The Job Cancellation and Rerouting Has Resulted in My Becoming a Global Circumnavigator…..

……something I always thought would be neat to do. I left Houston flying west and arrived back in Houston from the east—literally flying around the globe. I guess the world really is round after all—frankly, I’d always thought that was just another conspiracy theory. The first person thought to ever have circled the earth was Magellan so I guess this puts me in pretty good company.

When the job wrapped up Wednesday in Jakarta, I flew to Dubai, United Arab Emirates for a short layover then non-stop to Houston. I really liked this itinerary because, besides letting me do a “circle” around the globe, it only resulted in one layover although it does include one of those “monster” 16 ½-hour non-stop flights. Since I’m flying business class, I’d rather be in a reclining airplane seat that hanging around in airport lounges at Singapore and Los Angles International dealing with airport security and trying to catch a connection to Houston.

The one layover at Dubai was only 3 ½ hours and was my first visit in the Middle East. Egypt was very “Arab” but is considered North Africa so, although I never left the airport here, I did get at least get a “feel” for the area since the airport was full of Arabs in the white robes with head scarves, the airport shops were full of Middle Eastern souvenir goods, and the business lounge had a buffet bar full of foods I couldn’t recognize or probably even pronounce. There were a considerable number of women in full burkas—the very conservative full-body coverings with only a very narrow slit (maybe an inch) for them to look through. There were even some ultra-conservative ones that had a thin lacy film between the eyes and the opening. I agree that it really is demeaning to women and I’m glad we haven’t had to confront that problem at home like so many European countries are forced to do right now.

As you would expect from an oil-rich nation, the airport is like something out of the future. The arrival area is huge and looks like the lobby of a 5-star hotel with huge chrome pillars and everything is covered in beautiful marble and granite. Near the customs entrance point, there is a three-story waterfall with fountains. The restrooms are all chrome and marble and the most immaculate I’ve ever seen anywhere with classical music as the background. Sure beats the Nairobi dump they call an airport or, for that matter, Hobby Airport in Houston.

All in all, this was a good job. I was disappointed at the Philippines part being cancelled, but it ended up with me spending eleven days in Jakarta and only working six. I enjoyed the Jakarta city tour and the overnight trip to Bali—so this has be considered “one of the good jobs.”

Maybe Not Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, But Bali was Pretty Cool Nevertheless…..

…..and made for a nice break from Jakarta for the weekend. I checked out of the hotel at 4:30 am on Saturday, caught a taxi to the airport, and flew to Bali arriving around 10:30 am. When I arrived at the Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, the Bali prepaid hotel pickup service didn’t meet me so I caught a taxi.
The hotel is in an area south of the main city in an area called Nusa Dua—basically a huge resort designed around a golf course and facing the beach with the Indian Ocean. Since I arrived early, I checked my backpack and walked around the area for a couple of hours until my room was ready. The gardens and swimming pool were fantastic and the surrounding areas were all designed with the old Hindu “temple” motif—very effective yet very Disneyesque.

There are a lot of Australians here right now. It’s approaching the middle of their winter and Bali is only commuter-flight distance from Darwin so Bali is essential the American equivalent of Cancun.
When I did check in, I questioned the prepaid charge for the hotel shuttle and they gave me an upgrade to a deluxe suite for the inconvenience. Too bad I’m here for just one night since this is basically a two-bedroom suite with a kitchenette and not one, but two, outdoor balconies facing the pool area.
Amazingly, I couldn’t find a tour for Sunday. Later, I saw that the mountain roads are so narrow and winding that buses really aren’t used that much—most touring is by private vehicle. I approached the concierge about arranging a private tour and he did one of those “don’t tell the front desk, but I’ve got a buddy who’ll give you a really good deal for just $90.” I wasn’t comfortable with it but signed up tentatively then took a walk and ended up in a small town outside the gates of the resort. It was a typical tourist village—lots of crafts shops and night clubs catering to tourists. I happened across an Australian couple and asked them if they had any luck with private tours and they gave me a business card of a guy they had used the day before so when I got back to the hotel, I called him and got the same tour for half the price the concierge.
The Sunday tour arranged, I settled in and went to the beach area. Again, it was very much like Cancun—white sand, blue skies and absolutely beautiful blue/green water. I had brought an aerosol sun block with me to Indonesia but was just traveling to Bali with a backpack and knew they wouldn’t let me carry in on board so I left it behind and this was the kind of place to get really burned badly so I played it conservatively. I swam a little, walked the beach taking pictures, and spent some time just unlaxing . Surprisingly, I had arrived before the beach crowd and the area reserved for my hotel was almost isolated.

