Tendrils

     After a month in Indonesia, a hellish 40+ hour trip back, two days in the US, I turned around and got on a plane two days later, to Istanbul (overnight) and then to Nuremberg for a river cruise down the Danube to Budapest. That all went swimmingly, so to speak, but at the end of the trip, Gwyne wanted to spend some time in Prague, and so we did. 

     One thing I noticed, both in Indonesia and Europe are the tendrils of travel - thin lines of well worn paths where everyone seems to go and few seem to veer off of, myself included. There are, of course, good reasons for this. Sometimes, it's the method of transportation, whether it be trains, planes, automobiles or boats that take you to where the popular kids are. Other times, it's just because some places are more interesting than others. There are villages in the middle of nowhere in Java, Bali, Hungary and the Czech Republic that no one really wants to go to because, well, they're in the middle of fucking nowhere. I don't know of a lot of people who like to ride the turnip truck out to a tiny town in the middle of Central Europe and dig up their own potatoes for dinner. That just doesn't seem that interesting (or fun) to me, or evidently, to most other people. 

     Gwyne selected the hotel (after all, I had done all of the logistical work on the river cruise - all of the stops, translators, tours, room, food and such) and we ended up in a 15th century building/hotel that had a unique view of the Prague castle. We had two tiny windows, from which we could see the castle and the Starbucks right next to the castle. The Starbucks was what interested me. As I looked up, there was someone perching precipitously on one corner of the Starbucks wall, spending 5 - 10 seconds having their picture taken. Then someone else would jump up on the wall (there was about a 40' drop below them) and pose. The city of Prague was the background, but what was fascinating to me was the never ending stream of people having their picture taken in the exact same location - 5 - 10 seconds, then the next person in line would hop up on the wall and pose. All.day.long. WTF was going on? I looked on the internet, it said that location was one of the most photogenic in all of Prague (I really don't think it is - the whole city is unbelievably photogenic and there are much better city views, in my opinion). But someone on the internet said this is the place to have your picture taken in Prague. It turns out there was something else going on as well - it was one of the locations for a Korean soap opera filmed in Prague. That explains the higher than normal number of Korean folks getting their picture taken from the same spot, but what about the poses? I've watched over the past few days, from our hotel room, and from the wall across Starbucks. There seem to be three main poses: the staid, look at the camera, fake a smile and then get off the wall. Then there is the looking out over Prague, you can either have a profile picture, looking pensive or have your picture taken of your back while the photo subject looks outwards. Who knows what the expression on their face is? We all assume they are taking in the majesty of the history and architecture. No one needs to know what they really thinking, which is probably nothing about majestic views, history or architecture. Finally, there is the pose with your back to the camera and both hands raised in the air, sometimes, the occasional peace sign. Not sure what that's about. I've looked for the last three days and haven't seen any variation to those three poses.
     I do, however, enjoy the twist to pose #1, the fake smile. It involved the photo subject berating their photographer, pointing, directing, frequently scolding, brilliantly smiling and then quickly resorting to a scowl after the picture has been taken and checking to see that they looked sweet and happy in the picture, all within the 5 - 10 second window. Those were my favorites. Nobody likes an unflattering picture of themselves, but c'mon.

     The other thing that interested me in Prague were the Chinese pre-wedding photo shoots. In the morning, one location they can reliably be found is on the Charles Bridge at around 0600. A few hours later, and the bridge is barely passable, kiosks set up with people trying to separate you from your money (none successfully in my case), musicians playing, tour groups touring and an all around zoo. But the brides to be at that time are fully made up, their hair is done, they're dressed in elegant gowns and grooms are in their suits/tuxes. The bridge is lovely to start with, the morning light accentuates the beauty of the bridge/city and the only people that seem to be there at that time of day are the youngsters, stumbling drunkenly home from an all nighter, the Chinese pre-wedding photo shoots, and a few oddball early risers, like myself. What was all of this hullabaloo, I thought? Once again, the interweb came to the rescue. It's a big deal for those with resources, traveling to exotic locations, dressing up in their wedding garb and having a professional pre-wedding photo taken. The interweb says that Chinese weddings have a fairly rigid structure, which make it difficult to schedule time for wedding pictures, so they get them taken in advance. That also allows them to be plastered around the hall when they are actually married. After reading about it, I can see why they do it, but t's not for me. I'm an enormously practical fellow. My idea of a good wedding is giving the bride/groom a ladder and a chunk of cash. The ladder is for them to elope, the cash is to help them start a new life. Whatever works for you is what works for you. I just enjoyed walking down to the bridge in the am to see the next group of brides and grooms to be posing for the camera.

