our hot dog (or ‘street meat’ as we affectionately call it) vendors to shame. There is at least 1 street vendor for every 2 people in Indonesia, and they don’t just set up and wait for business. No they get out there and get it. Despite the blistering heat, people push carts of food around, announcing what they have either through their voice or through recorded music, or through a unique drum or through banging a wooden stick. They have everything, fried chicken, bakso (meatballs), vegetables, fried tofu & tempe, fried rice, little deep-fried units not unlike spring rolls, boiled eggs, soup… the list goes on, and so far the only thing I haven’t seen is Hot Dogs! These people are tireless, pushing their carts around the streets, loudly and conspicuously announcing their wares day and night. I swear I heard one outside last night in the middle of the night – hey you never know when people might be hungry…

Tailless cats – these were much more common in Bali, but for some reason, all the cats here have little ‘nubs’ where their tails should be. Other than that they look like completely normal cats. For some reason I am creeped out by these cats; I can’t quite put my finger on it. They are everywhere, and because of the tropical climate here, people rarely close their doors, so they have free reign to travel wherever they may. I have given up on trying to keep the many feral cats out of our office at InterAksi; they just come and go as they please. At least now I am starting to recognize a few of them.

Frogs – my good friend Nicki would not be happy here, as she has a strange but powerful phobia of these little amphibians. There are frogs everywhere, some are tiny little things that could fit on the tip of your finger, and others are more of the bullfrog variety. They are frequently just hanging out outside my door at night, or along the side of the road. They are just kind of everywhere. You only see them at night. Perhaps they are technically toads, I have no idea.

Sitting – easily the favourite pastime of Indonesians. People have literally built little shelters (almost gazebo-like) along roads and in seemingly random locations so people can just … sit. I have seen people, for no apparent reason, pull their motorcycles over, park (on the side of a very busy street) and just … sit. On the main street nearest to me (as usual I have no idea what it’s called) there are several locations where people have set up chairs, along the side of the road, where they can just … sit. Now I get the concept of sitting, don’t get me wrong – to quote Montgomery Burns, “who among us doesn’t like a good ‘sit?’” But usually in a logical location, like a park, or with a nice view, or beside a river, or my favourite, in front of the TV, but on a chair beside a major street, just for the heck of it? For the record, I don’t think these people are ‘waiting’ for something; I think their purpose is literally to … sit.

“Hand Phones” – aka ‘HP’ (pronounced ‘hah pay’) this is what Indonesians call cellphones. Many people have 3 or even 4 of them. And they trade numbers like crazy. I have been asked for my HP number on countless occasions – from strangers. And I made the mistake, on one occasion, of giving it. I was caught off guard, and because my brain wasn’t working properly, I had forgotten my usual excuses. This was to a young man of about 21 or so named Hakim who wants to practice his English (innocent enough). I have now seen at least 15 missed calls from Hakim and received upwards of 20 text messages in the 3 days since giving him my number. I have explained to Hakim on several occasions that I am trying to preserve my ‘pulsa’ (like prepaid points you use to make calls and send sms messages) as it’s very expensive to sms Canada. He understands completely, he writes, and then asks, for the 17th time, “how long you be in Solo?”

Candy – it’s everywhere. They have as many aisles in the grocery stores dedicated to candy as we would to, well, groceries. Yet Indonesians are all thin, and they all seem to have flawless skin. And man, do they like their sugar! “Tea” here is basically hot sugar water, and iced tea is even sweeter, containing, on average, 1 billion teaspoons of sugar per millilitre of water, absolutely wretched stuff. To make things worse for me, one of my staples, Diet Coke, is barely available. I have only seen it in one place, an expat bar, and he has the nerve to charge Rp9,000 for a can, which is highway robbery. Indonesians don’t understand why anyone would want a sugar-free product so there is simply no market for it here.

There are so many more of these little quirks, but I try to keep my entries to a reasonable length, so I will save them for another time. I find all of these things very interesting, and culturally very strange. Each of them makes me long for home a little bit more each day – well except for the frogs; who, besides Nicki, doesn’t love frogs?

PS I would kill for street meat right now.

Working Life

I am a fish out of water.

