To season hot

Summer is coming. It’s kind of funny, because even though there is nothing remotely resembling winter in Indonesia (i.e., a Canadian winter), a lot of bules here, myself included, still think in terms of summer versus winter. Interestingly, the summer/winter concept actually works here. Sitting near the equator, Bogor (our town) enjoys a narrow range of temperature from chilly nights of about 23 degrees C, to sweltering afternoons of about 31. That’s it. That’s the entire range 24-7/365. Going outside that range would mean earth just got hit by an asteroid. In fact, the typical daily range is more like night lows of 25 to afternoon highs of 29. It’s just always warm.

So what’s this talk of summer/winter? As Milli Vanilli used to say: blame it on the rain. To Indonesians, there is musim hujan, and musim panas – literally: season rain and season hot. Season hot, seems hotter simply because there is less rain, not really because it’s that much warmer (recall the previous “range” discussion). The beauty of it though, is that season hot coincides pretty much perfectly with Canadian camping season, with the primo weather months being July and August. Perfect. No need to reset the brain calendar. And of course, season rain lines up perfectly with the depth of Canadian winter, with January/February being the most dreaded. I know, whoever set that up so perfectly was a genius.

So ya, it’s May, and summer’s coming. In fact, the past month or so has been unseasonably nice with less rain than usual. Season rain appears to be firmly behind us, and days without rain are upon us. We learned the hard way that they call it season rain for a reason, and that attempting to climb volcanos and things like that in “winter” is just asking for it. Getting caught in a midday tropical deluge on top of a volcano is definitely an experience you will never forget (or want to repeat).

It’s been a fun month with a few local outings. Nice to stretch the legs lately and do a few bigger missions that we have been storing up for season hot. We’re probably jumping the gun though on season hot – you know, like a hot sunny May in Canada, but you just have to get out there don’t you?

One of the recent missions we ticked off involved a local hike into the back forty, surprisingly close to us. The challenge to outdoor recreation in Indo, is that nothing is described, there are no maps, no designated trails, no signage, and definitely nothing oriented towards making it easier for outdoor recreationalists. In fact, dealing with the logistics of “where to go” is by far the hardest aspect of it. Trails are either goat paths that connect the rice fields, or where water runs down the mountain. Constructing sign-posted trails solely for the enjoyment of weekend sojourns has yet to hit this part of the world.

The hike (we call it a hike, locals call it “the way to my village”) traverses along a beautiful forested ridgeline that Amy and I pass on our regular weekend biking route. Many a time we have looked up to it and thought: ‘that would make a great hike”. And it was! Anywhere else it would have its own website. Here, it’s just a rutted, eroding dirt track through the forest that locals use to get their chickens to market. We joined forces with our good Dutch friends Basja and Peter. They had an inclining of where to go, and own a car (very luxurious for us), so that took a lot of the painful logistics out of the equation. Hard to believe that was in our backyard for the past 2 years. We’ll be back!

Then there were a couple of missions up our local volcano, Gunung Salak (remember gunung = mountain/volcano). Salak is a love/hate thing for us. The trails (again, not trails, but simply where water flows when it pours) are mucky, root-infested, steep, and dangerous. The summit is forested and therefore does not offer a view. And, more often than not, it’s raining and treacherous. But, it’s our volcano. It’s in our backyard and we wake up to it every day. As a famous guy once said ‘because it’s there”. So alas, we must.

We’ve gotten to the point where we know the routes now, and can mix it up. We tried out camping on the summit to make it a two-day expedition. Sounds kind of fun, but not really. Camping in Indo means you are almost always sharing the summit with the hoards of chain-smoking, noodle-eating teenagers that frequent gunungs these days. Sharing a camping spot with 30 chanting teenagers, with no sense of personal space or the idea of “quiet time”, is rather trying. Another “experience” though J

The pinnacle of achievements recently, probably was a traverse of Salak where we combined an ascent route we have been wanting to do (waiting for season hot), with a descent we know well. It’s a big day with a 1200-m ascent and 1700-m descent, so it was fun to just do it. The best part though was a nice soft landing at a place we have recently discovered called “Portibi Farm” (www.portibi.com). We walked right to the door, where we had a cold beer waiting for us. The place is owned/operated by an American guy who embraces the “you are what you eat” philosophy. Situated at 700 m (fresh air!) on the lower slopes of Salak, it’s a fantastic weekend getaway of amazing food, good wine, country-farm setting, and perhaps what Indo used to be 100 years ago.

In fact, I am writing this blog from there, while sipping coffee and watching rural Indo wake up. So taken by the place, this long weekend we decided to cycle out to Portibi for a couple nights of R&R. Keeping it local, which is nice, and actually a fun cycle-tour through rural Java. Our fossil-fuel footprint has come down, Amy is enjoying a morning of yoga, we are supporting the local economy, and the sun is shining. Here’s to season hot.

