Seven
Malaysia, Singapore: Super Sidewalks
After three months in Thailand, what a relief to be in a country that uses the Roman Alphabet - though having made the effort to learn less than a dozen words of Thai I could hardly complain. Malaysia then makes it even easier by adopting English words and sneaking them into their language, i.e., teksi (taxi), bas sekolah (school bus), restoran (restaurant), oren (orange), ais krim (ice cream), kopi (coffee), feysen (fashion), etc.. I shouldn't sound so smug, they've merely phoneticized the English sounds for use in their language. Then to make a plural, for instance, of buku cek (check book) it becomes buku-buku cek or if you're lazy - not accepted grammar - buku2 cek.
Besides almost everybody speaks English anyway and they sometimes use it among themselves. The population is roughly 65% Malay, 25% Chinese and 10% Indian - mostly Tamils from the southern tip of India. Parents can choose to have their primary school children taught in Malay, Chinese, Tamil or English, though English is being phased out as a first language. Regardless, all children learn it and Malay every day so that those attending Chinese or Tamil school are learning all three.
The phasing out of English as the primary language in secondary school and college in favor of Malay is creating some problems. Not only is the availability of texts, especially in the sciences, etc., somewhat limited, but many instructors received their own educations in English speaking countries so instruction often happens thus - it's against the rules - even when the texts are in Malay. A high schooler who is studying science told me that if she doesn't know the proper Malay word she sticks an English word in its place and usually gets away with it.
Malaysia is a Moslem country though Islam is strictly a part of the Malay culture and since not all Malays are religious it's only a bare majority of the populace as a whole who practice it. Still you can tell because: No Israeli tourists are allowed; it's flag otherwise identical to the US flag has the Moslem stars and crescent in the blue part; it has a very grand state mosque in the capital, Kuala Lumpur; and there is an outdoor movie sized video screen in a centrally located public square in the capital that shows a muezzin reciting prayers five times a day, though when I was there not many paid him much attention.
Finally, many women wear Moslem dress - but it's not that simple. There's always a head scarf but when the typical outfit, a dress down to their knees over pants down to their ankles, is replaced by a white silk pants suit and spike heels ... well the effect is just not the same. Besides their clothes are very colorful, nothing remotely like the heavy black robes of Iran or Saudi Arabia or once again Afghanistan now that fundamentalist Moslems have gained control.
But how could a strict dress code be enforced against Moslem women in the midst of free-spirited short-skirted Chinese women? It's Moslem, but it's also multireligious, multicultural and multiracial and an up and coming NIC (newly industrializing country). Kuala Lumpur is a clean, green, mostly modern, often beautiful city. In America there is no such thing as a pedestrian overpass that’s anything but the utmost in utilitarian. In K.L. at least one I came across qualifies as a work of art. It has a covered walkway, tall gothic arches over the struts and the entire thing is intricately cut out in Islamic style. Near the tourist information center old style light standards are fashioned of stained glass.
Their sidewalks are truly spectacular. They are built of concrete paving blocks that come in at least the eight different shapes or combination of shapes - some included three distinct blocks - that I counted in my five days wandering around the city. On top of that as many as four different colors on one walk can be seen arranged in many different patterns. While some patterns tended to reappear, many sidewalks were a combination of elements that made them unique.
But in spite of it’s modern look and massive traffic jams, it’s yet very exotic and/or third world; exhibited by the large numbers of motorbikes, the occasional shanty town, nonwestern dress, that signs are in five different languages - Arabic appears along with the basic four from its relationship to Islam - or that everyone's a different nonwhite color. Malaysia has to be one of the world's prime examples of differing peoples living in harmony, staying distinct while they relate and mingle freely, and prospering.
Moreover that prosperity is increasing it's diversity by drawing large numbers of immigrants. They've admitted large numbers of workers from neighboring countries to ease a labor shortage, but many more come illegally. Of the 450,000 people from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines who entered on two month tourist visas during a six month period in 1992 only 40,000 left on time, and that's in a population of only 18 million. Malaysia has one of the world's fastest growing economies, currently at 9%, and a per capita income of $2400 per year which, outside of Singapore, is the highest in the region. The year 2020 is their published goal for attaining developed status.
Back in the sixties there were serious disturbances between the mostly low income indigenous Malays and the Chinese who came in the last century, and as in most of Southeast Asia, wound up controlling most of the wealth. The result was large scale programs and the bestowal of special privileges for Malays (they pay lower interest on housing loans, for instance), to raise their standard of living. The country puts a lot of social capital into fostering harmony and substantial resources into social programs. Per capita income in Malaysia when calculated according to PPP or purchasing power parity, which measures what an income will purchase locally in place of the old method of simply converting local currency to dollars, is much higher than one would expect. Social welfare carries a high priority and it shows.
But it is not without its conflicts. One state, which is poor, rural and 95% Moslem is proposing a change to Islamic law - thieves get a hand cut off, adulterers get stoned to death. The prime minister surprised everyone by saying sure go ahead but make it apply only to Moslems. Notwithstanding the PM's conditions this created an uproar and a lot of unhappy non-Moslems, but fortunately it would not be so easy to implement since it requires constitutional change. It's mere mention as a possibility created immediate problems where it was proposed - almost all of the non-Moslem teachers asked for transfers. Many teach science or English and the state already has a shortage in those areas.