At Randstad (or any other company) I would have a pretty good idea of what to do or at least how to get started, even if it is as mundane as reading an operations manual. Here, it seems, everything I know about work is not necessarily wrong, but certainly different. It’s very difficult to get started here, not only because of the language barrier, but the huge cultural barriers that exist as well. There are two giant chasms that have to be bridged in order to help Interaksi build its Formal Employment Program.

One is fairly obvious – Western Culture compared to Indonesian Culture. Things are slower here, and that’s not necessarily wrong, but I do need to learn to adapt, and ironically, I need to learn to adapt quickly! There is much more formality with respect to how business is conducted, with a healthy amount of respect for hierarchy and rank. Meetings are drawn out, formal affairs with openings and closings, usually some kind of ‘official’ making a speech, and a lot of pomp & ceremony. Unfortunately so far I have seen very little accomplished in these meetings. And let’s face it; it’s not Indonesian culture that will have to change, but mine, in order to make things work.

The second giant challenge is ‘Business Culture’ compared to ‘NGO culture.’ Someone summed it up for me last week very nicely: A month in business is 28 days of working and 2 days of meetings; a month in an NGO is 2 days of working and 28 days of meetings. It’s all talk here. People have great ideas and the best of intentions, to be sure; unfortunately they either take so long to implement they no longer make sense, or they don’t get implemented at all.

When I was in Canada thinking about this placement I made all kinds of assumptions about what I would be facing and came up with a few preliminary ideas. For example, I assumed that a good place to start to find employment for people with disabilities (or PWD’s, which is a commonly used acronym here, though for some reason it would make me uncomfortable at home) would be in western-based companies with vibrant Corporate Social Responsibility policies, and major hotels that cater to western clients who are accustomed to seeing PWD’s at work. When I arrived in Indonesia, they were way ahead of me. We have an agreement with a major Solo hotel to bring in 6 PWD’s on 6-month rotating paid internships. There are 5 PWD’s working at Solo’s largest furniture manufacturer and 3 at another, both western-owned. There is huge potential to employ PWD’s in Java’s robust and interesting handicrafts industry, along with textiles and the batik industry, which is centred here.

No it seems that we do not have a demand problem as there are plenty of employers willing to hire PWD’s (at least plenty of western-owned or run companies) but rather a supply problem as there are too few PWD’s who are ready and able to work. This is the opposite of what I had assumed and expected.

Many PWD’s in Indonesia have no education as they have never attended school. Their parents are often over-protective, or worse, ashamed, so they hide their children away to keep their shame hidden. Many believe that their children’s disability is some kind of punishment for past sins of sins of their ancestors. One individual, who was lucky enough to be university-educated, knows that he contracted polio, which is a virus (indiscriminate as to who it will infect) and this resulted in his loss of full function in his legs. However, his mother is convinced that her son’s disability is a direct result of the fact that she killed a cat when she was pregnant with him. This highly-educated individual knows his disability is a result of the polio virus, but he says, with perfect seriousness, that his mother makes a good point and her sin could also be the cause.

Often when disabled people do decide they want to work, the parents convince them otherwise and will remove them from programs designed to assist them. PWD’s are told their entire lives that they are not good enough, that they need to be cared for, that they are incapable. Indonesian culture dictates that you must respect your elders, parents are the ultimate authority, and questioning them is forbidden. So the parents’ influence is total and if they say no, it takes a very strong individual to defy them, even if this individual is an adult. The ones that do defy their parents, or better yet, have supportive parents, are often unskilled, uneducated, or ill-prepared for the world of work.

To make matters worse, there are criminal elements, not unlike mafia, that prey on disabled people. They provide them with food and shelter, but then require them to beg on street corners and major intersections for money. All of the money (not a percentage, all of it) is turned over in exchange for the lodging and for the privilege of begging. Once someone is trapped in this system it is nearly impossible for them to escape as the criminals would not only take away their homes and only means of support, but also threaten their families.

These are the challenges faced by Interaksi in assisting PWD’s to gain meaningful, equal employment. Everything I assumed before I came here is wrong, and the challenges are daunting. Luckily, like I said, they are way ahead of where I expected them to be. PWD’s are indeed working and we have some amazing success stories, like the 14 people already out working, one of whom was recently married and is expecting his first child. He was one of the people that had been hidden away, and now he credits his job alone for his new-found self-esteem, his new wife, and growing family.

