Sumba Solace...

Music: Say Hi To Your Mom, "Ferocious Mopes"

Definitions: Bemo A small van that is almost always overcrowded--3 people hanging out the entrance door at all times, more than 4 people on top of the van, the actual coach completely stuffed with people, bags, boxes, and often times animals--that is the cheap, local form of transport to/from cities or towns in between that may or may not have attractions.

Selendang: A cloth that Sumbian men wear as a bandana or head piece; it has the shape and size of a priest's garb that drapes over his gown, like a scarf without the frayed ends.

Sorong: In Sumba the men where a woven cloth much heavier than the sorongs most people see; they fold them in a manner that allows them to use it as a large belt, for warmth, or for the lower garment (pants/shorts). Often times, they have a sheathed machete stuffed into it at the side, like a samurai.

Sirih Pinang: 3 pieces that make up a cultural/social daily habit similar to coca leaf chewing of peru/bolivia. The Sirih (stalk, man) with the Pinang (seed, woman's ovaries) and finally Kapor (white powder, semen) that when chewed together in the mouth provoke a dark red saliva that you spit out. It simbolizes the blood of their ancestors and it every time it is spit out, it's like blood returning to the earth where children will be born from it. The most noticeable affect is that it turns your gums, lips, teeth extremely red.

What can I say about Sumba??? Well, bounce along in a bemo with me in a typical day.

I throw my arms up to catch the colorful bemo that is already shouting for my fare with music blaring. I put one foot up on the step and ask how much in indonesian. I step back down with a look of disturbance and shout to him my non-negotiable price then I start to negotiate. I walk in the shape of < to where 2 people are pushing themselves apart enough for me to sit. It's dark and I'm happy just to have a seat. I glance out the door and window to the daily life that occupies streets in the tiny, lesser known island of Sumba.

With my head held down by the low roof, I crink my neck out to see 2 boys, head-to-head like playful goats as they both try to use their teeth to scrape out any or some coconut of the shell that sits on the ground. 3 ladies walk in line with an all too common package above their heads; the first has a bucket full of vegetables, the second a sack full of rice that must way 30lbs., and the last a gas canister full of water, all of them are also carrying children or another bag. A family rides by on their motorbike; mother in back holding onto a sack of rice with one hand and her daughter with the other who is sandwhiched between the mother and father, finally the baby boy is barely on the front with his hands on the bars as if to say, "my turn will come." The music, the awful music (like cumbia of S.America and Reggae mixed, the worst of two gerat genres) is rattling the windows and my skull. A group of school children see me in the bemo and start running after it; the music mutes the sound that I can only see them mouthing, "Hey Mister, Hey Mister!!!" A coconut tree next to a house dons a 12 year old girl who is climbing up to retrieve one of the immature husks of nourishment, she must be hungry. A 5 year old boy rides on top of a 1500lb water buffalo with complete freedom, the buffalo takes a liking to the child's ambition and is kind in response. I look down as if I can see the pain that is screaming from my knees being flexed for so long ("damn I'm old" I think to myself), I take a breath and sigh to release the pressure that has mounted. I look to my left and see a machete jutting out of a man's sorong, to my right is another man with machete at the ready. In fact, there are 6 men in the coach with me, all with machetes at their side, bare, dirty feet and the typical selendang...they look like guerilla fighters; I smile in solace...where else could an American be in a tiny van surrounded by men with machetes and completely free from harm? There's also a woman sitting by the door with her goods below her feet, she smiles with one tooth, bloody red. I also notice one of her toe nails has been torn away from her left foot...she's off to work and chat with her girlfriends. In her basket on her lap is a hen; next to the animal asleep is a bag full of eggs...it begs the question, which came first? The smell of chicken-shit doesn't fill the cabin, but it makes me thing of the avian flu that seemed so far removed from me as I watched and read the news from the other side of the world.

