South East Asia on a Hamstring – January 22

By: Marie Javins

Yogyakarta – January 22, 2000

Breakfast was more locally made fruits and vegetables, along with tasty pancakes. I avoided the soy products.

The minivan took us to the Ekonomi train station. Andy had arranged for us to take the cheap train today, as the Executive class train had been sold out. It was a highlight of our trip to date.

There was certainly no air-conditioning, lots of smoking, and although seats were assigned, it was really a free-for-all. We all took any seat that we could find and sat down with the locals to watch the show.

Peddlers plied the aisles constantly, yelling out the name of their wares in Indonesian. Some inventive sellers just dropped their products on the passengers laps for examination, hoping to make a sale.

I was sitting with an old couple and a young Muslim woman. The sellers hit them up for the most part, ignoring me. The old man of the couple has his bare feet up on the seat next to me.

The constant parade of products included: tissues, water, leather belts and wallets, wooden VW Bugs, corn-puff balls, hats, sesame balls, orange chunks in plastic bags, small mushy meals wrapped in banana leaves, keychains of colorful plastic fish, recipe booklets, peanuts, handheld fans, cigarettes,

t-shirts, plastic containers of chocolate water that looked suspiciously like Yoo-Hoo, and green cylinders of lunch meat sold by the slice. Beggars were also about, as were wandering musicians, including one old man howling an accompaniment to his handmade ukelele.

The train itself was ancient. The windows only opened at the top and it was stifling. The toilet was at one end of the car. I avoided it as reports were that it was disgusting, and had a great big window so that the locals could watch you do your business as you (ahem) whizzed past. One of our group came down with diarrhea mid-way through the trip, and she was caught unawares by the train stopping in a station while she was in the bathroom.

Eventually, I managed to grab a seat with Andy and Joanne, our Intrepid crew. The fourth seat of our berths was empty and occasionally an exhausted seller would collapse onto the seat. Andy would pat the seller on the back and start up a conversation in Indonesian. We learned that one fellow had been selling on the trains for 23 years, since he was 7. Today, he was selling small Muslim prayer caps. He didn’t try to sell to us but was friendly and chatty.

After five hours of very tepid air and entertaining Indonesians, we got off the train in Yogyakarta (pronounced “Jog-jakarta”). We landed in a stinking,

hot train station and commandeered two stinking, hot taxis to drive us through the diesel-smelling streets near the station.

Our hotel was the Delta Homestay. The rooms were tiny and the hot water heater was off but not for long, and soon we all enjoyed tea and hot showers. Joanne and I immediately headed off for internet and food. Andy made a beeline for food and the rest of the group immediately went into the swimming pool.

I went back to the hotel to sort my laundry and discovered that I’d brought a number of ant colonies along from the National Park. I tore everything out of my bag and put it all in the laundry, sprayed my bag with DEET and left it on our verandah to dry. I had left my bag on my bed and now the ants were crawling all over my sheets. I threw the sheets onto the verandah as well and sheepishly had to request new ones.

The two couples of our group were too beat to go out, but Joanne and Andy and I pretended that we were not. We went into town by becak. Joanne and I were in one and Andy was in another. Us two women barely fit in one together. We teased Arnold, the cyclist. He told us that he was twins with Arnold Schwarzenegger so I told him about the other celebrity Arnold, a small pig from Green Acres. “Are you saying that I am a pig??” asked Arnold the cyclist. I backpedalled.

First, we went to the bar.

The bar looked like a bar in Wyoming. It had kind of a western theme going and a band of local long-haired college kids was playing. There were televisions going on three walls. Two were showing “Braveheart” and one was playing an old episode of “Ally McBeal.” The band belted out cover tunes in perfect English.

The three of us genuinely were tired and didn’t last long in the bar. Andy asked Joanne and I if we wanted to see the Redlight District and we were totally up for it. Just down the block, we turned into a small alley.

The alleyway led to a maze of alleys, all narrow so that we had to walk single-file. The lights were dim and there were a few shaded lamps about. Girls and women of all ages lined the sides of the alleys and there were also plenty of men. They all looked astonished to see us and many of the women laughed and smiled and called hello over their exaggerated bosoms. Several reached out and touched Joanne and I.

We took a few turns and came to the end. “Shall we continue walking,” asked Andy, “or shall we go back through it?”

Joanne and I waffled so Andy decided for us. “We’ll go back.”

Back we went, braver this time and responding to all the friendly prostitutes with our own smiles and hellos.

We went by becak to a disco, a big flashy place with air conditioning, house music and a giant dance floor. Joanne and I immediately started dancing and were accosted by a really short Indonesian woman who kept trying to cut in on us. We eventually tired of bopping around and went to have Cokes with (”I have to be drunk to dance”) Andy. We left by 11:30 and were at the Delta and asleep by midnight.