At InterAksi, we are pushing ahead, and working on strengthening the organization’s ability to facilitate formal employment for PWD’s. We are developing a database of candidates and of potential employers. We are working on a soft-skill training workshop to assist PWD’s in the initial job-seeking period (for things like CV-writing, interview techniques, and ‘selling yourself’). We are also planning a peer-to-peer workshop to demonstrate success stories to both PWD’s and to their parents. Hopefully, with learning, with time, with hard work, and yes, with a little luck, these success stories will become more common.

Democracy, Indonesian Style

Something tells me I need to be very careful in writing this entry. Solo was the centre of deadly political rioting during the ’98 Asian financial crisis. Anything ‘western’ was destroyed including hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, and homes. Many people died, and the city burned. Things were different then as Indonesia had for years been under the rule of a brutal dictator, Suharto, who was infinitely corrupt. The current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), has the nickname “Mr. Clean” as he is a corruption-fighter with a good reputation. The economy is stronger, there is more wealth in the hands of more people, and things are just generally better today in Indonesia than they were 11 years ago. I have also found out that Suharto’s wife was from Solo and many of the rioters were actually ‘shipped’ to Solo to cause trouble for Suharto in his own backyard in an attempt to get him to relinquish power. None of these factors exist today.

Having said that, there are two phases of national elections coming up in Indonesia, local elections on April 9, and presidential elections on June 19. People have warned me to be ‘hati-hati’ (careful) during the upcoming local election as the economy is deteriorating and anti-western sentiment tends to flare up when things take a turn for the worse.

As usual, I am not 100% sure how it works, but I think it is something like this: Indonesia’s political system works in a strange way; it is neither a republic nor a parliamentary democracy. Whoever wins the presidential election in June must create a coalition with the parties who win the local elections in order to govern.

The country is absolutely blanketed with political signs and pictures of candidates. There is no regulation like in Canada of how the signs are supposed to look or where they can be posted so they are literally everywhere, and they are huge! I don’t know if this speaks about the literacy of the population or just the number of candidates, but the election signs all have numbers, as in “vote for number 3!” in addition to a name. It seems the places on the ballot have already been chosen and perhaps it’s just easier this way. Javanese names are complicated, and many people only have one, like “Sujirman.”

Yesterday seemed to be a day for political rallies in Solo and there were hundreds – strike that – thousands of people on motorbikes with flags, t-shirts, and banners, driving through the city as slowly and as loudly as they could. They use the engines of their motorbikes like the beat of a drum to gain attention – “vroomVROOM, vr, vr, vr, vroomVROOM, vr, vr, vr” in a rhythmic fashion. Most annoying, and the lead bikes in these cavalcades all had some kind of enhancements to make their engines rev all the louder. It was impossible to speak or to think when these groups of motorbikes came near, and you heard them a full 5 minutes before you could see them.

The party that seemed to be the most active yesterday was one that you could say is Indonesia’s “party for the people.” All of the campaign posters have the candidates with their clenched fists raised in the air in defiance. The logo for the party is a picture of a black bull face with intimidating horns – the expression on its face is clearly one of anger, with the eyes deep and red and mad and the mouth clenched and tense, all of this on a deep red background. For the first few weeks I had no idea this bull represented a political party; I had actually assumed it was for a brand of tobacco (which also are everywhere).

I have been told that these parades of motorcycles are not necessarily supporters of this party but were simply groups of teenagers paid 20,000 rupiah each to loudly ride around the city carrying these flags and wearing these t-shirts. I have no idea what the political views of this party are, or the opinions of its candidates. How can people make an informed decision based on this type of campaigning?

We are all products of our own cultures and environments and I think I could spend years trying to understand politics in Indonesia only to come up with conclusions that are completely false, as I would always be looking at the system through my own cultural lens. I think rather than try to understand, I will merely observe. I will keep a very low profile and watch the country choose its government from the comfort and safety of my home. Yes I am likely being paranoid, but as they so often say in Indonesia, “hati-hati.”

The Long Arm of the Law

I was starting to feel pretty confident here in Indonesia. For example, I only get lost once per day now instead of two or three. Things were looking up. Things were looking way up actually, until I found myself faced with… THE LAW.

Yes, despite everyone’s dire warnings to the contrary, I broke an Indonesian law. Well, OK, I actually broke two. Go big or stay home my dad used to day.