While there, I ordered a pizza and ate at the main cabana and this was my view from the table.

I caught the shuttle back to the hotel and just spent the rest of the afternoon taking it easy. Frankly, the hotel was really nice, but it was a family-oriented place and most of the facilities were geared for families and children—playgrounds and stuff—and even the pool was overrun by kids. I did the “supper by the beach” thing then retired for the night and slept really well.
Next morning I slept in, ate breakfast, checked out and met my “personal tour” guide. He spoke fair English, had a nice clean Toyota car, and turned out to be a pretty good guide.
We headed basically north from the airport city of Denpasar and wound our way through a series of villages all specializing in crafts of some sort—silversmith, wood carving, stone carving, jewelry, etc.). If you’ve ever done “day tours,” you know they always run you by some preferred craft places and the vendors really pressure you to buy something. This really wasn’t that bad—I checked out the silversmith place in a village named Celuk and while the jewelry was beautiful and the demonstrations were interesting, and I didn’t buy anything.

I did, however, spend some time in the wood carving market and made a couple of purchases at a village named Mas.

From here, we started climbing up the mountain and the weather started turning uglier. We stopped at one point and I took some pictures of some layered rice fields carved into the side of the mountain. This is one vestige of the so-called “green revolution” of the 1960s when scientists developed new strains of rice that were going to eliminate world hunger. Texas A&M was in the forefront of the research and development and they did succeed in developing some strains of rice that were resistant to disease and that would grow in areas previously inaccessible. The only problem was that the rice produced did not stick together and Asians love “sticky” rice. It’s the only way they can eat it with chopsticks. Anyway, the local university here is still working on the project and they have succeeded in a method of growing rice fields on the side of the mountain on terraces.

At this point on the trip, the weather was turning ugly. We started getting heavy rain and fog was beginning to reduce visibility. We drove up toward the Kintamani volcano and Lake Batu but the cloud cover and fog made seeing anything basically impossible.

We did stop for lunch at a nice restaurant with an outside terrace facing the volcano but you can see in the picture that at this point visibility was at zero.

Although Indonesia is the most-populated Muslim country in the world, the southern island of Bali has maintained its Hindu roots and this was my first exposure to a truly Hindu culture. Temples are everywhere—every home has a temple inside and small temples are located seemingly on every street corner. While there seems to be free practice of religion on Bali, it has not been without problems—several years ago, Al Qaeda committed the Bali nightclub bombings that killed over 200 Australians.
Near Kintamani volcano today, however, all was peaceful except the weather and we visited the Bangli Temple in the pouring rain. As a visitor, I had to rent a sari, headscarf and silk belt which made me feel like an idiot, but it got me in the front door.

The Village Idiot

(probably the only photo you will ever see of me in a skirt)

According to my guide, the temple is over 600 years old and you could tell it had that very aged feel about it. In many ways, it reminded me of a smaller version of Angkor Wat in Cambodia when I visited a few years ago. Despite the pouring rain, it was an interesting side trip and now I can add a Hindu temple to my growing list of religious worship places I’ve visited.

