Making it IN and OUT of Mataram

We spent the following morning both dealing with and anticipating massive skin peel, find our every move among the sorest.

It resulted in a morning in near fully reclining positions, eating, reading, and catching up on our writing. Having worked out how much money we had between us to get to the mainland, we budgeted breakfast and lunch and some internet time before buying boat tickets to take us to Lombok.

Lombok is a main island in the Indonesian island chain of Nusa Tengarra. It is a big favorite of the tourism industry yet it remains pretty unspoiled and undhindered by the partiers in Bali which is due in part I think to the spirit of the Sasak people who inhabit Lombok. Mostly muslim, the Sasak were colonized by the Balinese for a long time and still maintian a series of very strange animist-Sasak traditions mixed in with the practice of Islam.

We rode a long think Banana boat from Gili Meno to Lombok, being tossed on every giant wave that spilled over the bow of the boat. Our fellow travelers were much more relaxed by the whole experience and never seemed to catch themselves wavering a bit off balance at the edge of the benches we all sat on. When it was time to disembark Rebecca as well as everyone else on the boat easily slid off on to the beach carrying sandals and bundles and backpacks in hand.. Becca's long spinder legs once again serving her far better than all 5'4 of me that dropped my sandal in the water and then fell in after it.

Once I reached the shore, ornery and salty from the spill, Becca was being attacked by several different van drivers who wanted to take us to the city for varying rates. Becca, sweet and excited by the opportunity to bargain (another thing shes amazing at - seriously this girl is golden) was fully engaging our tormenters but I was dead set on the bus, which we had clearly agreed to take into the city. However being the expert she was, and perhaps the all too kind person, she let a man in grey shirt give us a low enough price to persuade me into a car. I didnt like him because he kept grabbing us and pulling.. something I dislike is when people touch me in any given exchange of business... I have explained and perhaps this makes me ignorant... but I have explained a few times in Indonesia that I have no reason not to fully accept, respect, and appreciate Indonesian custom and convention.. but I simply refuse to abandon my own cultural and personal limitations. Which means, unless give express permission, please hands off.

The other thing that is slightly frustrating in Indonesia that we experienced many times in our travel there, was that people do have a tendency to lie to you. Just like in America everyone has a hustle and as my former boss El-p used to say all the time 'at-d'enda tha day' everyone has to earn a living. However, if you want to take me for double the price of public transport and I would personally prefer to ride the public transport... please dont lie to me and say the public transport does not exist... when I know damn well it does!! I mean even cab drivers in NY would point you to the nearest subway if you needed...jeez.

At any rate we end up in an airconditioned range rover of sorts speeding around curves on a densly forested road. There was a man in a pink - what looked to be ladies bowling club uniform shirt - with the sewed name 'Nathan' over the breast pocket. He was wiry young and handsome and kept leaping out of his seat to turn and talk to us excitedly. Asking us all about our trip and where we were from, what we were doing next. Picking up on Becca's kindness, he insisted we go to a travel agency run by his friend to get us back to Bali the next day. I said no several times but we ended up there mysteriously anyways... yet again being told that we absolutely must take this option in order to get back to the mainland.. this time I put my foot down and Becca was well in agreement that we should just make our way to the ferry on our own the following afternoon.

Nathan began telling us all about Lombok. which had apparently been colonized by the Balinese for hundreds of years. We passed a long line of cars full of men and women in traditional clothing, driving in a procession. Nathan quickly piped up that this was a wedding procession, the groom and his entire family were going up to meet the bride at her home. He then gave us a breakdown of marriage in Sasak culture... It goes a little something like this.

The sasak people have 4 seasons, The wet season, The dry season, Marriage season which is directly followed by divorce season... he was VERY clear to explain to Becca that Sasak men and women cannot have sex before marriage but kids do go out on dates, unlike in our cultures where people have sex... right? Anyways, Sasak men pay for all of the wedding and pay a dowry to the wife's family I believe... in what they refer to as 'the cold weather season' aka ... 85 degrees? and Divorce season takes place in the hot season when men no longer need the women to keep them warm. To divorce someone all you have to say is "I divorce you I divorce you I divorce you" and your marriage is dissolved... never to be married again...

The Sasaks have a lot of marriages I suppose.

We were fascinated and amused when we pulled into the parking lot of a pretty cheap hotel... frustrated I did my best to shake Nathan and all his offers to force us on to his friends transportation the following morning. Becca and I retreated to our room, thrilled to find a TV with MOVIES on ... we decided to run and grab all the aloe vera ever made and some dinner. Eating some oily fried rice while watching Sean Connory in some weirdo (and racist according to me - OFCOURSE - I havent changed that much guys) conglomeration of historic literary characters was actually heaven. We even had some powdery chocolate... none of the showers worked, the hotel room was really eerie... and we were pretty sure that the BEDBUG BITES all along my face the following morning could be attributed to this confounded institution serving as a hotel... but it felt like heaven somehow. It's moments like these you encounter your true compatability with someone, this goes beyond needing to just travel with another person... its that we both share the same idea of 'comfort' and so gladly engage in it together.

We gladly jetted out of the place as fast as we could the next morning, deciding that breakfast would best be served somewhere else, and took off for some of the few Hindu temples/ castles left over from the Balinese colonization.