At first it was hard to imagine how they might recruit their stoners, but they already use caning to punish lesser offenses and, so I hear, dip them in acid to add a little extra bite. Police Department "volunteer" caners, in fact, receive hefty bonuses. And of course they kill you for trafficking in 15 grams of heroin or half pound of grass. One would assume that having large numbers of convicted traffickers on death row would chill out the scene, and it certainly has to some extent, but I was still offered controlled substances on the street on more than a couple of occasions in a relatively short time.
And height of ironies, Penang Island, whose principal city, Georgetown, is the country's #1 tourist destination and most important high-tech manufacturing center, is named for the betel nut, a mild euphoric drug which is used widely in rural parts of South and Southeast Asia. It's easy to spot the people who are really into it by their permanently red stained teeth and mouth. It gives a pleasant enough buzz right off but I just couldn't get past the taste. After about two seconds my mouth turned to cotton and that was the easy part, the only comparable taste sensation in my remembrance is peyote, though betel is far easier to tolerate - it's hard to imagine that anything one might voluntarily ingest could taste worse than peyote.
**********
In the space of two weeks I read two accounts of climbing Mt. Kinabalu and then saw the movie "Medicine Man" which has Sean Connery swinging through tropical rainforest treetops. It was inevitable therefore that I visit Kinabalu Park in Malaysia's Sabah state in the Northeast corner of the island of Borneo. Not only does it have the world's first recreational tropical rainforest canopy walk but also the "easily climbable" tallest mountain in SE Asia (at least, I was later to discover, between New Guinea and Burma) at 13,500 feet. After two days on the mountain, you take a couple of days for recovery at the hot springs where the canopy walk is located.
The walk is suspended from cables between large trees 100 feet above the forest floor. It would be impossible to fall, though one could jump, but there is a lot of flex in a 300 foot cable so it made my heart beat nonetheless. Access to sunlight actually makes for more life in the canopy than on the ground. There are whole plant micro systems, including mosses, epiphytes (plants that don't use soil) and dozens of other plants, growing near the treetops in the crotches of large branches. Philodendrons - the very kind I work so hard merely to keep alive back home - and other vines grow almost to the top. There were also many birds not easily seen from the ground. This area is heaven for birders and there were quite a few on the park’s trails.
The climb is only easy because it requires no special equipment or skills. There are steps wherever the trail would be muddy or difficult up to the 11,500 foot level where a rope is provided for the remaining climb up the moderately sloping rock face to the top. But still a 7,500 foot climb in five and a half miles brings its own challenges, like just breathing above 12,000 feet. The trail begins at 6000 feet in a montane oak forest. In addition to hundreds of other kinds of trees, including wild banana and rattan, a type of palm, there are 40 different oaks here.
Rise a little higher and you enter a mossy cloud forest where most of the park's 450 kinds of ferns appear. They range from the tiniest and daintiest, to tree ferns with 10 foot fronds growing off of 20 foot tall trunks. You might see a dozen different kinds of ferns in a square yard of trail cut. The trees and plants then get progressively smaller and more twisted and several types of carnivores appear at about 9000 feet. The carnivores are able to thrive on the thin soil and otherwise harsh conditions at the higher elevations because of the nutrients they derive from the bugs.
In addition to rafflesia, the world's largest flower which reaches three feet across, there are 26 kinds of rhododendron, dozens of begonias and 1500 different orchids amongst many other kinds of flowering plants growing in the park. It was June and unfortunately not flowering season though there will always be some flowers blooming here. Most orchids flower during our winter months and it was clear by their vast numbers at many places along the trail that they can put on a dazzling display.
The first day's climb which involves a 5000 foot rise in three and a half miles takes you to the 11,000 foot level where there are lodges for overnight stay. The buildings are substantial in spite of being called huts, but the shower and kitchen facilities are somewhat primitive. There is also a restaurant but everything was minimally palatable and twice the typical tab, so Mt. Kinabalu was the site of the only time I cooked a meal in almost two years - ramen noodle soup!
Some groups - there could be as many as 50 people a day on the trail - did the first leg in three to four hours, ours took seven and a half. What's the hurry? I was lucky to have two young guys in my group who were carrying large packs that were heavy enough, they were staying an extra day, to slow them down to my speed. Porters were available but guides were required, though only really necessary in case of emergency - ours barely spoke English. The second day’s climb to do the last 2500 feet begins at 3 AM. The mountain is tall enough to create its own climate and is clouded over by 9 AM most days. Besides the idea is to get to the top for sunrise.
The wind was howling through the scattered broken windows of our "hut", but the temperature was an unusually warm 50 degrees. It seems a bit insane to be climbing in the middle of the night, but it paid off. We were blessed with long clear panoramic views at sunrise though there were clouds above and clouds below. The last mile is on an immense granite massif but there are still a few scattered plants growing in the rock crevices all the way to the top. The granite consists of a composite material in which different parts have eroded at different rates so it has a rough surface that provides perfect traction for climbing even on steep grades, making the ropes that were provided rarely necessary. Meanwhile the wind was strong enough to create ice on the edges of little pools of water in spite of the warm temperatures.
But moon void of course was still working its nefarious magic. I had planned to wear two long sleeve shirts and several other layers only to discover when it was too late that one had disappeared - long sleeves are so seldom needed in Southeast Asia. My short term money calculations were way off and couldn't buy a warm shirt on the way to the mountain, then tried to rent a jacket but missed my connection. Five layers and my towel for a hood was nowhere enough to be able to relax and enjoy the summit. I was so weather-beaten and drained of energy, so wiped out, that even going downhill was a hard breathing chore. I was still shivering a half hour after returning to the hut and diving into my sleeping bag.