Continuing back south, the weather cleared almost immediately but that’s the nature of mountains—I had the same thing happen to me on a volcano tour in Nicaragua once. We stopped at the village of Sangeh and visited the Pura Bukit Sari which I found really interesting. This temple is also very old, but it is located in the heart of the sacred monkey forest and this temple is literally buried under a jungle canopy and inhabited by literally hundreds of monkeys.

The trees are towering canopy trees with long, hanging vines everywhere. This, again, reminded me of Angkor Wat and the Laura Croft movie.

I spent about an hour wandering around the temple grounds and trails with monkeys virtually everywhere and even underfoot. I came across this old grandfather just taking it easy.

Despite numerous signs not to feed or touch the monkeys, somebody always has to try to be the Animal Planet expert and this time is was an Australian girl who gave one some food only to have it jump on her back. Now, having violated all the rules, she goes screaming down the sidewalk yelling for help. More fun than a barrel of monkeys.....

After that, we drove back to Denpasar and the airport and I caught a flight back to Jakarta. Bali was interesting but compared to other overnight trips I’ve made to places like Luxor, Xian and Cambodia, it was probably the least interesting and maybe the most expensive. I don’t know if I’d do it again but I’m certainly not sorry I did this trip—it’s another destination on the never-ending road that I’ve been privileged to stop at……

My Trip to the Philippines Has Been Cancelled Due to Security Reasons.....

.....so I'll be heading back on Wednesday May 11th--or at least that's the plan although I haven't had any ticket changes or confirmations yet. This is a first for me and I hate missing out on the trip but evidently there are some labor issues including violent strikes and it's definitely cancelled.
On a more positive note, I'm headed south to Bali tomorrow morning (Saturday) and will stay overnight and return Sunday. Bali is advertised as "the last paradise" and is supposed to be spectacularly beautiful. We'll see.....and there will be pictures, of course......

Finished My First Two-Day Refresher Program…..

…..and all went well as it is very organized here. Jakarta is a very large city population-wise—estimates run from 13 to 15 million people and the area I’m working in is much like a tropical jungle. The wide boulevard streets are nearly covered with a canopy of foliage and there are palm and banana trees everywhere. There are definitely areas of slums here—the gap between “haves” and “have nots” is very pronounced here but the area I’m training is affluent. The photo of the three buildings in the distance is an apartment complex in a tropical landscape with mountains in the background so you can see the mixture of modern and traditional is everywhere.
I do one more two-day program then have the weekend off. I’ll do something—just not sure what yet. A trip to Bali seems to be very difficult to set up and very expensive so I may not do that but would like to arrange something over the two days.
The Philippine job is still very confused. There is evidently a labor strike going on that affects the travel of some of the employees to the location in the south, so right now I’m scheduled to fly into Manila on Wednesday the 11^th and co

mmute to a rural location from the airport hotel for two days before flying down to Luzon and the community to Tiwi to conduct two more programs. I will probably have a Sunday off in the middle of all this and Tiwi appears to be kind of interesting because of all the geothermal activity going on there. We’ll see…..

On A Day Off, I Took a Tour of Jakarta....

On Sunday I Visited a Sixteenth Century Town Hall and Drawbridge, Old China Town, and the National Museum……on a local tour that included a young couple from Singapore. Actually, she was originally from Australia and he was from London but they’ve been living in Singapore for several years now. Nice people and fun to do a one-day tour with. Funny thing, but she was blonde and the local children just flocked to her wanting their pictures taken with her—to the point it was sometimes difficult for us to continue the tour.

Today was May 1^st, or May Day, and I’ve noticed that this holiday is much more important in other countries than it is in the U.S. Here, it is considered a major holiday and when you factor in the different political parties, including the old Communist Party, the parades and celebrations are very political and not without tension at times.

The National Museum building is a magnificent old Dutch colonial structure built in 1862 and houses all kinds of ethnic Indonesian objects. As always, the day was hot and muggy, but surprisingly the old ceiling fans on the high ceilings kept the place pleasant.