I man tries to spark up a conversation, but the flint is wet. The typical questions leave his mouth, but he's smiling (as they so often do, all their muscles straining in joy to be so lucky to see and talk to a foreigner...this makes me less petulant). Then he asks if I speak Indonesian. I think to myself, "should I open the door to another three questions, for that is all it will be or leave it be..."I lock and swallow the key and shrug with a smile, "minta ma'af saya."...sorry.

Glancing again outside is a legion of motorbikes all making their way; some with solo drivers, still others with families of 4, couples also ride their fears away. A group of men stand with boxes of crops waiting for the proper bemo to take them, each with machete, each with sirih pinang all over their lips and teeth. It reminds me of when I visited the village and how impressed the villagers were that I would chew it with them...even more impressed that I actually liked it.

I hear Kiri (pull-over) several times and people shuffle in and out, each with a newborn curiosity when the see me inside, and each with the same questions, if they can ask even those. I smile. Sumbians are much less aggressive with "Hey Mr." and are very pleasant in simple offering hello. Not nearly as many say it and when they do, I feel as if it's geniune...unlike Sumbawa.

Finally, I shout Kiri to the driver, reach over the front seat to hand him our 'negotiated' price--he smiles and says thank you mister--I hop out to a street of a market where the bargaining will begin. I'm lucky enough that I can speak enough of the language to be classified into a separate group...not quite a "tourist" and not quite a local; though when I don my selendang and smile a bloody red smile, the people smile and say to one another, "look, mister is chewing sirih pinang...he has selendang on." "Hello Mister, enak?" I wave to them and say "yes, it is tasty, thank you. Selamat Tinggal."

Hello Mister...

I don't know who you are or where...I don't even know when you were in Indonesia, but I will find you and make you pay. Yes, you must've thought it cute to teach a few locals in a few corners of Indo to shout "Hey Mister" to every foreigner that passes by; your success is my torment.

I never thought it would be THAT bad...I read books, I talked to other foreigners who've visited Indo and every source mentioned the Hey Mr. thing...come on man. In Bali and Lombok there are enough tourists that the locals have learned to say a lot more than just this rote phrase; however, when I entered Sumbawa I realized the torture one could inflict with such little effort.

I rented a motor bike when I arrived in Bima (the largest town in S'wa though still a dump, though some like it) and cruised my way through 70km of villages and beautiful landscapes. I did manage to skirt the coast for some time and get great views of a volcano that rises right from the ocean floor.

Every village I entered (and quickly left) had a chorus just for me; young children, girls and boys, old men with canes, older women walking like canes, middle aged beautiful women, middle aged men, mouth full of food or not, playing in garbage or with a soccer ball...I think the only living entities that didn't shout this taboo were children not yet able to speak and dogs; though the latter did bark incessantly at me.

On the motorbike (ahh, I mean moped with a bit more juice) the shouting of such annoyance wasn't a big deal because I could speed thru the village and just throw my hand up in the air...and I did just that.

However, when I arrived back in Bima and took care of the mess with the bike (I choose not to expound here) I had a lil' walk of about 10-15km around the town to try to plan my trip to the next island called Sumba via PELNI ship. In the end, I would make it to the location where it said it would dock and pick up passengers; however, the actualization of this was written with "VOID" in Indonesian on a paper that I saw as I rocked up with my bags several days later to a completely different island. You haven't the faintest idea what it feels like to have travelled miles and miles away from an island you want to get back to and be in the middle of a bloody huge body of water (called Sabu Sea) to interpret the marker scratch on a piece of paper only to turn around and look back, knowing it took 10 arduous days to get way out here and you would "need" to get back in 2; I melted.

Back2Bima, I walked on and on with every person, and I mean everyone literally shouting this at me, like they knew me and my name was mister. Only 3-5 other things were shouted at this more prominent 'greeting'; "where are you going, mister?", "Where RU from Mister?", "What's your name, Mister" (apparently you just said it ya @*&^*)@<~?>). It didn't matter that I was on a bike and moving way too fast to ever actually answer this question...never mind THAT.