Looking back at the mountain as I headed towards town I could hardly believe I'd done it. Back home when friends would talk about climbing mountains, my response would be, "You can climb the mountains, I'll hike the level ground."
There are as many as 700 tree species in 25 acres of Malaysian rainforest compared to a total of 700 different trees in the entire North American continent. But on the other hand the old growth forests of America's Pacific Northwest contain as much as four times the biomass per acre as a tropical forest. Malaysia is one of the world's largest exporters of tropical lumber, and there are many clearcuts on the slopes of Mt. Kinabalu right up to the park boundary at about 6000 feet. In fairness there is also much land cleared for steep slope truck farming, this being a good place to grow cool weather crops such as cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower as well as banana, pineapple, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.
Malaysia's prime minister is an outspoken blaster of people who criticize them for their logging. After all, he says, how can you in America criticize us when 80% of Japan's log imports come from the Pacific Northwest? Besides we will agree to keep 50% of our land in forest (he didn't say old growth) which is a lot more than the US percentage.
We, of course, had a mighty weak moral foundation to stand when we criticized them while we continued to destroy our own forests with the kind of eagerness and abandon that only threatened eradication of important species could stop. Would a single old tree be left standing if the likes of Weyerhaeuser had their way? I had certainly harbored little hope that anything could stem the logger's avarice and was therefore amazed and tremendously relieved to hear while traveling that the perilous fate of the spotted owl had stymied the loggers’ chainsaws.
The Northwest may only have a handful of tree species but we discovered almost too late that one of them, the Yew, has cancer fighting properties in its bark. Eighty percent of our original stock of this beautiful tree has been cut and burned as trash in the process of clearcutting. If we can only now discover important medicinal properties in a narrow range of species, how many more important breakthroughs await humankind in a place that has many thousands of species, including some not even discovered yet?
This brings up one more important point. How
often have we environmentalists been told in effect that our efforts to
protect the forests will result in large numbers of Americans turning to
caves for domicile? Next time simply point the tree murderers to Thailand,
Philippines, China or India where wood houses are a thing of the past.
For decades now almost everything - 99% - has been built of concrete. Concrete
or brick houses may not be as cheap or as easy to build or even as good
intrinsically as wood ones but in the final analysis they lack none of
the essential requisites of good living.
*************
Singapore, an island city-state of three million people at the southern tip of the Malay peninsula, is a perfect example of a wealthy, benevolent, autocratic, technocratic and paternalistic government run amok. With a few notable exceptions they are brutally and systematically eliminating every building with any measure of age, charm, character or history. The inner city has been almost totally sanitized in the process of being complexed, plazaed, centered and mallified.
The country's attitude is aptly expressed in having a picture on it’s $10 bill of the type of high-rise public housing project that lost favor in the US decades ago, and having the great majority of its people living thusly. The populace is also being engineered for orderliness. Littering, spitting, chewing gum and not flushing public toilets all carry stiff fines, though forgetful flushers needn't always be concerned because some toilets are equipped with photocells for automatic operation.
Add all that to the most expensive beer in the region and drug laws equal to the world's harshest and the place just gave me the creeps. But give them credit, they work hard at racial harmony. I happened on an event in the city's waterfront park called "Community Day", subtitled "Many Races - One Nation", that featured ethnic arts. Singapore is 77% Chinese, the remainder Malay, Indian and Eurasian.
Much of their charm has been sacrificed to the construction of double wide streets, traffic management being somewhat of an obsession with them. Their traffic plan for downtown's busy hours restricts the kind of traffic that can enter and places a surcharge on taxi fares. They've also got one of the world's classiest subway systems - it's squeaky clean, stainless steel and marble, and totally air-conditioned, including the stations. Added up, traffic did not seem to be much of a problem considering the city's population, but one out of six people owns a car today and that number is expected to double in the foreseeable future so they are preparing a plan to spend $10 billion on an underground highway system - minimum impact freeways.
There is, in fact one redeeming facet of Singapore's urban fabric that goes beyond character and qualifies as urban art. Before arriving here I thought that Kuala Lumpur might have the world's greatest sidewalks but Singapore's are at least one level higher.
In Singapore, in contrast to K.L.’s concrete blocks, they are made of glazed brick or in certain cases fine cut stone. The bricks come in many colors and every sidewalk includes at least two. Moreover they are not content to always use simple patterns of parallel lines but frequently surprise you with diagonals, lightening bolts or curves. One prominent 10' wide sidewalk bordering an important park is made up of small square bricks in at least fifteen colors that move in a semi-random pattern from dark to light.
Now that I know what a sidewalk can look like I'll never be satisfied with standard American concrete slab dullsville.
Eight
Indonesia: Dining With Frogs
In my first half hour out and about at Lake Toba I was offered shroons (for the uninitiated, magic mushrooms) three times, but the fact that they must be legal - because they are freely available, including an occasional restaurant that advertises them openly - is certainly the least of Toba's magic. It is an oblong donut shaped lake near the northern end of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, measuring about 60 miles by 25 miles. Samosir, the island in the center is about 30 miles by 15 miles and for stat buffs it’s the largest island on an island in the world. The lake was formed out of an immense volcano in a manner similar to Crater Lake, Oregon - though it's far larger - with a ridge that rings the lake that takes a steep plunge into the clear water and goes as much as 1500 feet deep. It is only a couple of hundred miles from the equator but it's frequent rains and 3000 foot elevation make it mercifully cool compared to the Thai and Malaysian lowlands which I just left.