Indonesia is a country of over 10,000 islands, obviously not all of them inhabited, but I really find Bali and am considering trying to book an overnight tour there next weekend.

While we were there, a really large group of police assembled in the street in front of us and I could kind of sense people in the museum were more than a little interested and even apprehensive.

Pretty soon we started hearing music, loud speakers, and chanting and a huge, really huge crowd of demonstrators started appearing. We were looking out the third story windows of the old colonial building and could see them several blocks away and even as they got closer, I never saw the end of the parade. They were protesting worker’s rights (it was May Day after all) and they were really loud. There was a large ornate metal fence in front of the museum, so people weren’t really scared, but more curious about what was going to happen when the marchers reached the police barricades in front.

When the two groups met in the street, the police basically moved aside and started escorting the group ahead where there was a big park. No violence, no confrontation, basically just a peaceful democratic political demonstration.

Our tour driver got us out a back way because the main street was closed and wound around through the maze of streets to the Old China Town district, called Glodok. I swear every city in the world has a China Town. This particular community is thought to have been founded around 1650 and is obviously very, very old. Today it is mostly a series of very narrow winding streets lined with street vendors and open-air food markets.

We did make a side trip into the Petak Sembilan Chinese temple dedicated to the Buddhist goddess of mercy, or forgiveness and is also thought to have been functioning at this site since 1650. I couldn’t stay inside long due to the heavy fog of incense but it was an interesting side trip.
From there we went to old public square in the Dutch section of the city for lunch. The Dutch influence is still very obvious here. Like Amsterdam, Jakarta has a series of canals running throughout the city, and in this area, called Old Batavia, the tall, narrow buildings along the canals really do look like Amsterdam in places. The Dutch called Jakarta “Batavia,” but after independence the name reverted back to the Bahasian language form.

We ate at the Hotel Batavia which was an interesting experience from the point of experiencing a really old, colonial structure in top condition—but not so much for the food. I had a prawn sandwich that was really overrated, overpriced and underwhelming but we were able to sit above the square below and watch the May Day celebrations below that included costumes, dancing and music. That part of the experience was really neat.

After lunch we walked across the square to the old Batavia city hall which today has been converted into the Fatahillah Museum and features mostly old, colonial furniture with quite a few really negative digs at the influence of the Dutch. As you walk through the front doors, there are three Indonesian mannequins hanging by their necks while a Dutch soldier looks on. I have always heard that the Dutch were particularly cruel colonial administrators and the feeling here is pretty much resentment toward them today. I didn’t notice it as much in Pekanbaru last year, but it is pretty obvious here.

Again, the Australian girl got mobbed by the kids for picture taking. I took one photo of a particularly small girl in a hajib.

I had particularly wanted to visit this museum because of a famous cannon here—called Si Jagar (I know, I’m weird because I like old cannons) but this was a really large one and very ornate.

We wrapped the tour up with a drive along the Sunda Kelapa Harbor—over 500 years old and, again, another vestige of the old Dutch seafaring heritage. Since it was May Day, all the ships were in harbor and it was really a beautiful sight since they are all large wooden ships that provide water taxis and supply goods to the many islands in Indonesia. Each island served has a color designated and the boats that go there are painted that color so what we had in the harbor yesterday was a “calendar-type” setting of beautiful old wooden boats in a veritable cornucopia of color (I had to squeeze that phrase in).

All in all, it was an interesting day. Jakarta has about 13 million people living here so it is a typical Asian overcrowded city but it does have a lot of culture and history. Today is Monday and I’m technically off but may or may not have to meet my translator this morning to set up the training. Since I worked with him four weeks last summer, it’s really not necessary that we meet but I haven’t received word from anybody since I’ve been here so I’ll go do down to the lobby later in case he does come in

Because the Internet is so expensive, I may not post again until later in the week but I am very seriously considering an overnight trip to Bali next weekend……