The two VERY serious laws that I broke were as follows: I was driving a motorcycle with an expired STNK (registration) which I knew, as I had just picked it up from an outgoing volunteer the day before, and I was going to renew it, I swear. I also did not have my driver’s license on me, which, really, is just stupid.

The police conduct random ‘paperwork’ checks all the time here and they choose on any given day whether they are targeting motorcycles or cars. It was my lucky day. Every single motorcycle is directed off the side of the road, in “RIDE program” fashion, and is asked to produce an STNK and license. Then they are happily on their way. That is, unless they have perpetrated one or both of the above infractions, in which case they are directed to a long, dreary table set up nearby (which is manned by no fewer than 24 police officers, some sitting, some standing, all looking very official and intimidating) to receive their punishment.

Now given the horror stories I had heard – Indonesia is a country that ranks very high on the global corruption list, and it isn’t high on the list because it’s squeaky clean if you catch my drift – I expected a) to be thrown immediately in jail or b) because I’m a foreigner, to be the victim of extortion in the form of ‘just pay us 500,000 rupiah and this will all go away.’

Unfortunately, in the same daily struggle I always find myself, none of the policemen spoke English and ironically enough, I didn’t learn “weasel your way out of a ticket” vocabulary in language training. Luckily my colleague Ismail was with me to help with translation. Things were going along fine; they asked me my name, and to spell it. There didn’t seem to be any corruption happening as I saw an actual ticket being written (in duplicate no less) and they were checking off the appropriate boxes for ‘no license’ and ‘expired STNK’ and that was when it all hit the wall.

The next question for me was simply, “Address?” And here’s the thing about that – I have NO IDEA what my address is! I know where I live and how to get there, but I don’t know what the street is called or the number, or anything for that matter! The police were disbelieving, even downright skeptical (unusual for an Indonesian), and I feared things were about to take a turn for the worse, but luckily Ismail stepped in and just gave them the address for my work, which seemed satisfactory.

It turns out this was a blessing as the police now felt sorry for the poor foreigner who needs a deaf person to translate for him. I began to feel like Kramer on that episode of Seinfeld when he sings with Mel Tormé. They asked me where I’m from and were excited to hear, “Canada” (their impressed but glazed over looks told me they were calculating in their heads, as all Indonesians do: Canada – that’s in Europe right? And yet somehow Barack Obama is their president right? Strange little country, Canada – a mystery to all of us). Then, believe it or not, they began apologizing profusely for giving me a ticket. Several of them put their hands over their hearts and said “maaf” or “sorry” with the same level of sincerity that I would use to say “I love pizza” which, for anyone who doesn’t know me, is possibly the highest level of sincerity I can muster.

I was instructed to go to the police station immediately to pay my fine, but, emboldened by their sympathy, I told them, and I quote, “I can’t right now as I’m on the way to the train station, and making a detour will delay me to the point where I will miss the train, which is obviously unacceptable.” Now it was their turn to smile and nod, having no idea what I was talking about! HA – the tables had turned. Ismail, alarmed that I would blow the whole thing, just took the ticket, urged me away, and told me not to worry, that he would take care of it.

All 24 police officers, in unison, waved me off happily, “bye-bye Mister! Sorry, Maaf! Bye-Bye!” Off I went to the train station, wondering how this was all going to play out.

Turns out it’s a new record for VSO Indonesia – being stopped by the police and breaking not one but two laws, on the first day with a new motorbike. Everyone was amused, to say the least. News spread like wildfire; I started receiving random text messages, “been busted lately?” and so forth.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, the next day, I did go and perform my civic duty. I went to the police station and, with my head held high, paid the price for my brush with the law. The fine was 40,000 rupiah, about 4 bucks Canadian. Ouch. I now keep my license with me at all times.

Solo in Solo

Well I have arrived in Solo after what seems an eternity. All of the new volunteers were apprehensive about actually moving to our placement cities after the splendour of Bali and the security of common experience, none more than me as I am the only volunteer who was going to a city where no one else was going. Actually ‘apprehensive’ is not an accurate word to describe how I felt, more like terrified. What if I didn’t like Solo? What if I didn’t click with my new employer? What if my language skills were worse than I thought and I was unable to function?