Many people think it's too touristed and there is in fact one small area that's starting to include upscale, for Indonesia, $25 a night rooms, but regardless you are never more than a few minutes walk from pigs running free and women threshing grain by hand. Besides as a first stop in a new country with zero language skills it's easier to stay on the beaten path. English can be iffy off the traveler's circuit in Indonesia. This is the kind of place where teach yourself English books are commonly riddled with grammatical errors.
The ridge that runs the length of the island rises up to 2400 feet above the lake. It takes a 2000 foot climb in less than two miles to get to a very funky little village, the home of Jenny's Guest House. She's short and stocky and all of her supplies, including beer and Coca-Cola in bottles, are transported up the trail on the top of her head. In Jenny's village you just shit anywhere, there's always a dog, chicken or pig to scarf it up. Hopefully you are finished before the pigs get a whiff of what's happening. Her rooms, minimal to say the least, are 50 cents a night, but as far as price goes probably nothing compares with Nias Island, a surfer's haven with 10' waves that lies off of Sumatra's west coast, which is reputed to have the world's cheapest rentals - 12 cents a night for a beach hut.
Lake Toba is home to the Batak people whose traditional houses are pretty close to fairy tale designs. I've always had a near obsession with building non-rectangular, including the desire to build a house with walls that slant outwards. Why be right (angled) when you can be obtuse or acute? Still I never would have imagined the shape of these houses. Not only do the walls slant outwards but the roof line is curved upwards rising to a peak at both ends. In addition to ascending about 4 feet above the logical ridge line the roof points extend outward to provide a 6 to 8 foot overhang. Look closely and you realize that the roof design precludes any flat planes and presents one with the impression of a grand soaring motion.
I can't really say if practicality was any part of the rationale for this ancient design but in a climate where it's hot almost every day the rising peaks tend to catch and funnel breezes through the many air spaces left in at the top of the walls. The large overhang serves to keep torrential rains out.
The fronts are often intricately carved and painted. The door is very short and requires stooping to enter and according to custom insures that visitors show respect for the owner. Most Batak houses are older but here is possibly a case in which tourist wealth is helping to preserve a tradition. The construction cost of a traditional house could easily be triple that of the equivalent strictly rectangular house. Most of the new tourist cabins are really not traditional - they simply put a Batak roof on a square cabin - but they do maintain a feeling which a poor people in a modern age could rarely afford.
********
Bukit Lawang village is the kind of place where you are not too surprised when a frog hops into your restaurant to join the dinner crowd, a big beautiful black moth alights onto your flowered shirt and hangs out for ten or twenty minutes, and then a bat flies through. Doors and windows in the tropics are pretty much limited to buildings that have air conditioning - unthinkable in Bukit Lawang - otherwise they are left open to whatever breezes might like to pass through. Even when it's located in a solid concrete building the typical indigenous restaurant does it's cooking outdoors in a portable kitchen. Some restaurants have menus, especially those that cater to the tourist trade, but most simply display out front the ingredients they have available. Language skills are rarely needed to rustle up a meal, you can almost always just point.
Every day another big weird-looking but non-threatening bug appeared. Tropical bugs actually turned out to be much less of a hassle than I had imagined, no more and maybe even less than the yellow jackets, biting flies, scorpions, etc. of the Pacific Northwest. I had expected an onslaught but in reality, except for those giant urban roaches, hardly noticed them. It's always rainy season here, though it does alternate between six months heavy rain and six light, and it's always lush, green and covered with vines.
Bukit Lawang sits on the Bohorok River which comes down clear, clean and fast from Gunung Leuser National Park, not far from Lake Toba. The clean part is actually a bit deceptive considering how many people wash themselves and their clothes in the river and then go on to shit in it. The women go through an elaborate procedure washing themselves and the clothes they are wearing while staying completely covered then proceed to drop their drawers to drop a load. In all fairness only some who wash also shit and they don't necessarily do it in the exact same spot and besides it all gets washed right down the river and doesn't smell or anything, right?
The big sport here aside from swimming is inner tubing down lots of easy whitewater. Nearby resort areas have hot springs and active volcanoes - one of which includes a 2000 foot climb of concrete steps; the ground is so slippery it would be a mess otherwise - and guided jungle treks among up to 10,000 foot peaks. The biggest draw in Bukit Lawang is an Orangutan Rehab Center. There are 10,000 Orangutans - "man of the forest" in the Indonesian language - in the wild, 8000 in Borneo and 2000 here in the park and vicinity in Northern Sumatra.
The center retrains for the wild those who have been raised in captivity by people who can no longer care for them, as well as those who are acquired by positively encouraging people to give them up. They are gentle, easy-going and complete pacifists and therefore it's very easy to pick up a little one and take it home, except then they get big. To ease the transition for those who have already been released they are fed twice a day and for a small fee we humans can come and watch.
They swung in through the trees half hour late for dinner which is considered a good sign. They are purposely fed a bland diet of only bananas and powdered milk to encourage them to look for natural food. Because nearly all of their time is spent in the trees they have no natural predators. Unlike gorillas and other primates they are very uncomfortable on the ground. Their only threat is the destruction of their habitat and in Sumatra almost the only uncut forests are in the parks.
Four adults came by for our show including
two females with little babies who were holding on to their moms for dear
life. Meanwhile on the trail heading back one youngster hung from a branch
only a few feet from us and watched with an intense and curious look as
we filed past. For the perfect final touch, we then spotted a dozen monkeys
flitting around a large tree. In the village where they are also found
the monkeys get playfully harassed by young guys throwing rocks at them.