     The bike ride portion of the trip (and there's always at least one of those) was great for me, I took the bikes the river boat tour provided at most of the stops and pedaled aimlessly around, sometimes getting lost, frequently seeing a lot of nothing burger and occasionally running across something spectacular. After one stop in Germany, I let Gwyne know that on the next day my gaze would be lingering longer than was appropriate, and she jumped in, "At the sex shops?" No, I said, at the bicycles. My ride in DC was stolen, so I'm in the bike shopping mode. I looked, my gaze lingered, I wiggled my eyebrows, I even licked my lips. There are some über hot bicycles in Germany, and without shame, I lusted after them. And now it's time to satisfy my cycling urges, buy a new bike and enjoy the fantastic cycling around DC before moving, again.

     

Java

     This has been a different trip. For one, it was ill planned. We had another life changing event (we're moving again, and although it was kind of in the works it popped up suddenly) and I looked at frequent flyer dates and thought it would be a fine idea to go to Indonesia for a month, with a departure date four days away. Ill planned. Didn't check when Ramadan started (May 26th, I leave on the 27th). Didn't check when rainy season was (I came in at the tail end, still low season). I lucked out, again. I wanted to spend some time in Jepara, Central Java. My flight took me from DC to Zurich, Zurich to Bangkok and Bangkok to Jakarta, total flying time 23 hours, 31 hours total. The return flight would be just as hellish - Bali to Jakarta, Jakarta to Seoul, Seoul to Beijing and Beijing to DC, 40 hours + of travel time.

     I contacted on old colleague from a course we took in Hawaii who is Indonesian and lives in Jakarta - it was great to see him again, he picked me up from my hotel and took me to a water/seaside resort where we had a fantastic lunch. I love logistics, and asked him about the shared motorcycle services. They were branded, Uber, Go Jek and Grab. The drivers wear jackets with  the company logo and the passengers wear branded helmets. There's a couple of Go Jek motorcycles in Semarang. I asked Rujilanto how it worked, and it's essentially a copy of Uber or Lyft, but for motorcycles that have the ability to weave in and out of traffic that routinely chokes Jakarta to a standstill. Rulijanto commented that it was actually illegal to use motorcycles as public transportation and I asked him if someone was getting paid off or was the public transportation so bad that the government just looked the other way because they clearly weren't trying to hide anything. He looked ahead and said quietly, "I'm the Chief of Customs." The answer was clear, that wasn't his area of responsibility.

 

     To get to Jepara, you have to go through Semarang, and I decided to take the train there rather than fly because I had the time and I like trains. Booking was straightforward, all online and all in Indonesian. I speak enough Indonesian to get through that and what stumped me, Google translate took care of like a champ. You can travel ekonomi, bisinis or exkseutif class, and no, the rest of Indonesian doesn't have nearly as many cognates. I took the exkseutif class, which set me back $23 for an extremely punctual and comfortable 6 hour trip. I decided to lay up in Semarang for a day rather than push through to Jepara for the same reason I travelled exkseutif class - why inflict any unnecessary pain on myself? Although I have the emotional maturity of a 10 year old, my body frequently reminds me that I'm 57. I also wanted to visit Lewang Sewu, the historic headquarters of the Dutch East Indies Railway Company. I love history and this building was pretty cool - totally worth the 74 cents admission cost. Although Semarang is a city of more than 2 million souls, it's not exactly on the tourist path, and once I broke the ice with my Indonesian pleasantries, it  seemed as if everyone wanted a photo of the nice foreign devil. 