The aggressive nature of the S'wa "Hey Mr." is what really got to me cuz they just kept shouting it until I acknowledged them...even if they had started saying it when I was well past them, I was forced to turn around and wave to their energetic jumping and screaming. This noise, this chant; it was witchlike, it was the Saturday Crew working early morning as I tried to sleep in after my celebratory Friday night of a long week. The wave of jackhammering, the cacauphony that perched itself outside my window...and the anticipation, this was the worst...just waiting for the next clank of metal on metal...knowing that this group of young boys would say it...wait, wait...wait...urgh, there it is, followed by them jumping all over and around me with this spellbound noise...this anticipation became a spring of tension that would snap me come day's end.

Now you, in your comfortable chairs at work or better at home while you glance over this can say, "come on Murr...I thought you liked things like that. Surely you understand that they don't see many foreigners and it's a big deal for them to run into one; it's normal they would react with such 'enthusiasm'...and that you should find it torturous; come on you traveler you." And ya know...I'd be in complete agreement with you on that side of this monitor...but it just ain't so...it ain't me babe. Later, in the peace and quiet of somewhere unknown to them, I did reason that it WAS normal; I mean, most of them would just spurt off the only 2-3 things they knew in English...and often times it wouldn't be complete. "Hey mister, My name is", "Hey Mr. Thank you.", or "Hey Mr. WhereyougoingWhereUfromHowRU...Mr, Thank you." Of course, I would answer and they'd be embarassed cuz they wouldn't know what to say. This, along with seeing that some of the books I signed had only 50 names in them...for the last 4 years or so; this relayed the message that it was a BIG deal to see a white man walking about their village. Sorry luv...even after "understanding" all that, it still didn't help.

If you were to experience this; to not be able to just stand and think, not be able to sit in a park or by a field, to walk around without any sense of autonomy, no peace...hearing "Hey Mister" or sometimes "Hey Miss" (doesn't matter if you're man/woman, they'll throw anything at you) from a thousand different people EVERY single day, you'd know, as I now know, fame.

Being transported on a motorbike, my driver points at 2 tourists and says, "look, Hey Mr."...as if that is our official name, "look, there's two hey misters!." I walk by a group of guys my age and one says, "Mr. likes barang laut too." I felt like I was in a well and being addressed like, "it puts the dog in the bucket, then it steps away." My name ain't mister man! At the breaking point when yet another yelled "Hey Mr." at me, I responded in the chorus of a Coen classic, "Hey dude." Then still later, in the spirit of Brian I shouted, "Ssup?!?" It did make me laugh and ease a bit of the self-inflicted storm.

All this made me realize why some of my other 'adventures' were so much more treasured than that current moment...I guess this is the important thing.

I washed myself in the cold water of my mandi and fell into bed with the feeling of an enormous headache that had pounded all day; this wouldn't stop for several more days until I would reach "the lower kingdom" of Sumba (where as Sumbawa was the "high kingdom" back in the day...whenever the hell that was). I did jump onto a mini bus with 2 swiss girls and they definately recharged my batteries and joy to plow the road.

Sumba would yield similar noises, yet I would find something very enjoyable there that I can't quite put to words.

B n' Me...

Pic Foler: Snorkelling (not sure if I mentioned this before...it's also relatively recent.

The last of our 4 day adventure together was to be on motorbikes cruising the whole of Lombok Island in true "Easy Rider" fashion, Bri n' I, hopper n' fonda, without bounds. However, as it unfolded, we were both clutching our resort's bedsheets in pain and illness; me with more toilet 'breaks' than B. Contrary to what would be popular belief, it was NOT because of a profligate imbibing on islands of islands--though this might not have helped our cause--rather it was from either grouper, irish coffee "cream", or enormous oscillating public boats with hangovers hanging; maybe it was the brief snorkelling of up and down, up and down in the waves...more likely it was all of the above with an irreversible improperly cooked meal that nailed our coffin. Fortunately, we were both lying in bed without the energy or will to get up and onto a bike to drive the crazy roads of an island in Indonesia.