*****************
Went to change money first thing in Indonesia, the clerk began counting out 10,000 rupiah notes. "Haven't you got anything bigger?" At 2000 to the dollar, even a hundred dollars can overwhelm a wallet pocket. Conveniently they just began printing a 20,000 rupiah note a few months previously. It sounds big to us, it sounds big and is big to them, which brings up an interesting digression. Back in safe old Portland, Oregon, USA, it would make me nervous to walk around with a hundred dollars in my pocket, whereas here I routinely carry around three to four hundred dollars, the equivalent of a year’s income for many Indonesians. But I am not totally unprepared.
Back in Thailand after my pack disappeared I searched the streets of Bangkok for a pair of pants with two rear pockets. Outside of a minimal selection at department store type places and except for jeans, left rear pockets just don't exist; don't ask me why. Now, many travelers have these strange protuberances sticking out from under their pants or shirts but I can't stand to wear floppy money or bulky butt bags, so I must have pockets. Besides, ever since the first time I lost my wallet as a teenager I realized that the first prerequisite for keeping tract of it was to always carry it in the same place and that place has always been my left rear pocket.
As a result I had custom pants made (for $25) with a button down left rear pocket for my wallet. But that's not really good enough for passport, visa card or big money so they also have a hidden, zippered, inside pocket for those. Finally, before I left Portland I bought an ordinary looking leather belt that does more than hold my pants up. It has a hidden inside zippered pocket with room for quite a few $100 bills and I was especially glad for it when I heard a story about a fellow who was robbed of everything except the $1000 in his money belt.
Hotben lurks around the tourist areas of Medan, the capital of Northern Sumatra province, looking to contact the outside world, practice his English and maybe solicit a little financial assistance. He provides information and a guided tour. He's 21, has two years of machinist's school but can't get a job. Indonesia is conspicuous for the number of men sitting around idly and for hordes of children - there is a family planning program, but it is only beginning to take hold. Hotben would make $25 a month as starting pay. His rent is $12.50 for a small, bare, single room and if he doesn't have it on the spot he's out. And there are ten kids in the family so he can't go home.
I asked him if he could score for me. He said his next door neighbor was in the business and quoted me a price that was about 1/3 the tourist area price, but he was afraid. Mushrooms are not a problem but one joint will get you two years. "But I thought he was your neighbor?" "The neighbor has police in the family but I don't." Everybody in Indonesia is afraid so it didn't seem worth pointing out that a dealer could hardly stay in business very long if his customers were getting busted by his policeman brother.
Walking a country highway after a waterfall trek, chief cop at a weigh station calls me over to practice his English and offer me a cup of tea I can't refuse. Several times a week he spends four hours going back and forth to Medan for English lessons and speaks quite well. He begins by saying they are the local equivalent of the California Highway Patrol, referenced by mentioning the TV show. He tells me that he earns 100,000 rupiahs ($50) a month - he would make more in an urban area - and was very impressed with my two million ($1000). People here are always incredulous when I tell them I am poor in my own country.
There were six of them, mostly just sitting around, one or two could have done the job. Aside from their official responsibility of weighing trucks they had also established an illicit bus toll booth. The fare collector of every bus would run in and drop off some small monies with no receipts exchanged. So they were able to supplement their meager incomes but it still probably didn't amount to much.
Abner is a teacher at a university in Medan, he's 37, married with five kids. He and his brother were hanging around my hotel one evening. After a short conversation they invited me to a tour of the city. I said I'd been around a few days and seen the city but how about a beer? Medan with two million people may be the third largest city in Indonesia, which now that the Soviet Union is no more is the world's fourth largest nation (190 million people) but it feels like "the" Cleveland in a nation of Clevelands. Even when it's trying hard it's still mighty funky. It's only landmark of note is it’s great mosque. It's a grand and beautiful old building and one of the largest in the country but they could use to upgrade its sound system. Only a hundred yards or so from my hotel and it literally blasted me (especially the first night) out of a sound sleep at 5:30 AM by prayers chanted way above distortion level.
The younger brother who never gave me his name is better at speaking English and plays me his language tape, "I am going to college in Colorado, where are you going to college?", as we head to a small restaurant for our beer. They both "Sir" me so much that I have to interrupt and explain that the only time people in America say sir is when they are trying to sell you something. " Just call me friend". Abner gets the message but his brother says that since I am fifteen years older than him Indonesian custom mandates that he call me sir and he proceeds to do so at least a hundred more times during the course of the evening.
The conversation goes to music, it's Saturday night and they offer to take me to a disco. Except as it turns out, it also has live music, and as I discover, all the patrons are men, all the women are on the payroll. Well at least I have no problem finding someone to dance with. We drink and talk and dance until closing at two.
The younger one then says the hotel is closed (it wasn't), they'll take me to Abner's house and return me to the hotel when it opens at 6 AM. Proposed action reinforced by Abner who says there are liable to be bad people hanging around the hotel in the early hours, it's too dangerous. That's OK, I say, I want to go to the hotel. I'll be glad to meet you for dinner or some other time. So of course here we are pulling up at Abner's house where his dutiful, bleary-eyed Indonesian wife and young teen daughter are waiting up for him. It's clear I am not getting home tonight. She is a school teacher and together they earn $400 a month which is enough to live in a nice, edge of the city row house in a gated enclave of university teachers.
He offers me a cup of coffee, I say no thanks
I can't drink coffee at 2 AM. She brings me a cup anyway, I drink some
anyway. Beer until two, coffee at 2:30, the room is hot and stuffy - my
room at the hotel has a fan - and I get woken up at 5:30, so as you can
imagine, I'm barely civil when asked if I slept well. They were concerned
for my safety. Indonesians are afraid, many consider me courageous for
traveling alone. They had talked of returning the next night and taking
me to a disco that had "Chinese girls with white skin" - people would often
point to their skin and say, "Indonesians have black skin, black skin no
good, white skin good" - but understandably didn't show.