The bottom line to all of these fears is: Too bad. Yes you just have to get over them and move on. It turns out that so far the only one of my fears that is rooted in any kind of reality is language. Bahasa Indonesia is a much different language in the classroom than in the real world! People speak much more quickly, and randomly leave out or add words that make perfect sense to them but really throw me off. Add to the mix that the native language of Solo is Bahasa Jawa (so complicated that it is essentially five different languages depending on whether you are speaking to someone older, or younger, or better looking, or smarter – at least that is the gist I have gotten) and no one speaks Bahasa Indonesia unless they talk to me. This means that I can’t even pick up bits and pieces of conversation in the office and has resulted in me having absolutely no clue what is going on.

Solo is actually a very nice city, despite the fact that it is constantly compared unfavourably with its more famous neighbour Yogyakarta. It is green and leafy, and makes much more sense than Denpasar. It basically has 2 main east-west streets, and that alone helps make it relatively easy to navigate. The busiest street, Jalan Slamet Riyadi, has little lanes on either side that are separated by barriers planted with huge trees; on these lanes are the entrances to the buildings on the street. The result is a much safer entrance and exit to the street and an overall feeling that the traffic is separate from the city rather than part of it. It is also much less hectic; the motorcycles still drive in a manner that is mind-boggling, but there are fewer of them. I do not yet have my motorcycle, which I am picking up next week, but I have had the immensely fortunate stroke of luck of having had a previously placed VSO volunteer lend me a bike, and that has allowed me to explore and familiarize myself with this city of a million souls.

The first crucial steps in a foreigner living in a city like Solo are to register with the various authorities so they are informed of your presence. This means that I was required, within 48 hours of arrival to register with:

• The Police in my district – which included several photos and fingerprinting – I firmly believe that I have now had more fingerprints taken than Conrad Black
• The Kepala Desa (Head of the Village)
• The Licensing office (something to do with my international driver’s license, I think?)
• Immigration (despite the fact I already did this in Bali)
• Another random head of some kind of sub-district or something
• The Barack Obama Fan Club
• And a few others that I can no longer remember as the bureaucratic nonsense was so numbing I actually went into a coma for awhile

Clearly I jest – slightly – but I really did spend almost all week in smokey offices while people in unattractive brown or green uniforms discussed my presence with expressions that conveyed very clearly that I was interrupting either their sleep, cigarette, lunch, or in some cases, their crucial work (in one instance we waited about 6 minutes for a woman behind the counter to give us attention; she made no attempt to hide the fact that she was, in fact, playing solitaire on her computer).

Having said that about the bureaucrats, I feel it’s very important to mention that my overall impression of the Javanese so far has been extremely positive. They are gracious and helpful, and quick to smile. In one amazing instance I left a laundry shop with my newly cleaned clothes and headed home with them on my bike. When I arrived at my home, I turned to find the man who runs the laundry service on his motorbike behind me. He had followed me because I had forgotten to take my change from the payment I had made; he had been honking to get my attention, but it simply blended in with the usual honking that occurs on any Indonesian street. The change was 100 rupiah, which is the equivalent of about 1 cent. It must have cost him 10 times that to deliver it to me – pretty astonishing.

I think everything is going to be all right here in Solo.

End of an Era

I have left Bali behind, and along with it the 9 people I have come to think of as friends here in Indonesia. We were ten strangers on February 9, 2009, the day we all arrived in this strange and beautiful land. Our backgrounds are so different we would likely never have met had it not been for the cosmos working its magic and entwining our paths here in Indonesia.

We are:

• Honourary Canadians (they are from New Hampshire so this honour I have bestowed on them personally) Jessica Goldman and Mik Allore (or Mr. William Allore the Third for short). Jessica is, for reasons beyond my comprehension, both an expert on mosquitoes and a lover of puppet shows, and has done development work in Africa for many years. Mik is… well Mik is what all of us secretly want to be, brilliant, yet with a sense of rebelliousness and freedom that allows him to live two lives, Mik the ski-bum (my apologies, Mr. Allore) and Mik the economist and consumer of knowledge in all its forms.


• Retired surgeon Dr. Ing Tan of the Netherlands. This 71-year-old is so youthful and active he makes me feel as old as a fossil. I witnessed him swim two lengths of a pool underwater without surfacing (no one else could accomplish this) and ride his bike (in Denpasar traffic, see previous entry on motorcycles) to and from language school every day. Not to mention his 6-month volunteer placement at a hospital in Ende, Indonesia.