     I had to figure out how to get to Jepara, and the Google machine told me I had a few choices: 

1. Take the local bus.
2. Charter a car.
3. Take a scheduled mini bus.

     Number one was out, I did that kind of shit when I was in my 20's. Number 2 was a bit more than I wanted to pay, so I shelled out $3.74 for the scheduled mini bus, got in the front seat so I could direct the ac at my sweaty white face and enjoyed the ride. There were only three passengers and the conversation was all in Indonesian. When they asked where I was from, I told them and the young kid immediately gave me a thumbs up and said, "Donald Trump!" Turned out to be a conversation killer for me.

     So Jepara - why Jepara, a gritty industrial city in Central Java? We're having a house built in Huntsville, Alabama and all the furniture we have in the world came from IKEA to furnish our 699 square foot apartment in Arlington, VA. IKEA furniture is functional, but more suited for college students or folks in their 20's. We're going to need to have someplace to sleep, someplace to sit and well, you get the idea. If you've been to Bali, you've seen beautiful teak and mahogany furniture lining the road from Kuta to Ubud, but it's most likely made in Jepara, the center of the universe for handmade, solid wood carved furniture. There's a fantastic supply chain with wood grown mostly in Java, and the trade that everyone seems to be born into in Jepara is carpentry. Semarang is a deep water international port and a mere two hours from Jepara. If you want, you can sit at home in your underwear and order a container of teak furniture to your liking, custom made in Jepara and have it delivered to your front door wherever you are in the world. Or, you could do something impulsive and get on a plane and wend your way down here for no other reason than it's interesting. I did some half hearted research, and there's a lot of information out there and a gazillion websites. I could either poke around myself or hire an agent and pay them a commission. The standard commission, by the by, is $100/day when being ferried around to various companies and then 10% of the sale, minimum price of $10,000. The smart thing to do is hire the local agent, who knows the best companies, speaks the language, helps with shipping and is your agent on the ground after you go back to wherever the hell you came from, right? Yeah, I didn't do that. I e-mailed the owner of one of the better sites, told him what I was looking for and he said he could do it. I specifically mentioned moisture content and told him I'd be bringing a moisture tester with me - there have been quality problems with the proliferation of furniture companies in Jepara and using wood that has been not kiln dried or dried very much at all. As it dries back in Europe or the U.S., it warps and cracks. I visited one of his factories and asked to test the wood, he didn't blink. So far, so good. Abdul Salam and I got along famously, my order is in, and it will be a few months before someone drives up to our house, and drops it off in our driveway.

     I decided to post up in Bali for a while because the business part of the trip is pretty much done and Bali has been one of my go to happy places since 1991. I took the mini bus to Semarang and thought I gave myself enough time - 2 hour trip, I had 2.15 hours wiggle room. The driver started a little late, there was traffic and the usual weaving in and out between the trucks and motorcycles and then we stopped dead in traffic. It's okay, plenty of time, I can still get there an hour before the flight, I thought. We started up again and then hit some flooded roads. Didn't move. The time, well, that kept on moving forward. I looked at my phone, used Google Maps to let me know how little time I had to get to the airport, figured all the contingencies on where to stay in Semarang, how to get the ticket extended - there was nothing I could do. I got to the airport at 2:00 pm for a 2:15 flight. And the plane was delayed, I waltzed right in, got on the plane and had a nice chuckle to myself about that adventure. 

     The cycling in Bali was around local villages on rented steeds, weaving in and out of traffic, exploring back roads and stumbling on interesting and sometimes, just rather mundane Balinese lifetime activities - fun stuff. After a delightful three weeks in Bali, it was fitting to watch Eat Pray Love on the last leg of a 5 movie flight on the way home. I found out my bike was stolen while I was in Bali, so I'm bicycle shopping so I can keep myself amused on a bicycle the last few months in DC - one of the best places in the world to explore on a bicycle.