We both agreed that a walk would be good for our constitution after a night in Abu Grahib and the amount of harassment we seemed to encounter just trying to find ourselves some dinner the previous evening. We took off down a long boulevard, full of strange public spaces. The citizens of Mataram were all out walking with their families and a strange impromptu carnival had sprung up - where some of the rides were actually powered by a man on a bicycle. Rebecca stopped for a chocolate pancake... we walked about two KM, and decided it would be best to grab an Ojek so as to get through seeing all we needed to see.

We were stopped by an old man and sat three to the motorcycle seat, looking like true Indonesians hanging off every part of the vehicle possible. (We were offered a ride by a man with a large plastic bin tied to the back of his motorcycle .... and were pondering for several minutes if he meant for one of us to sit in it..?) The old man took us through back alleys and seemed to slow down just to show everyone his two white girls .. he slowed down for everyone, but certianly not everything.. as when we turned down an alley he ran straight over a small kitten with a pink ribbon around its neck..

Becca gasped,I screamed and fully lost my temper. Screaming all kinds of epithets at the man, who in his incomprehension could only laugh at my extreme reaction. We got off the scooter, I was still yelling at him asking what in the hell he was thinking, Becca paid him and tried to cool me off as he asked "So are you two married?" I burst into tears . .. having been the one to watch the cat roll in agongy off the side of the road after us.

The temple was abandoned except for a small devout group of about fifteen people in mid practice. Unlike Bali the grounds were in complete disrepair and felt haunted.. I kept replaying the image of the struggling animal over and over in my mind.. not sure what to do to let it go and feeling terrible for poor Rebecca...trying her hardest to save our collective mood. Eventually we agreed to walk back and see if it was still alive.. it was..and very much dying....

It was a miserable afternoon, attempting to visit another temple feeling perfectly awful with images of this baby animal dying running through our minds. We gave up on the temple when the 'proprieter' insisted we pay him for admission and an undesired tour for an exorbitant fee. We decided it was time to get back to Bali, no sleep, bedbug bites, dead kittens... we were quite finished with Lombok.

We got into a public bus (which are more like small trucks - communal cabs) with two men, who insisted we move to the back of the cab. One of them was carrying a picture frame in a bag and the other had an absolutely noteworty mullet.. I mean ... the show 'Cops' would have paid gooood money for this guys hair in reinactments scenes from here until the next millenium. The man with the mullet was exceptionally friendly and asked Becca to change some money... this request struck us both as odd, and it was one I was most certainly not going to fufill. But Becca's good natured kindness, which we so cherish her for, led her to consent. The man with the mullet began to show us how to count in Indonesian, causing us to count with our fingers in the air. We went on with this, till I began to feel my bag moving realizign that the man with the frame had placed it over on top of my bag and was reaching in and unzipping things. Before I could accuse him of somethign I was only barely just aware of we were rushed off the bus for a mini bus to take us to the harbor... (This is travel in Indonesia, one form of transport to another just to get to the actual form of transport you need). I told Becca I thought the man had been trying to pick pocket me ... but he probably only made off with five dollars..

It wasn't till the following morning we would realize that Becca's whole pouch of money had been lifted. If it wasn't a close friend of mine in the situation, a situation I contributed to with my own full fledged naivete, I would note that theman with the mullet was quite clever and extremely graceful... we didnt see him take a thing but he had us so distracted by touching Becca and keeping our hands up.........

We slipped into the back of a mini bus and were held up waiting for as many people to be shoved in as possible - as is the way with these things. As we waited three Sasak women, one quite old sat in the seat in front of us and just stared... just STARED at us ... There really is nothing quite like the scrutiny of a wise old woman who does not speak your language......

Two men who spoke a small amount of English tried to ask all about us, we seemed to be performing our answers for our blank staring audience, our disapproving audience. They immediate sked if we were married and I jumped to answer first showing my fake wedding ring - communicating to Becca "TODAY we are married". The men chatted with us, scrolling through my phrase book and passing it around the mini bus and eventually left, being the first two people the bus stopped to let out. We picked up about five or so more women carrying HUGE parcels and wearing traditional head coverings. Every new woman who got on with huge baskets full of ambiguous greenery and sacks of rice... would look at us and the conversation would commence again. There is nothing like being on display to a bunch of muslim Sasak women, knowing you are being discussed, disected and scrutinized .... especially when the conversations all stopped so everyone could turn around, look at us, and fully burst into laughter. We eventually felt our very very low spirits lifted at the hilarity of the scene watching the women pass around chips made of rice and pork fat (we call em pork rinds back home).

Finally, the most outgoing of the women in a gail of laughter managed to say with as much English as she could pull together, "Only in Lombok are you married." Becca and I loved them for seeing through our lie, for laughing at us when were so incapable of laughing, and for allowing us to be in their lives - even if we were the butt of a joke. We pulled through a dirt road to let off the very old stern woman, who broke into a smile as we pulled around her corner and said to us "my house"in Bahasa Indonesia. We watched as her husband and another old woman helped to pull down her multiple parcels from the roof of the bus and looked around at what her life consisted of... this woman was not stern, she was prideful. She runs her house, she is in charge of her life (however simple), and knows she has earned a general respect in life..one that llows her to stare deeply at two nervous white girls in the back in of her ride home if she damn well pleases.

We finally got to the harbor forty minutes longer than it should have taken, and got on the ferry. Avoiding a real multitude of pushy salesmen. We were really tired of Lombok, it had taken the piss out of us at a real cost ... and we slept for three hours as the boat dragged us over to meet a car picking us up to return us to Ahmed..

Next Up - My new boyfriend, Full moon festivities, and A palace of water fit for a king.