***********
Mida is 42, she has a coffee shop at Bukit Lawang. It's off the beaten path in a patch of banana trees with no sign so she's not too busy. I didn't quite understand the absence of a sign, though of course none of the local residents would need one. Her big plan is to have the village's first disco. I asked her who she voted for, she said Suharto - he's been president for 25 years. A few days later she complained of how corrupt he is. "Then why'd you vote for him?" She said she is afraid, they have a way of knowing how people voted and those who complain about the government get handcuffed. She has a European friend who comes by every year or so and takes her traveling and would like the same of me. She also wants my body - no demands, no commitments - but after Eva I just couldn't do it.
Eva is one of the most dynamic women I've ever met. She's an unquenchable, unabashed fire breathing Leo, year of the Snake just like myself only two cycles down the line. She's independent. One night at the guest house she left the restaurant at 8 PM for a fifteen minute errand. On the way a friend who she'd just met the day before invited her to a wedding that evening. She didn't have the time or was too lazy, or didn't think it mattered enough to come back and let me know. She partied until four (she doesn't drink), crashed on the floor with the rest of the revelers and sauntered in at 10 AM. She's also desperate. She didn't tell me she was pregnant until after she asked me to marry her our first night together.
She spent seven months with a New Zealander and conceived as they broke up. She says she wants to kill herself, it's seriously frowned upon to have a baby in Indonesia without a husband. More realistically she'll take leave of her job and go to a small village where she can live on twenty dollars a month and nobody knows her. Eva had a baby at nineteen that her family is taking care of, but this is different, this one might have blue eyes or blond hair. Just traveling together she was taunted frequently for being with me, a big nose old man.
I knew at first glance that if the opportunity presented itself I'd be powerless to resist her. When we first met she was with a friend I had met earlier in Malaysia. He split, I missed my boat out of Indonesia and then magically bumped into her. But I'm in a traveling mode, what could I do for her? She's pregnant, my child rearing days are over. She'll follow me she says, but I couldn't afford to take her with me even if I thought she could do it, even if I thought I could handle a full time companion, even if she wasn't pregnant. ********** It's now two years later at the time of this writing. I wrote several times but her English is scanty and I know she hasn't got the confidence to write. There's no way I could forget her and no way I could get close to this part of the world again without trying to search her out, if only for the briefest of meetings. Will cosmic confluence work again?
Nine
Philippines: But in Another
Life
Land of cheap beer - San Miguel, the country’s biggest corporation - and rock and roll, if Mr. Donut keeps a hired gun and a generator out front then this must be the Philippines. Most everyone has a Spanish name - the country was named for a Spanish king - but only a few old timers can still speak the language. Rather most speak English, though not often amongst themselves. They use the Spanish name Filipinas as well as the English Philippines and on the southern island of Mindanao there are several pairs of states, some of which use north south directionals, the others do sul and del norte. Land of natural disasters, man made disasters and combos. Possibly the regions filthiest, most abused waterways - no mean feat - and one of the few places in this region where everybody including tourists consistently drinks tap water. Asia's only majority Christian nation whose chief religious personage is named Cardinal (Jaime) Sin, the Philippines is a nation of anomalies.
Recent elections were considered quiet because only 50 people died in partisan battles. Part of the credit has to go to President Cory Aquino's force of character having survived seven violent coup attempts and the country's mood to settle down, as well as recent legislation banning open carrying of handguns. Meanwhile some of this country's cops make L.A.'s look like friendly puppy dogs. The following two front-page-stories appeared in one day’s news. Three police indicted for "salvaging" (murdering) three teenage boys, one cop thought he overheard them plotting a robbery. Four teenage girls were found in a ditch - raped, tortured, stabbed and left for dead. Except one with seven knife wounds miraculously survived - she opened her eyes just as she was about to be injected with embalming fluid - to point the finger at six cops, one of whom suspected them of shoplifting.
And two weeks later two high ranking police officials were implicated in some of the country's frequent kidnappings. Many of the victims are wealthy Chinese residents and they often get murdered even after the ransom is paid and of course it's hard to go to the police when they may well also be the culprits. During my time there I was not affected by or heard of a crime against a non-resident, though I was frequently cautioned. Obviously, at least in the daytime, it helps to have a dozen security guards - three for each bank - stationed on every block.
A hundred and fifty kilowatt geothermal power station that's under construction won't be able to supply the grid when it's finished because 200 kilometers of high tension wire has disappeared. An official was quoted as saying that the workers couldn't be expected to have any idea what happened to 200 km of wire. One of the first things that Cory did upon taking office was to mothball an unfinished, unsafe nuke that was one of Marcos' pet projects and made a lot of Philippine contractors wealthy. She then reorganized the government and left energy without an advocate - she concedes it was a mistake. The country is heavily dependent on hydropower but it only rains six months a year and irrigation and waste treatment get first priority so every spring at the end of the dry season there is an energy crunch. Finally, add frequent breakdowns in aged, overworked and ill maintained combustion plants and blackouts were up to eight hours a day in most parts of the country.
It's the beginning of the rainy season and outages are down to two hours daily. It's totally unpredictable and there is always a chorus of ohs when it happens. The chorus was especially impressive when the lights went out in the cavernous Manila GPO. I was in it's far reaches and had to grope in the dark till my eyes adjusted. Then of course there are the small inconveniences like getting caught in the middle of an especially exciting paragraph or having the fan shut off when both temperature and humidity are hovering around 90.