• Accountant, basketball player, and church choir member extraordinaire Peter McGill, from Scotland. To this day Peter firmly believes that England is only part of the UK because Scotland allows it. He has a quick wit, an infectious laugh, and a positive, unflappable attitude that is an inspiration. Oh, and should you ever require training on ‘rolling your r’s,’ Peter’s your guy.


• Operations Manager, tuba player, and world traveler Mark Henderson of Ireland. I had the sincere pleasure of sharing a room with Mark in the final days of our time in Bali and let me say something only he will understand: I SO miss you. Mark laughs constantly, entertains constantly, educates constantly – he is everything I hope to be when I reach his ripe old age (sorry my friend).


• Interesting and mysterious Wicliff Kivumbi, from Uganda. There is not enough space in a paragraph nor accurate words to describe Wicliff. He is one of 26 children, and has worked tirelessly for many years in development and family planning in Uganda and Kenya. Wicliff managed to bring a smile to all of our faces several times a day through his unique and distinctly un-western world view.


• Tall, dark and hilarious Mark Fijens, former Logistics Operations Manager from the Netherlands. Mark is quick to laugh, and has a well-hidden but highly amusing rebellious streak (which only began to reveal itself in the waning days of our time in Bali). I think there is only one thing I should say to Mark that no one else will grasp: May the Force be with you.


• Brilliant, witty, amusingly stubborn, and infinitely generous psychologist Anouk Cleven, Mark Fijens’ new bride from the Netherlands. I bonded with Anouk in a very special way while barefoot on the dancefloor in Kupang (over a beer and vodka – yes you read that correctly, a beer AND vodka, together, like gin AND tonic). I can safely say I have bonded with no other in this manner, and I believe I can say the same of Anouk.


• Last but certainly not least, the illustrious Jenny Van Opdorp, also of the Netherlands. Jenny has somehow managed to be the only one of us to adapt a unique Indonesian name, Jenny Van OpDROP, the unwittingly funny result of a typo, and she has embraced it fully. Jenny was the first of the new volunteers I met on that hot morning that seems a century ago, and she was the last one to see me off when I left for the airport on Saturday. Jenny, thank you for being who you are, thank you for keeping me positive, and thank you for being my friend… but most of all, thank you for saving me from the spider.

To all of you, best of luck in your adventures in Indonesia and in all that follows. Thank you for giving me, in your own unique way, the support and encouragement I didn’t realize I needed until you were gone.

I hope our paths cross again my friends.

Ubud and the Close Call

This was my last weekend in Bali before I go off to Solo for my placement. Jenny (a co-volunteer and world traveler extraordinaire from the Netherlands) and I decided to go to Ubud for the weekend. We packed our bags and Friday headed off for our last adventure together.

Our trip got off to a rocky start as the ‘bus’ we were supposed to catch didn’t really appear to exist. We were given fairly detailed instructions on where and how to catch this phantom bus – these instructions included asking police to help us flag it down, which, as I write it, seems ludicrous, but at the time seemed perfectly normal, and did strike me as typically “Indonesian.” There is no actual bus-stop and if the driver doesn’t notice you standing there he simply whizzes by. The police seemed disinterested in helping us – as they absolutely should have been! We waited at a busy corner where we were told this bus might arrive. After about 10 minutes in the sun, we decided this was a bit much for us and were worn down by the constant offers of “transport? taxi?” by the locals hanging about. We finally managed to bargain a taxi for what we felt was a fair price and off we went to Ubud.

Within 5 minutes we were stuck in a traffic jam that you could see stretched forever. It turns out that the local desa (a village within the city) was celebrating something important as there was a parade of people walking down the bypass road (equivalent to a highway) in full ceremonial costume, with drums, music, and elaborate decorations. There were probably 300 people. This is Bali, so they were given preference over the traffic. The driver simply shrugged; “ceremony” was all he said. We finally managed to get past them and on our way.
We arrived in Ubud about an hour later and went to a homestay (Sania’s guesthouse – I highly recommend it) that had been recommended to us by another volunteer. We paid extra for a room that featured a fan and hot water. Much to our chagrin, however, the hot water only existed in the sink and not the shower. I could write for days about how many things are wrong with that but really just have to get over it. Sania’s does however have a pool, and it’s quite nice, so we were placated.

