On Our Next-to-Last Night We Took Our Interpreters Out to Dinner…..And Then It's Pekanbaru to Jakarta to Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Houston.....

…..and again it was the Kayu Manus and again, it was Country and Western Night. The interpreters have been a great help for the past four weeks. They were hired from a private company and were, for the most part, very capable and helpful assistants for the training.

Today we got all three programs together for a group photograph. It’s been a pretty good four weeks and I’m not at all anxious to leave here. I’ve had better jobs but I’ve also had a lot, lot worse and Indonesia has been a good one.

Yesterday the Australian and I walked nearly two hours after work—down past the Grand Mosque and along some busy streets eventually to the Siak River. The river runs through Pekanbaru but isn’t really any commercial waterway. It is badly polluted and has some maritime shipping. People still fish in it and I imagine that fish ends up in the street vendor’s carts.

The people here are so friendly—always ready with a smile. I caught these three imps filching sugar packets in the sports lounge one afternoon. They really don’t look all that guilty.

Speaking of imps, we were warned about the alpha monkeys here on the compound and I did see a few the past four weeks but never up close. This photo was shot by the Australian on the golf course. Didn't get to see a Sumatra tiger though--elephants and monkeys but no tigers.

I may or not post again before I leave. Tomorrow is the last day and we fly out Friday morning.

Wednesday Was “Country and Western Night” at the Kayu Manis Restaurant……

…..and these guys gave it their best shot all evening. And they really weren’t all that bad. They were performing in the center of the restaurant which has open sides all around and most people were eating outside but could still hear the music. We were the only people sitting inside with the band and, as they inevitably do, the lead singer was asking where we were from, what we were doing in Pekanbaru and the usual light banter for restaurant bands. When I told the lead singer (not in the picture) that I was from Texas he got all excited. It appears he and I have a common interest in Texas music and he started singing Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker and when he asked for a request, I automatically suggested Willie Nelson and he broke into “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” I’m literally half-way around the world from Austin and this guy knows all the Texas musicians. Thursday night was “Latin Passion Night” but, unfortunately, we had to miss that one.

Saturday morning I did my daily walk early before it got too hot then went to one of the local malls with the other American trainer. I’m not really a “mall person” but I did get a head and shoulder massage which was ok but not nearly as good as in Thailand. Spent about an hour just walking around looking in the stores. I wear X-Large in most shirts and there’s not a lot of selection for that over here—lots of small and medium sizes.

It surprised me that a lot of people were wearing orange today—to support the Netherlands in their World Cup championship game with Spain. I was wondering about that and it kind of surprised me what with Indonesia being a former Dutch colony (Dutch West Indies) and the colonial/indigenous relationship was not very good in the old days. You really don’t see a lot of Dutch influence over here (as you do British legacy in Kenya) but they seem to be generally rooting for the Netherlands tomorrow night. This is a soccer-crazy country over here—I can’t believe how many people are really into the World Cup. Almost all the clothing stores have soccer themes and restaurants are offering World Cup specials. Personally, I don’t care for either the Dutch or Spanish but, just to get into the spirit, I bought a Netherlands T-shirt.

Sometimes a Picture Really Is Worth a Thousand Words......

Some Interesting Things About the Aryaduta Hotel Here in Pekanbaru…..

…..the hotel lists itself as a 4-star and it is with regards to restaurant, lobby, and facilities. The rooms are plain but clean and secure—but probably not 4-star. I’ve been really happy here and believe me; I’ve stayed in far, far worse hotels on these trips. The kitchen is good but we’ve pretty much ordered everything on the menu at least once and we still have two weeks left.

I have found it curious that the hotel elevator doesn’t have a fourth floor and finally asked someone on the elevator one day about it. He appeared to be Japanese and told me Asians are very superstitious about numbers and in Chinese, Korean and Japanese cultures the number “4” is synonymous with “death” therefore most elevators throughout Asia don’t list a fourth floor. He also told me that the number 4 is avoided in telephone numbers and license plates on cars. Japan, for example, has no telephone prefixes starting with “4” and many people will refuse a cell phone number that contains it at all. In some countries, if you are issued a license plate containing a “4” you are allowed to return and exchange it. In Vietnam, where cars are issued a plate that remains on the vehicle even after it’s sold or traded, some Vietnamese will refuse to take possession of a new car because of the plate—others have traded vehicles just to get another set of numbers on the plates.