Gunung Batur -- the other Bali volcano

Another day, another trip to Bali. Yep, Bali has become a familiar place to us. What’s not to like? Good food, good accommodation, wine, sun, beaches, and a quick 1.5-hr flight away. We can be on the beach by noon. Hmm, I guess that’s why it’s famous….go figure! Although, like everywhere else on the planet, I fear we humans are loving it to death. Monthly tourist stats are in the order of half a million tourist arrivals per month (i.e., 6+ million a year). This is an island the size of P.E.I. (for you non-Canadians: PEI = Prince Edward Island, Canada). And that’s on top of the 4.2 million Balinese who live there (PEI population = 146 thousand). That’s a lot of people, garbage, electricity, and of course, poo (where does it all go? I don’t want to think about it).

OK, so what are we doing in Bali this time? The short answer: Robillard family round-up. The long answer is that Amy’s family (the Robillard’s: Amy’s parents, sister, brother-in-law, and new baby Ava) endured the gruelling 30-hr journey from Canada to visit us here in Indonesia. Now, Bogor, where we live, despite its charms, isn’t really what one thinks of for a tropical holiday. Kind of like a German tourist spending their two weeks in Canada in the suburbs of Edmonton. Something about the concrete, rain, and traffic that just says “maybe we should just meet in Bali?” Sounds good!

Amy’s legendary internet sleuthing skills found yet another sweet accom set-up, involving a full villa with pool and daily cleaning staff, near the beach, in the town of Sanur. What’s a “villa” you ask? Everything seems to be a villa in Bali (google it), which is basically a house, but, it’s a Bali house, which usually means luxuries like swimming pools, gourmet kitchens, outdoor showers, and on-call drivers – which is what this was. So, that’s the visual: family holiday in a luxury Bali villa complete with cleaning staff and driver. Basically a 2-week, 24-7 pool party with free-flow gin and tonics. Nice.

Amy and I flew in to meet the family and spend some quality time, Amy more than me, because hey, someone has to work around here! J (I flew in for an extended weekend; Amy stayed on for her March break from teaching). Bali is pretty much a playground for adults. One of the planned events for the Robillard round-up was a hike up Gunung Batur, Bali’s other volcano (remember Gunung means “mountain/volcano” in Indonesian). The loyal blog followers among you will know when I say “Bali’s other volcano”, the other volcano is the infamous and quintessential Gunung Agung, which we climbed last year (see previous posts), and which is in the final sputtering stages of eruption and therefore closed for hiking at the moment (see previous “cycling Bali” post).

Gunung Batur, despite being Agung’s smaller cousin from an elevational standpoint (Batur summit = 1717 m, Agung = 3100 m), is a fabulously impressive volcano. The most stunning element of Batur is the caldera diameter of over 14 kms, making it one of the largest calderas on earth. For you non-volcanologists like me, the caldera is the crater that is formed at the top of a volcano after an eruption and collapse of the top of the volcano. Basically it’s what’s left after a volcano blows its top. What’s way cool, is that Batur is a double caldera, meaning a caldera inside a caldera formed by a new cone forming in the middle of this gigantic crater. So what you climb, is actually the new peak that is forming in the middle of the original volcano. How’s that for a mind bender!

So, to review, what we have here is a gigantic 14-km wide caldera formed by a cataclysmic explosion a bizzillion years ago, with a new 700-m peak (and growing) inside. The estimated height of the original volcano, before the eruption, is 3800 m. The caldera rim now sits at about 1200 – 1500 m, meaning about 2000+ m of solid-rock mountain just simply blew itself apart and vapourized. You do not want to be in the same hemisphere when that happens. So ya, what we humans scramble up in this era, is the “little” 700-m cone now forming in the middle of all of this. Cool.

Like most volcanos in Indonesia, Batur is active, and has erupted many times in the past 100 hundred or so years killing hundreds of people. The blackened scars of recent lava events are front and centre. Despite that, the caldera is populated by a dozen or so villages and scads of people farming the rich volcanic soils inside the caldera. It’s that big. There are roads crisscrossing it and around the top of the crater rim. And then of course there’s Lake Batur, the lake inside the caldera, which is, of course, Bali’s largest lake.

Gunung Batur from space

So the mission: a relatively straightforward hike of about 10 kms from the car, up to the rim (i.e., the new cone), around the rim, and back down to the car. Total elevation gain about 700m. We left Sanur at about 4 am with our driver (remember, on-demand driver!), and were hiking by 6 am, just in time for sunrise and birds. Beautiful day, blue sky, crisp mountain air. Nice! The crew was all Robillards + spouses over the age of 1, and under 60 (so therefore, me, Amy, Amy’s sister Crystal, and husband David).

