From Sea to City – The Jakarta Excerpts

From Sea to City is a series of short extractions from a trip I made from Lombok to Jakarta.
The reason for my trip was my passport which, after 10 years of traveling, was about to expire.

Riley stayed onboard Black Duck, anchored in front of a small, deserted Island in Lombok. I think he was happy to finally have some time alone, after all we had not been apart for years. And I was looking forwards to traveling with my backpack, which had grown moldy due to the terrible neglect it had suffered having been stuffed away under a berth since we bought the boat.

But of course this is not a story about renewing my passport. It is a story about the many beautiful impressions we are bestowed when on a journey. It is about the things we see, the things we would not normally notice had we been at home. It is about the people we meet on the way, the people who welcome us despite our strangeness. It is about the things we learn about the places we go and the things we learn about ourselves in the process. It is about traveling and it is about remembering home while doing so.

Joining the Ramadan

I turned up at the ticket office in Lembar ten hours to early, which gave me the great opportunity to do nothing for as long. Impatience is a funny feeling, but it can easily be overcome by owning the time you have been set to wait. Having to wait is having to fill empty time: a luxury we rarely let ourselves have.
So, I sat down on a chair in the waiting room, and before I knew it, ten hours had past and I had learned a bit about a lot.

I had decided to follow the Ramadan for the time I was going to be gone from the boat. It was an opportunity to get a little insight into what everyone around me was doing at the time. It was also convenient on the trip where I wished to be respectful and not eat in front of people who were fasting. But mostly I thought it was a good strategy to help me quit smoking, as I thought it would make the discipline more worthwhile.

Every day of the Ramadan Selemat berbuka Puasa (Enjoy breaking the fast) is called by the Mosques after the sun has gone down.
I was still at the office when the workers rolled out a carpet on the floor in the middle of the waiting room and invited me to eat with them. This brought me to another realization: in following the fasting I got to be a part of the evening joy that erupts when everyone finally sits down for a meal together.

Dolphins in the ship Wash

The ferry was about seven hours late and did not leave until the next morning. By then I had been waiting in Lembar for almost twenty hours and still had a twenty-hour ferry trip ahead of me.
Having been awake the whole night, waiting at the dock with the other foot-passengers and the truck drivers, I slept through most of the next day.

The next evening, I spent with a small crowd on the foredeck below the bridge, wherefrom we had a good view of the sunset. I was surprised to see dolphins playing in the wash around the ships bow doing tail-stands and summersaults as if they knew we were watching.
Above the reddening ocean the horizon was sharpened and the clouds turned hot like the smoke from a fire. The sky was darkening, beginning to conceal the day and reveal the stars for those who remembered to look up.

Then the sun dipped below the horizon, and the amplified voice of the onboard Musholla (prayer room) announced “Selemat berbuka Puasa” and I happily left it all behind to collect my portion of rice.

We arrived in Surabaya early the next morning.

The privilege of watching rice fields

From Surabaya I was to take the train to Jakarta, a trip which would show me the entire length of Java Island.
You might be wondering why I chose to travel for three days with ferry and train, when I could just have jumped on a plane and been there in an hour. But why would I miss out on three days travel?

My temptation to get on the executive train was purely due to the good company I had found in the three salesmen from Papua. But after running over the costs again there was no question, and I bought a ticket for the ekonomi train for a sixth of the price. And I am glad that I did for, apart from the fact that it felt like I was being eaten by my seat the whole eleven hours, it was a pleasurable trip on a train which rumbled and jolted like any other and had the most delightful view over rice fields and banana plantations.

The view consisted mostly of rice-fields, sometimes stretching as far as the eye could reach in all directions. They were perfect squares like a green quilt, their water glistening between the green tufts and some were dotted with the yellow-brown conical hats of the farmers.
In no way do I underestimate the labor of this manual agriculture, yet it is no doubt extremely esthetic.

“watching the world go by”

I think it is a traveler’s privilege to be excited by a rice field, or powerlines for that matter, for those I noticed to be strung over the quilt like eloquent garlands. Inebriated with the joy of being on a journey we are liable to see beauty in the most trivial of things, such as fields and powerlines. Slightly different to the fields and powerlines at home, we romanticize them because their subtle difference is a symbol of our odyssey.

I think of home and how I have so often said: “oh Denmark, it is nothing but towns and flat fields”
Maybe next time I see them, I will look at them with fresh eyes and notice the beauty in the rippling wheat and the yellow canola. For only the sun is more yellow than canola, and if the wheat can ripple like ocean, it owns the beauty of imagery and deserves the awe of poetry.