What makes this even more complicated is that Asian buildings use the “British” method of labeling floors. In the US, the ground floor is the just that, and the next floor up is the first floor. But in Britain, the ground floor is listed as the first floor and then they count up. So here at the Aryaduta Hotel, I am staying three floors above the ground but, under the British system, I am on the fourth floor but the elevator lists it as the fifth floor since there is technically no “number 4” in the hotel. Since I have time on my hands, I went to the front desk and asked them exactly what floor I’m staying on and, without batting an eye, they told me that officially I am on floor five and “there are no problems.”

Other numbers have other connotations—the number “8” is generally considered lucky in Asia. Personally I find this interesting but not all that odd—I’ve stayed in American hotels that didn’t have a 13^th floor.

My room (#511 and no problem) has about a 12 foot ceiling and in one corner of the ceiling someone pasted an Arabic-looking decal. I later found out every room has one of them and they are actually arrows pointing the direction to Mecca. Since the vast majority of visitors to the hotel are Muslim, they can know which way to face when they pray in their rooms.

The restaurant and sports lounge sell beer and wine but there is no “bar” such as you would find at a lounge in the US. I haven’t seen advertisements for whiskey, rum or any other “hard” liquors anywhere over here. At the Argentina/Germany soccer game the other night the lounge was packed to standing room only and I really wasn’t aware of people drinking beer. That’s something you definitely wouldn’t see at the Richmond Arms in Houston.

They have a beautiful lagoon-type swimming pool here and the kids especially love it. There is also a walking/running path that winds around the tennis courts and through some trees and foliage. I’d guess it’s probably about a quarter-mile and I’ve been pretty good about using it for at least 45 minutes every day—even in the rain which happens at least a little bit every day. I really enjoy the freedom here.

Because of the climate, much of the dining is outdoor and since we’ve been here they’ve been constructing an overhead canopy over one area. The lack of safety standards here just astounds me and yesterday I shot a picture of a guy welding a steel beam wearing open-toe sandals and wearing dark sunglasses. No OSHA standards here…… The buildings here have an unusual emblem at the top of the roofs—nearly all the more traditional buildings have them. You see something similar in Thailand where the emblem has a Buddhist religious meaning but I’m told that here they have no special meaning—it’s just an old, old architectural style. Some of the newer emblems are made of plastic and others have lightening rods embedded in them. They’re usually painted yellow and often are perched over red trim. Yellow and red seem to be favorite colors over here. Just a few things I found interesting in the hotel here…..

Celebrated Independence Day with a July 3rd BBQ and a Game on TV…..On Sunday We Found a Quaint Little Restaurant on the Side of a Hill.....

…..Saturday nights are BBQ night here at the hotel and Saturday fell on July 3^rd so, what the heck, I celebrated a day early. BBQ over here means basically “grilled” but they do a pretty good job. You pick out the food you want grilled—everything from seafood to ribs—and the chef cooks it on the grill and brings it to you. They have about six different BBQ sauces—one that tastes like ours and five that are pepper-based and head-jerking spicy. The secret is to figure out which one is regular—kind of like Russian roulette. Not exactly Texas BBQ, but not bad either.

The game on TV was the Germany/Argentina World Cup match and the sports lounge was packed—standing room only. I think the Aussie and I were the only Westerners there and the crowd seemed about 50/50 for both sides. It was really a loud, raucous bunch with no trouble and a really good time.

We finished the first full week of work Friday and I had a pretty good group—as you can see in the photo, they weren’t averse to laughing it up for the camera. I have a really good interpreter (the one standing in the back) and he can literally translate into Indonesian as I speak which is a rare talent. I’m half-way through this job and it hasn’t been bad.

On one of my first blog posts after we got here, I questioned the distance to this restaurant with the directions of +/- one kilometer.

Well, it became a standing joke between the Australian and me: if we could actually find the place, we'd eat dinner there no matter how good or bad the food. Then, for some reason, the sign just disappeared one day.

We made a couple of walks down the road but didn't know how far to go and couldn't find it. He made it a personal project to track this place down and did Google searches, checked over Google maps, and on Saturday we set out to see if this place actually exists. It does, but +/- one kilometer is a long ways to walk. Using his Google maps we hiked probably close to an hour, made a couple of turns we weren't sure of, and darned if we didn't find it. It is the neatest little restaurant--built on the side of a hill in several sections in what I would call cabanas, or little rooms separated by hallways and stairs. It is really interesting and neat. The company that owns it also has a large resort in Bali so the place had that ambiance. We were hot and sweaty so we just looked around, checked out the menu and made reservations for Sunday evening. They also had a small art gallery with crafts and paintings and I bought some souvenirs--something I hadn't been able to find since we've been here.

Sunday--July 4th--we took a taxi back and ate supper. Really a nice place and good food. So, in the end, I celebrated the 4th of July with a New Zealand tenderloin steak.....