I spent a night in Manila in a place that felt like the third degree of hell even with the fan going and is likely to qualify as the worst accommodation of the trip. It was tiny, with a ceiling of just over six feet and was unventilated except for four slats at the bottom of the door. It was also the worst creepy crawly with those giant roaches. I left at 8:30 AM to do an errand and knew I made a mistake when I remembered my shoulder bag was open with an apple in it. Upon returning at ten I surprised three of them busily munching the apple which had somehow been lifted out of the bag and moved three feet away.
Finally, the din and smoke from large and small generators does nothing for the ambiance at street level and of course it's hard to keep factories going without electricity. Power outages, disasters like Pinatubo, the closing of US bases and an uncompetitive, highly protected industrial base have put the economy in the doldrums in a region which has most of the world's fastest growing economies. And yet the Philippine peoples' knowledge of English and their reputation for loyalty, hard work and dependability have led to preferred status as guest workers in many other countries. Added to that, their desirability as wives for Western men and talent as entertainers have made people the country's most prominent export, and the money they send home the country's biggest foreign exchange earner.
Christian, educated, substantial European heritage,
early in Asia to cast off a tyrant, bloodlessly no less, and embrace democracy,
and too proud to countenance a US military presence in spite of major economic
benefits - and an economic basket case. Will they be late starters only
to surge ahead when they finally get their sea legs? Surprisingly, there
is a lot of public and private construction happening, quite a few help
wanted signs and doomsday predictions regarding the closing of US bases
turned out to be way overreacting. They have 50 companies bidding for the
use of all or part of the facilities.
*************
Bagio is the Philippines fourth largest city, pop. 200,000, and summer capital because it's up at 5000 feet and always cool and pleasant when Manila is sweltering. But summer here is March, April, May and this is July and rainy season and at Bagio's elevation it feels like cool, wet, windy, Oregon spring weather. Unfortunately only six days after getting severely chilled and resistance weakened on Mt. Kinabalu, I was needlessly and stupidly underdressed upon arrival in Bagio, caught a cold and spent the next week in bed. The first thing that came to mind was herbal tea but that's the last thing you'll find in Bagio. It took two days for someone to suggest honey and lemon - why didn't I think of that - and two more days for me to decide it wasn't worth trying to deal with it without drugs. No need to worry about a prescription here, just go to the drugstore and ask for a cold pill or antibiotics or anything and they'll sell you one or a hundred.
The drive to Bagio is a difficult one. The road has many hairpin turns and it's often narrow enough to require a full stop when buses meet. The only trees you see on the way, a small exaggeration, is Joyce Kilmer's poem serialized in signboards; (I'm paraphrasing) "Any fool can make a poem only God can make a tree". There are also many little signboards in Bagio decrying the cutting of trees but anymore, there are few trees in the Philippines to worry about.
Natural uncut forests are uncommon in this part of the world but nowhere else to date have I seen bare grass or brush covered mountains with only an occasional tree or clump of trees or landslide to break the pattern. They get 25 typhoons a year which must make it hard for the forests to regenerate on their own. Every year there are landslides and floods exacerbated by, if not directly caused by excessive, most often illegal, logging which drives thousands of people from their homes.
In addition to one such flood which drove 4000 people from their homes, in the month I was there they had two serious typhoon spawned tidal waves, one which wiped out 60 fishermen and another which destroyed a village of 38 people. And Pinatubo, largest volcanic eruption of the century, let loose a lahar flow which left 7000 people homeless. Of course it must be said that many rural Filipinos live in the flimsiest bamboo and straw pretexts of houses. And a final note in the man made disaster area, several farmers in the Bagio area were found to be using arsenic as a pesticide with the knowledge of agricultural officials.
Took a little walk as I began to recover and Robert pulls up to begin a conversation. He seems like a decent guy and I haven't had the opportunity to relate so we sit down for a cup of coffee. He's traveled some around Southeast Asia and says one of his sisters is about to go to the US to study. She and his mother would both like to meet me, talk, ask questions. On the way we meet up with a cousin and head for his house. He offers me a cup of tea and I spot some medicine - a bottle of J & B - and offer myself a shot. No sign of sister or mother.
After a few minutes of small talk he tells me that he works in a casino and he's looking for a partner to win some money in a private blackjack game. Seems like there are lots of Japanese and other gamblers who like to lose their money and I can make $2000 in an afternoon. Haven't I heard this one before? I try to head him off but he insists on seeing if I can learn his program. His hand signals for showing me the cards were almost identical to the ones used by Rico back in Thailand. Same rap about me being a good cover - can't use an Oriental, the sucker would suspect - and even the same story about working with a black American guy who got greedy and demanded 50% instead of 25%....Awesome.
He too had a female relative - this time a sister - who needed medical attention that very day and a loser who could be called over to part with his money in two hours. He was persistent in spite of my refusals so I told him about Rico back in Thailand, that he offered me $25,000 in a sitting, that I still wasn't interested, that I didn't feel well and had to go. "But you haven't met my sister?" "Maybe another time." He then asked me for 100 pesos ($4) to help towards the sister's (20,000 peso) operation. Fortunately I only had 50 pesos showing and figured that wasn't an unreasonable price to pay for a cup of tea and a shot of J & B. The cousin accompanied me out and offered to sell me a $2 fake gold ring for $200 - to raise money for the operation, of course. "Sorry but I only have barely enough money to travel with". Then he tried for an $80 loan with the ring as collateral. "Sorry".