It’s a rather pleasant hike, made even more pleasant because we were bucking the trend of hiking during the night to be at the top for sunrise – an Indo tradition that we vehemently oppose (see previous posts). So hey, because everyone was at the top at 6 am, we had the trail to ourselves! Really nice hike, great loop around the crater rim, with great views, and a beautiful bluebird day. And, our obligatory teenage guide didn’t even annoy us that much! (another Indo tradition we vehemently oppose).

Well OK then, another successful Bali mission. Fun was had by all. And now, Crystal and David can go back to St. John’s, Newfoundland where they live, and comfortably tick off the “climb to the top of an active volcano in Indonesia” from their bucket list J

Chinese New Year

A colleague of mine recently asked me, “What did you guys do for CNY?” To which I replied “What’s CNY?” To which she replied, “What? How long have you been in Asia?!” To which I replied, “Obviously not long enough!”

CNY, of course, and as I was informed, to what could be the majority of humans on earth, is the well-known acronym for “Chinese New Year”. And this exchange being immediately following CNY, the reference should have been obvious. However, me being the bule that I am, the situation was made even more comical when I blurted out, “The Chinese have their own New Year?” We moved onto other discussion points. J

Alright alright, I get it now! CNY! Chinese New Year! What can I say? I have lived in a cave for my entire adult life, and have had no outside contact with humans until now. She didn’t believe me.

OK, so what’s a Chinese New Year? According to Dr. Google, CNY marks the beginning of the year within the traditional Chinese calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar – meaning it’s based on a combination of moon phases and the time of the solar year (I know, blah blah blah….google it if you really want to read up on it). For some interestingly complicated reason, the day is calculated as the first new moon between 21 January and 21 February.

Now, most of the time, Chinese New Year will fall 11 (or sometimes 10 or 12) days earlier than the previous year, but if that means that the event would be outside of the Chinese New Year range of January 21 to February 21, a leap month must be added so Chinese New Year jumps 19 (or sometimes 18) days later.

Er, what? OK, enough of Dr. Google. It seems to be a bit more complicated than this blog should be. So, we’re going to move along.

Believe it or not, the Chinese resisted using the Gregorian calendar (the one we use) until 1912, when they “officially” switched. But officially, no one used it. The Gregorian calendar didn’t really take hold in China until as late as 1949, when Moe took power over China, and hey, just “made it so” (you know, that communist dictator thing). Suffice it to say though, the Chinese calendar remains a fixture in traditional Chinese culture.

Some of you by now may be thinking: what does this have to do with Indonesia, and/or this blog?  The answer lies in China, with a current population of 1.4 billion and 1/6^th of all humans on earth, has spread its cultural tentacles far and wide, and particularly throughout Asia. Although only making up 1 or 2% of Indonesia’s population of 260 million, people of Chinese descent have had a hugely disproportionate influence on the country, and are an integral part of the fabric here.

So, given that CNY is the biggest holiday celebration in China, and celebrated widely and hugely throughout Asia, Indonesia is no exception. CNY has a prominent position among Indonesia’s long list of statutory holidays (and hence the “what did you guys do for CNY?” question that unravelled all of this).

Here in Bogor, we have our fair share of Chinese influence, complete with the obligatory “China Town” known as Surya Kencana (Golden Sun….or something like that). Like all China towns it’s a bustle of humanity and shops where you can get dried lizard gizzard and scented snake oil, and the finest assortment of plastic buckets this side of Hong Kong. It is also the site of Bogor’s foremost traditional market, making it ground zero for your classic Asian street chaos – the kind of place we bules can walk around for hours armed with our cameras taking in the sights and smells of cow intestines, chicken feet, and other delectables.  

The main drag, auspiciously named Jalan Suryakencana (Jalan = street, so: Street of the Golden Sun), was obviously therefore the site of the main CNY celebrations, which includes the festival of lanterns. The festival of lanterns happens 15 days after CNY, and marks the first full moon of the year. It also marks the end of the CNY holiday period, so it’s one last blast before the party is officially over.

Full disclosure: we had no knowledge of any of this, until I googled it, after the fact. So when our good Dutch friends Peter and Basja invited us along to go see “the parade in China Town”, we quite merrily joined then, however woefully unaware of what the event was. I suppose it would be like showing up at a Christmas parade and wondering who the guy with the white beard and red suit is.  Pretty funny actually, as I wade through internet images and Wikipedia sites afterwards….oh, ya, that’s why those guys were doing that fuzzy animal thing, and yep, 15 days….the math checks out!  Ah hey, that’s why we’re here! Chinese New Year, OK, got it. I can confidently say I won’t ever get caught with my pants down again, when someone says “what are you guys doing for CNY?” J

BTW, what did we do for CNY? That was the subject of the previous post, the long weekend mission to the beaches of southwest Java – so that explains the stat holiday we had (he says as the light bulb goes on…”click”). Hmmm, everything is connected isn’t it?