I will never get tired of looking through a train window, watching the world go by like a film that never runs out. But I do my best to get a seat facing forward as I find a pleasurable metaphor in seeing what is to come, rather than what is left behind. And how I love the conceit of that, when the gap between the two –the present, –the now, is a fleeting view no bigger than a train window.

At ten minutes to six the announcement was made on the intercom: “Selemat berbuka puasa” and the cracking of many plastic bottles sounded simultaneously.

In the shadow of the High-rises

I arrived in Jakarta one hour past midnight and having not booked any accommodation, I decided to wait at the station until daylight.
I was happy to find a small Warung, and it was an absolute delight to finally eat vegetables after two days of plain rice.
Then I called home. It was evening in Denmark and Abel and Arot was both at Mom’s painting Easter-Eggs to add to the old collection.

It was five o’clock when I left the station to look for a suitable place to lodge for the next four days.
I ended up walking around for about five hours, struggling to find a place which I thought clean enough. This says something about the standards of the hostels in Jakarta, as I am not usually very picky.

The city was strange: a motley of shiny and rough, new and old, tended, mended and neglected. In one area I walked through, I was shocked at the poor state of which every structure was in, as was it a neighborhood entirely overlooked.

“drinking dirt from puddles in the cracks of the road”

The houses were a colorful patchwork of brick and corrugated iron, fascinating and somehow artistic in a tragic way and utterly forsaken. Side by side they were overhanging the canal as if they were being pushed off the edge. Underneath, the water was still, covered in a thick layer of green sludge. I was horrified to see a man sitting on the bank fishing.

The stench was unbearable; there were piles of trash everywhere and the concrete of the roads and sidewalks were covered in thriving mildew. Sick looking dogs with mange fur were roaming every street corner, and cats without tails were drinking dirt from puddles in the cracks of the road.

And there, behind this scene of wretchedness, the shining facades of the giant high-rises were towering into the air with inconsiderate disparity, emphasizing that there is nothing more ruthless than being poor in the city.

The unbelievable hospitality of the P-Family

On my second day in Jakarta, it was a Sunday, I went to see the National Monument; a 132-meter obelisk, a commemoration of Indonesia’s fight for Independence.
I was taking pictures through the gate to the Merdeka Square, which was closed due to the pandemic, when I met Andreas.
Andreas was in Jakarta for real-estate business. He spoke a little English, and when I asked him where I could buy drinking water, he saw an opportunity to practice.
One question became a conversation and the conversation -an invitation to meet his family who lived in Jakarta.

The P-family owned a small tire-service station along a busy road in Jakarta.
Mr. Monang, whom I quickly took to calling Papa Monang, and his son, Andreas’ brother Bintang, were both mechanics and worked together at the shop.
Their family was originally from Central Sumatra near Toba lake, the largest volcanic lake in the world, but were forced to stay in Jakarta to secure their 2 hectare land which would, if left unattended, be claimed by neighboring land owners.

“with all the glory in his hair”

The P-family were Christian and pictures of Jesus hung on the wall among family photographs. Here was Jesus dressed in white and red robes with all the glory in his hair, next to uncle x: a successful lawyer posing in front of his yellow sports car.

            “If you ever have any problems call your P-family”, Papa Monang assured me, and I added his number to my phone. Then I added Bintangs, and Andreas’s and Bintang’s oldest daughter: Chriswell’s too.

I have had the privilege of having become used to good hospitality, but this night was especially cordial. Bintang put it this way: “If I see you once a year it is special, but if I see you just once in a lifetime it is extraordinary, and then I must give you my greatest generosity”

And then I was fed both food and wine and good conversation. And poor Chriswell, was pressured to converse with me in English, so that she could learn. But shy as she was, she did not speak until they all stopped harassing her, when we joked that they themselves needed some practice.

When it was late, I asked if Andreas would drop me back at the hostel. But before leaving, Papa Monang insisted that I have dinner first, and to refuse would be to deny him to fulfill his duty as host. So, although I was more than full, I stayed for another two meals, for Papa Monang bought me fried rice and Kaka Bintang had gone to Ibu who cooked me a portion of noodles.

I left the P’s tire-service shop with bags of fruit and three bottles of local wine, feeling as if I had been to a banquet with the Greek Gods themselves.

A history of the most fantastical art

After a successful visit to the Embassy to extend and renew my passport, I decided to take an extra day, to visit some sights I was curious to see.

