On the Road to Sumatra

Today was the day to practice our presentations and travel to the island of Sumatra.  We were also treated to lunch with some of the CI-Indonesia staff, who regularly eat a communal lunch together.  It consisted of some yummy curries and rice on a covered patio.  Again, this office is growing on me…

It was great to practice going through my slides with my colleagues, who were able to give constructive feedback from their own training experience.  I’m the first to admit my background isn’t in instructional education, so all advice was much-needed!

We began our road trip to Sumatra early in the afternoon, and I was excited to see more of Indonesia.  They had given us the option of flying, but we deliberately chose the longer driving option to see the countryside and a glimpse of Krakatau from the car ferry. Unfortunately, what we saw was Jakarta’s traffic, and when we missed an exit we were forced to drive a while back into Jakarta before taking another highway to continue on our way—apparently U-turns aren’t really an option?  Thus, by the time we were out in the Indonesian countryside it was already dark (welcome to the tropics, where it’s always dark at 6 PM).  Still, what we saw on the darkened highways of Java was fascinating.  There was some road construction, and just to make sure you didn’t miss the traffic cones they strung Christmas lights between them.  Festive, but somewhat unnecessary. The real show to watch was the hitchhiking children.  A soccer match ended and the fans were using the freeway to get home.  The trucks were going so slowly that they were able to climb up on the back, on top, and even on the front fenders and ride to their exit.  Erma was just as horrified as we were to see how precarious they looked. Along the way we stopped for gas and I picked up dinner from a restaurant at the rest stop.  By this time I knew that “Nasi” was rice, and “Asam” was chicken, but I was so grateful for pictures!  It turned out to be a delicious meal that I ate on the ferry.  Another interesting thing about rest stops here:  they include a prayer area for Muslims.  Just the bare minimum (an area to wash and something to indicate the direction to Mecca), but it was a reminder of how much the faith pervades their everyday life and national culture.

At last we arrived at the ferry and were so lucky to be one of the last cars on the ship, as it meant we wouldn’t have to wait and would be some of the earliest off once we reached Sumatra.  The ferry had several stories for cars and trucks, and as soon as the engine was turned off I was ready to start exploring.  The upper deck included a restaurant and an enclosed sitting area where passengers could doze off, but some of the passengers were a little too friendly so I returned to the deck where we’d parked and looked out from there.  As we pulled away from Java you could see the lights of the oil refineries and the faint outlines of volcanoes.  During our voyage we kept scanning the horizon, searching for Krakatau.  Eventually we saw some peaks that Erma said was the remnants of Krakatau, and I choose to believe her.  Despite the late hour we weren’t alone on the water. There were a few other ferries, and many shipping vessels on their way to or from Asia and Australia.  Apparently they have their own pirate problems here because it’s such an important shipping route.

As we got closer to Sumatra we saw a giant white building on a hill. My first thought was that it stood out like a Mormon temple, but we had fun guessing what it could possibly be that was so large and so well-lit.  We later found out it was the “Durian building”, and that most didn’t care for the architecture.  For some reason I thought that once we got off the ferry we were almost there.  Not so!  We still had a good ways to go on their narrow, winding roads and clearly everyone else was in a hurry to reach their destination.   I thought the driving in Jakarta was crazy, but now I was seeing what happens when you take away the center median.  Trucks would race down the road with their turn signals on, just to warn you that they could change lanes into oncoming traffic at any moment.  I was sleepy, but this did a good job of keeping me awake.  We eventually arrived in the town, and thank goodness there were late-night street vendors we could ask for directions.

At long last, we arrived at our accommodations:  the guest faculty building at UNILA University.  The rooms were connected by a lovely outdoor hallway, and after 11 hours on the road I couldn’t wait to take a hot shower before bed.  Imagine my reaction when I was greeted by this:

There are few things I enjoy in this life as much as a long, hot shower, so I just had to laugh when I saw that I’d be giving myself bucket baths in the wishing well all week.  Little was I to guess how I’d long for that just a few days later.