A Bogor beach weekend: the SW coast of Java

Having a motorbike was near the top of my top-5 “must-do” list for being an expat in Asia. You know, along with the off-shore bank account and weekend trips to Bali. OK, full disclosure: riding a motorbike here isn’t nearly as cool as I thought it would be. Truth be told, we only use it once every couple of weeks or so, usually when I’m out of beer and need to fill up the beer fridge. For local missions like work and groceries, our bicycles or ankots (the public transport system of 30-cent rides in dilapidated minivans with no doors) are our go-to.

You see, it’s not the act of operating a motorbike per se (which actually is really fun, obviously, ask any redneck), it’s the insanity of traffic chaos here in West Java, where being on a motorbike is quite literally like being in a visual-reality video game. You know, the kind where you’re driving or flying a vehicle and/or space craft of some kind, and the screen is your eye-level view, and things like rocks, cars, planes, missiles, spears, flaming projectiles, and other random objects are being hurled at you. The critical difference of course, is that in real life, if you slam into a flaming projectile, you don’t just reset the game and start over. It’s unquestionably one of the scariest and most stressful ways of getting around here, and easily the most dangerous thing we do in Indonesia (including eating street food J). In two years, Amy’s passenger state of mind has improved from “sheer white-knuckle terror”, to now, probably hovering around just “sheer terror”.

So, obviously, when the latest long weekend presented itself, we planned a 3-day motorcycle mission to the southwest coast of West Java! Ah, life is an adventure, or nothing at all eh. I think it was the fact that we hadn’t done it in about a year, so we had forgotten J Seriously, it is one of those things you need some time to forget the bad parts, until you do it again. The good news is: we survived!

OK, so what’s the mission? As the loyal blog followers among you will know, the closest decent beach area to us is about 90 kms from our home in Bogor – an area on the southwest coast of Java called Pelabuhan Ratu (Queen’s Port). And as you also know well, 90 kms here in West Java can take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, depending on the traffic gods. Although, I must say, the learning curve from this being our 7^th or 8^th time to this area is paying off handsomely. We now know the critical backroad deviations and shortcuts, and are now clocking in at near the 3-hr mark for the journey. Not bad for a couple of bules! But ya, just a quick weekend of sand, surf, sunsets, and maybe a massage on the beach (Amy has become addicted to 8-dollar massages).

Actually, there are some very nice stretches of the ride, in between the near-death parts (Indo driving rule: if you didn’t make contact, it wasn’t even close…so chill!). In particular, the last hour or so, upon turning off the main “highway” (highway just means there is more traffic, not necessarily a better or bigger road), takes one through a rather pleasant hilly area dominated by oil palm and rubber plantations (despite the bad wrap palm oil gets [google it], oil palms are quite stunning and beautiful). It is the “relief” part of the journey when we both feel like we may just make it. It also leads us down to the coast, which of course is also another highlight of the mission: seeing the ocean!

As Amy likes to point out, one of the great ironies (and tragedies) of living where we do in Indonesia, is that despite living in a country with the longest tropical coastline in the world, we very rarely see the ocean (Interesting twist #2: Canada, our homeland, has the longest coastline in the world, where we also almost never saw the ocean). Sad, but true. So, when the opportunity arises, we need to take advantage of it. Amy’s tan is suffering J

It’s a bit squishy on the ole' Honda Tiger (a mean 200 cc’s of sheer torque and power) with our gear, two people, and then a waterproof MEC duffle bag strapped to the gas tank. By Indo standards, this is a big bad hog. For those noticing in the photos, I picked up a “trunk”, which is a storage box that is fitted behind the seat. That definitely comes in handy, and is waterproof and lockable. Not a bad ride overall, but after a few hours in the sun, and multiple near-death experiences (you can never fully relax and cruise), we can’t get off the bike fast enough upon arrival. It’s was only 11 am when we arrived, but cold beer was the only thing on our minds.

The accom we have settled into on these missions is a place run by a German guy and his Indonesian wife. It’s a simple affair of several rustic bamboo cabins, shared bathrooms, cold outdoor showers, and bad beds. It’s basically one step up from camping, and needs some work. Although, it could be our coming off a 3-week mission in Bali (see last post) that has ratcheted up our standards a few notches. What?! No infinity pool! This just won’t do….

But, it’s that “feet in the sand” thing that keeps us coming back to it. You just can’t beat being right on the water. It’s actually on a nice stretch of beach, has cold beer, and the sunsets are amazing (better than anything we saw in Bali!). As Mic says: you can’t always get what you want, but you find sometimes, you get what you need. And Amy needs to work on her tan J