I definitely wanted to see the Istiqlal Mosque, the National Mosque of Indonesia (1978). This is the largest in Southeast Asia and the 6th largest in the world, able to hold more than 120,000 people.
The Istiqlal Mosque was designed by the Indonesian architect Fredrich Silaban. I thought it was a funny little detail that Silaban was a German educated Christian.
Sukarno, Indonesia’s President at the time, was appointed as the Technical chief Supervisor and lay the first stone of its foundations. Sukarno chose to build the Mosque right in front of the Jakarta Cathedral to symbolize Pancasila’s religious harmony. This unfortunately meant the demolition of the 1837 Dutch Citadel Prins Friderick which was in its way.
An underground tunnel connects the Cathedral and the Mosque. It’s name is Terowongan Silaturahmi (Tunnel of Friendship).

I was terribly disappointed when I was not allowed to enter the Mosque. The security guard told me the reason was that they were not yet ready for tourists. But a local working at a stall outside the gate, informed me, that if I donned a Hijab, they would let me in. I did not try again.

“a 13th century piggy bank”

The second place I wanted to visit was much easier to get access to. The National Museum of Indonesia is located on the other side of the Merdeka Square only 30 minute walk from the Mosque.

At the entrance to the Museum stood a huge steel sculpture. When standing in front of it, you looked into the depth of a giant whirlpool of jagged webbed waves, the light shining through it making it look shimmering like water.
The most intriguing thing about this sculpture was that along the walls of the whirlpool, multiple women were protruding, and even after looking at it for quite some time, I still could not tell whether they were being swallowed or whether they were a part of the whirlpool itself.
Which ever it was, I think the meaning you could derive from such metaphor is fantastic!
I really liked this sculpture and was disappointed to not find out any more information about it, for I think the artist deserves a great deal of praise.

The Museum itself was full of the most incredible art-pieces and artifacts. It exhibited relics such as a three-hundred-year-old Quran, a 13th century piggy bank and one of the oldest fossils (1.8 million years) found in Indonesia: a skull from a 5-7 year old Homo Mojokertensis child.
It took hours to walk through the many halls of exhibition, and at the end I felt I could have started all over and still discovered many new things.

A sensitive Question

There is not much to say about the train ride home. It was a rewind of the beautiful view I had seen on the way there. And, making the most of having the whole seat to myself, I slept much of the way.

I arrived back in Surabaya late in the evening, and got the cheapest room at a three star hotel.
The room was pretty dilapidated, with ceiling and walls pied with water damage and an air-condition sounding like a revolution. But the staff was great and when the lights were off, all I experienced was a comfortable bed.

The ferry ride home went fast, I think it was because of the good company I had found.
The first night we sat, on the top deck, talking until it was breakfast time at four in the morning.
B… and F… were going to Lombok to climb Rinjani, the second biggest volcano in Indonesia. They both spoke decent English as they had spent some time in a place called ‘English Village’ in south Jakarta, a place where young people can go to learn and practice their English skills.

“if a stranger invites you to have sex”

I think B… was curious to know and he asked his sensitive question eagerly. I think he already knew the answers to most of his questions, yet my answers seemed to make him cringe uncomfortably, in a way which I think in some way excited him.

            “Kaka, can I ask you a sensitive question?”

            “Yes”

            “What do girls in your country think of their virginity?”

I thought for a moment. At this point we had already been through subjects on marriage, love, drugs, religions, LGBT and freedom of speech. But this question was particularly tricky, for I did not wish to give him the idea that girls from home do not care about love or that they do not have any self-respect.

            “It is very different to here” I said and laughed, “some girls want to wait for the right one, and some girls want to practice for the right one” I knew that this was not an entirely truthful answer, but I thought he might at least find it a little funny.

I was wrong. He looked at me concerned and said: “Kaka, I think, if a stranger invites you to have sex, you must say no”
I assured him, that of course I would say no.

“as good as if God had been a witness”

It was not the first time he had questioned my loyalty, although he knew I had a boyfriend. The reason for this had become apparent to me in a conversation we had had earlier about commitment. B… believed that matrimony was the only way to show true commitment, and that if you did not marry, nothing would stop you or your partner from being unfaithful.
I told him that I believed that you could make a vow to another person, a partner, relative or friend, and that if it was for love, it would be as good as if God had been a witness. But to B… who believed strongly in the teachings of the Quran, this could not be true.

I really enjoyed our many conversations about what in their culture was very sensitive topics. For despite their disapproval to most of what I answered, their curiosity I think was a sign that there is a chance of progressiveness. Because the world changes, humans change, cultures change and so must religion.