Bri arrived in Kuta maybe an hour after I and he had booked us two rooms in what I think was the most expensive hotel in Kuta; his treat would equate at least a month of my 'normal' traveling expenses...thanks a million rupiah mate, several times over! We commenced our 4 day stint with JD over rocks due to our "welcome drink" from the hotel being a risky non-alcoholic juice that washed away signs of sin...though not ours. We walked the streets of the tourist infested beach town accounting the past 6 months or so of our diverted paths and random catch-ups with brief nuances of "whatcha wannado"s. Bri treated me to a meal that was equivalent to 3+ days that included a great dish and several whiskeies. From here I stopped equating money with days I "would've had" yada yada cuz it was my mate and we were havin' a gr8 time. We walked about tipping bars, then back to the room to drain the bottle of Crown with which B had christened our encounter. In the end, we didn't find a place that was our style and instead, I found myself part of Brian's entertainment as this lady--yes, some random lady on a moped--kept following us. Her tactic was to drive up to where we were, hop off, push me into an alley or corner, then pinch my pecker to the point of pain as she summoned brian (for what we don't know). Finally, when I managed to push her off enough for me to start walking again, she'd start the process all over again. I recall Brian with his Tim Tams pinched between his bicep and forearm as he nibbled with an almost satisfaction of his friend getting accosted by this sex-freak, who, if male would've been called out for a number of infractions; better me than him I suppose was the source of his content. In the end, we were both able to laugh, but bloody hell, never Kuta again.

We were both relieved to leave Kuta as quick as possible and even more fortunate to have miscalculated brian's time which put us in a rush to get to Lombok. We flew to the airport and tried to book a cancelled flight over to the capital Mataram; we were in luck and managed to grab 2 of the last 3 seats for 40US each. I commented to brian how I thought it was rather awakening to have gone through the whole process--purchase, check-in, luggage booking, boarding, disembarking, baggage pick-up, etc.--without once showing ANY sign of identification.

In any case, Lombok welcomed us with a cheap cab to Singigi Beach where we would meet 2 "brothers" who looked rather scandalous, but really helped us out from arrival to departure without any "scam" or "inflated price" tactics...2 good guys from my perspective. We slept in a comfortable, although much cheaper place than Kuta, that night with the intention of moving on the next day to the well-reputed Gili Trawangan (GT) for a good night or 2 of fun. All the while, I couldn't shake my adapted tendency to constantly bargain down prices and Brian was still stuck in first world price mode; result...the people we dealt with loved brian and hated me as you can imagine...I'm the one hurting business. Ironically, B taught me something about the whole process...though I'm not sure he knows it.

GT was a great lil' getaway that we needed that started with a nice lil' cab ride from Singigi to Bengsal along "Monkey Forest Rd" where we saw loads of long-tailed macaques and another species I still haven't identified. Sure the boat over was hectic and overstuffed with market people and all their smelly goods that forced all the white people to the front (worst section of the very rocky boat), and I even caught Brian mouthing "this is bullshit" before we even set off, which made me laugh even more. We jumped off onto GT into a number of 'offers' to stay here and there; we ended up with a real good guy Bagas, who got us local prices for water and party favors alike. Our bungalow was the cheapest Brian had payed for yet; a nice bed right on the porch with candles to boot, mosquito netting around the bed inside, nice bathroom with western toilets (you still didn't have the 'experience' of using a mandi...damn!)and great location. We might put some money in one guy's hand and he might have put a bag in ours, but everything was very legal, I assure you...no really!

We burned a cigarette like object and began to live the island life; we cruised around looking at random things and talking to random locals who wanted to sell us random services. We soaked up some beach, we dipped into the strong current and floated in the rays that penetrated the beautiful blue and tranquil turqoise of picturesque waters. I think we ate something, but not sure, before we rented some bikes and cruised around to the other side of the island to watch the sun set in south east asian style; that's to say extremely quickly, but remarkable all the same. We cruised back and made it just before our "time" was up. Finally, I headed back for a shower while B went about randomly wandering and soaking up eye-pleasers. I have to say that this was the first time since I entered Indo that my fingernails weren't over several layers of dirt; it was symbolic of my brief departure from "local-syle" traveling and it was nice.