The next morning, off Jenny and I went to one of Ubud’s most famous landmarks, the Monkey Forest. I dutifully purchased a bunch of bananas (incidentally, a bunch of bananas is called a “comb” of bananas in Indonesian, as they feel that is what it resembles) to feed to the monkeys and went into the forest. Within 5 minutes, an aggressive male macaque had my “comb” of bananas and one of the guides advised me sternly that you don’t mess with an aggressive male macaque – good advice, I decided. I seem to be continually outsmarted by ‘less intelligent’ creatures. The monkeys in the Monkey Forest are somewhat more aggressive than those we encountered at Uluwatu. They have no qualms about climbing up your clothes, going through your pockets, trying to steal your bag (as Jenny soon found out) or just sitting on your shoulder and hanging out. Another monkey eventually got my water bottle as well, though he was much smaller, and I technically ‘let’ him have it.

The next day, Jenny and I decided to rent bicycles to explore the outlying areas of Ubud – and yes, despite the fact that we clearly had 2 large bicycles, the locals still helpfully offered us “transport? taxi?” at every chance they could. Jenny and I toured around the countryside, stopping occasionally to snap a few pics. As Jenny is from Holland, Land of the Bicycle, it was natural for her to lead the way. However at one point, she suggested I lead…

And that is when it happened.

I found a particularly pretty rice paddy off to the left and decided to pull over to take a few pictures. I tried to put my bike on its kickstand, but the space between the road and the canal running alongside it was narrow and at a precarious angle, so I leaned the bike against a tree instead. As I was straightening from leaning over to rest the bike against a tree, I caught a glimpse of spider web, just to my left, probably about 6 inches from my shoulder. I was still in the motion of straightening out and was conscious that this web was a little close, and my nerves took over. I turned my head quickly, searching for the creator of this web, still straightening out, and there it was.

It was the biggest spider I have ever seen outside of a zoo, and it was approximately 4 inches from my face. “OH MY GOD” I gasped and tried to back away, as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, my bike, along with Jenny’s, was directly behind me and I could not maintain balance. Down I went, onto the road, so lucky that there was no traffic at that moment. It was like my life was passing before my eyes; every thought clear and detailed. The whole way down I was thinking how lucky I was that I was not any closer to that thing, and that it hadn’t ended up on my face. I couldn’t have cared less that I was falling, as it just meant I was getting further away from the Spider of Death more quickly.

Jenny still hadn’t spotted it, and was frantically saying, “what? What is it?” I have discovered that we all go to our own dark place when someone around us is scared – Jenny assumed I had seen a snake (her equivalent to the spider I had just encountered) and was looking around the ground in a panic trying to ascertain what had scared me. I finally composed myself and pointed to it, and then I think she got it. No snakes, therefore no danger. I, however, was on the verge of a breakdown. My heart was beating so hard I could feel my pulse in my neck; I could actually hear it!

I managed to get back up, and get a closer look at this spider. I had heard about them, giant orb spiders that spin their webs between telephone poles, trees, and even across rivers. This particular spider’s leg span was about 5 inches, and made those Dock Spiders one encounters in Cottage Country (another of my mortal enemies) look like amoebas. I can only imagine what a spider like this would catch in its web – birds? Those giant Indonesian bats? Perhaps a small Cessna?

Jenny finally managed to calm me down and we attempted to get on our way, at which point I realized that I had knocked the chain off my bike in the fall. There was no way I was putting my back to the thing on the web so we moved across the street to a little driveway to put the chain back on. As Jenny bent down to help me, she knocked her bike and down it went, along with the basket in the front where she had stored her purse and a couple of water bottles. The bike fell in such a way that the contents of the basket spilled out into one of the little canals of water that runs along most Balinese roads. Luckily the only thing that actually went into the canal was a bottle of water; her purse and wallet were OK. As she straightened her bike out, she noticed that her camera was hanging precariously from the basket by its wrist strap; we are not sure how it stuck there, but it did, or it would have gone into the canal too.

Always the optimist, Jenny made note that a few bad things had happened and that we were OK, so the karma for the rest of the day should be good. I simply said, “see what happens when I lead?”

For the remainder of our bike adventure in Ubud, Jenny was in front.