And when I asked them if they thought I was absolutely crazy, they shook their heads eagerly and said: “No kaka, you are cool”

An invitation to the Bridge

Thanks to Irvan, a 21-year-old crew who were in practice for his Master 3, whom I had been talking ‘boats’ with for many hours the previous night, I was invited to the bridge to meet the Captain and see the controls of this huge ship.

I was intrigued to see how she was steered. Irvan had told me that the auto pilot was broken so they were steering manually.
But, perhaps assuming that my knowledge of ships was miniscule, the Captain seemed more interested in asking me questions about religion and marriage than showing me the way of the ship.

He asked the usual questions, and it was quickly settled that I was a European woman, to which he responded with a derisiveness which I find common among some older men.

“when I say that I have no religion”

“In England there are people who say their religion is Manchester United” the Captain mocked, and to that I laughed and shook my head in disbelief so that he might perceive that I thought it just as ridiculous as himself.

I had already admitted that I myself belonged to no religion. Furthermore that I was unmarried, childless at 28 and traveling alone on the ferry. So, I did what I could to be as agreeable as possible being as I was in his domain.

But I would lie if I said that I have not enjoyed at least a little the confusion it has sometimes conjured when I say that I have no religion. Yet, in my own amusement and testing of tolerances to find to what extend I can openly be myself and exhibit my own culture, I have come to recognize that next to a Muslim, it is discernible that, when it comes to the fundamental idea of ethics and lifestyle, I am quite culturally Christian.
And for an unreligious person, this has been quite a discovery.

Behind her Niqab

The vail which covers a Muslim woman’s face only leaving her eyes clear is called a Niqab. Some Muslim scholars say that she must wear it, is she in company of non-mahram men. (Men who she is permitted to marry), others find no mention of this requirement in the Quran at all. But the consequence of this fine-line-interpretation can determine whether a woman is allowed to be seen or whether she has to be forever hidden when in public.

It is a thin slit to see a human through, yet her eyes looked back with an intense expression. I wondered if she learned to speak so loudly by them, because that was all that could be perceived of her.
We know from our experiences with a Covid mask, to smile with our eyes by squinting them. But I wonder if she too smiled with her mouth.
She was wearing heavy mascara; it made her eyes stand out like planets on a night sky. And when she took a selfie, she posed with her whole body. I am sure her lips were slightly pursed. Although she was completely vailed, her need to appear was obvious. Why else would she be posing. But among all her friends who were equally disguised it was hard to tell her apart.
I could not help feeling sorry for being free in front of her.

Arriving Home

The ferry arrived in Lembar some time around midnight.
Getting a cab this time of night was of course very expensive and cost me more than the ferry and train had done added together. But after two hours of very good conversation and help with my Bahasa Indonesia, Superman, for that was the name of my driver, dropped off on the beach across from Gili Goleng and Riley came and picked me up in the Dinghy.

Although I had only been away for ten days I was very happy to see both Riley and Black Duck again.
I think I will always be a backpacker of heart, romanticizing the idea of being a snail with a house on the back. But I have accidently become a Sailor and there is no way around it: its awesome!

Reflecting on my trip to Jakarta a few things stand out to me. First of all, the continuous kindness of people. The openness which I, as a complete stranger, am constantly met with, never ceases to amaze me. And I feel utterly inspired to one day, when I am home, to adapt such good culture of hospitable to guests of my country.

“what I am is normal in my culture”

Secondly, it stood out to me, that the experience I had traveling, was this time entirely different. And I know that it was largely due to the fact that I was a woman traveling alone in a place where that is quite unusual.  

I very rarely think much about my own gender and what role it might play in how I live my life. On the water it matters not what you are, or who you identify with, only that you work hard enough to be at least an adequate seaman and a good partner for those that you sail with. And so I usually focus on that.

Yet on this journey I got to experience a little of what it might mean to be a woman in Indonesia. For even as a foreigner, my travels, my aloneness and my role in family or lack of it, was questioned so many times that I found my answer becoming a mantra: “What I am is normal in my culture. What I am is normal in my culture” and here I remembered again the good of belonging to a culture where I am not at all restricted because of my gender in what I want to do, except for of course in the obvious labors such as peeing over the rail of the boat.

On this trip I realized that I have been stupid for forgetting home. For I would never have had the opportunity to enjoy the world as much as I have, had it not been for home.
And as I had reminisced on a canola field on the train to Jakarta, it was a funny coincidence when my mother, only a couple of days later, sent me a picture of one.
It was just as brilliantly yellow as I remembered!

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