We had a well-needed nap, then I woke B up with some coke(cola) and Red Bull to patronize the Crown we had salvaged from 2 night prior then we made for the bars around 11pm. We started the night in our typical fashion with a couple of Whiskey Rocks and discussed the plan for the night. We went to the bar where the party was supposed to be and Bri ordered 2 shots of Tequila and 2 whiskeies, I was talked into a Mushroom Milkshake that was tasty and trippy all the same. B got absolutely hammered and I sat and talked 2 2 french chicks about...uhh, I dunno, something that I thought was very interesting and the night grew late. Everyone around the bar was tripping on the boomers and the mood of the island was very much its motto: No woman no cry, no mushroom no fly...the shake was practically on the menu.

B n' me fell back to our place and he made good use of the bed on his porch while I managed to slip into my actual room at 5:30am. I woke him up with the intention of going snorkelling at 10am; we weren't feeling good. I ordered some breaky and after scarfing it down, we ran to the beach with full knowledge that snorkel boats pushed off between 10 and 10:30--it was now 10:35. I don't think we even locked our rooms, and ran towards the beach with Bagas who motioned the final boat for 2 more; no prob! The boat made a quick turn and b n' me could feel the foreigners sighing incredulously for the 2 idiots who got hammered the night before...there had to be 2, and we made the cast. For me the snorkelling was fantastic with sightings of loads of enormous turtles, eels, huge fish whose name I don't know, and most impressively one of the guides who dived to scuba depth. It was amazing to see this kid of no more than 17 years go down to 20+ meters in one breath; I honestly thought someone was diving when I looked down and as I descended, I saw that he was just chilling...actually standing on the ocean floor 20 meters deep looking at myriad turtles. Eventually he bruised/hurt one of his ear drums for going too deep too quickly. For brian on the other hand, the motion of the ocean was too much to hold in; and as the give/take policy goes, he deposited his last night's intake while a few unlucky snorkellers were forced to watch...I felt quite bad for him...as ya do. We finished the lil' trip with a lunch (source of b's illness we think) and made way for the coast. We met a nice dutch couple on the scuba trip along with the 2 french girls I had chatted up the night before. The dutch couple and we would share a taxi to Singigi to get us back to our nice hotel in front of the beach and crashing waves. Just as we made for the boat, Brain and I recalled the day before that we had purchased a very considerable amount of pearls from a lady; she had entrusted us with the pearls and said she would follow us to the ATM to get the money. We had almost forgot her, and I found her just as B had rung her...she was almost in tears for all the money she had lost. We were able to pay her and made for a nice dinner in Singigi where I was indulged with a peanut curry and topped it off with an Irish Coffee which I think was my poison. Brian had gone back early for feeling ill and the dutchies and I went on for drinks which ended up with me leaving them early--they must think americans can't handle it by now--and running 4 the toilet. The next day was nothing more than groans, moans, and a few runs for Brian to grab some things he had wanted (sorongs, blankets, souveneirs, etc.)...my runs were of a different sort; though the genuine guy he is bought some carbon pills to help with me affliction.

He was forced to go all the way south to the jetty where he was to board a ferry (4 hours with a big ouch!) to get back to bali where I hope he caught a bus to Denpasar just in time for his flight back to 'reality'. I was lucky enough to find a hotel and literally fall into bed from 4pm to 5am without blinking an eye. I woke to a small squible that left me feeling ill about the hotel and moved to another friendlier place that I will stay for the night.

Tomorrow's plan is to catch a bus to the island of Sumbawa and start the travel process all over; ie. get use to crappy lodging, crammed mini-vans, discomfort in every way except experientially...but I'm lovin' it.

Can't describe the gr8 time I had with my m8 though...after so long of leaving him in ATL and him finding work and a home in S. Korea...it was more than wonderful to see his mug in the indo isles and break from chaos. Just 4 days had me rejecting his departure, but we know that there will be another chapter to come. To him, thanks again brother and all the best for the rest of your south korean sojourn. To all of you...onto the next.