The similarity of the two scams was uncanny. I mentioned my experience to a traveler friend who then related a story of an Australian guy he'd met who'd actually gone for a similar scam only to discover there was more collusion working against him than with him. Knowing the cards doesn’t stop them from going against you. He narrowly escaped being taken for a bundle of money and had to leave town quick. Is there a book somewhere with a chapter that describes in utmost detail how to bilk an unsuspecting tourist in a blackjack money scam? Did my "friends", 1500 miles apart, in two different countries, read it and study it to the point where they could repeat it almost verbatim? A year later back in Manila, I met a young guy who was eager, too eager, to have me meet his family. "This isn't one of those blackjack scams is it?" He left without a goodbye.
Really didn't get to enjoy Bagio but it was
time to spend a couple of weeks with the recuperative powers of sandy beaches
and warm salt water.
************
On the ferry boat to Puerta Gallera we were briefly entertained by group of dolphins - racing alongside, jumping out of the water. Puerta Gallera is on Mindoro Island just south of Luzon, the Philippines largest island and home of the capital Manila and an easy half day's journey from the big city. Along with the Island of Boracay it is one of the Philippines' primary resort beaches. Boracay has the country's nicest white sand beaches but it is a very small island and substantially given over to tourism. Mindoro on the other hand is large and largely undeveloped. It's mostly wild with 7000' peaks in the center and few paved roads outside a handful of small towns. The town of Puerta Gallera is very small - maybe only a thousand people - but it serves as transportation hub and market center for several local fishing villages, and has many tourist beaches which range from the disco and/or good time girl scene to the very peaceful and secluded.
Earling greets you as you leave the ferry, she's a recruiter for the White Beach Nipa Hut Bar and Restaurant. Nipa refers to thatch roof and straw mat walls but these huts are mostly wood and actually quite substantial. White Beach's ambiance is in between the disco and secluded except this is typhoon season and relatively quiet. I was disappointed; strong winds and heavy rain but no typhoon. Earling has a dazzling smile and a gruff sexy voice and a couple of cabins of her own - a bit of conflict of interest there - which I was invited to stay in after a few days at White Beach. They are a mile from town, an easy walk to get an afternoon paper, on a beach which, except for her cabins, is strictly a fishing village. She also has eight kids, six still at home. Her husband had no interest in family planning, then six years ago up and died of high blood pressure.
Luke and Jane, a young British couple who earn their keep and travel expenses with a juggling act were in the other cabin. They were pretty good, treating us to juggling of torches and five at a time, and attracted a horde of neighborhood kids, many of whom were well on their way to being accomplished jugglers during my two week stay.
Between Earling's and the beach, about 150', is a home for frogs which became a deafening chorus after a good rain - we had to yell to be heard across the dinner table. On the other side of the frog haven is a village boat construction company where a 30 footer and two smaller ones were in process. They build very narrow boats designed to make a clean low friction slice of the water and then add outriggers, usually bamboo, sometimes plastic, for stability. The outriggers gave even small boats command of choppy waters. The 30 footer would of course be motorized but most of the smaller boats were a combination of rowboat and sailboat.
Earling has had several offers from local men but she's not interested, they'd only boss her around, try to keep her locked up at home, probably want her to have more babies. As hip and forward thinking as the Philippines is in many ways it can also be very conservative. She can be married or celibate, there's nothing in between and with all those children's, parent's, relatives' and friend's eyes for enforcement she has to leave town for a little fun.
Sitting on the bus not twenty minutes after saying good-bye to Earling and Irma gets on. She walks by me, the bus is empty, she hesitates, walks by again then stops and asks if the seat next to me is taken. She's 35 and single - "Why be married only to be miserable?" She has two years of college and a responsible job, but is making plans to do a five year stint of factory work in Taiwan so she can save money, come back and open a business. She wants me to come and visit her. Irma you are very nice but your timing is way off, I just finished an intense experience with another woman and I'm leaving the country in a few days.
It's hard enough to carry on a relationship from across town let alone carry on one from across the ocean let alone carry on more than one, etc.. But how is it possible to resist? They are beautiful, sensual and exotic and often enough to sustain our interest are willing to grace us with fulfillment of our sexual fantasies. On the other hand, to them we are rich, handsome, enlightened and worldly, and often enough to make it worth the gamble, we fulfill their Cinderella fantasies. Of course we have the upper hand, they need us more than we need them. They are easily hurt, want marriage bad and often resort to begging.
We on the other hand are capable of making absolute fools of ourselves. In Thailand I met a close to retirement age professor from University of Arizona traveling with his new Filipina bride of close to voting age. We talked about traveling in China, he said he would really like to go there but for now his wife was getting a little homesick so they were heading back to the Philippines. Was he really going to introduce his barefoot child bride to his friends and colleagues back home in academia?
They get taken advantage of but the educated and/or independent woman in this part of the world has limited choices. Even the white man who is somewhat of a macho sonofabitch, who is here specifically to find a young, malleable and devoted brown skin girl, is likely to give her more respect and freedom than her local option. Though there are exceptions, like the story of the European guy who was far too weird for any European woman to be able to relate to him who took his Filipina bride home and kept her under lock and key, insanely jealous and absolutely certain, with good reason, that she'd run off at the first opportunity. And of course we're also known to purchase their services. While it is completely untrue to think that we are the creators of this industry - it's always been a part of their cultures - our wealth clearly intensifies it's impact.
The white man traveling in this part of the world is faced with severe tests of his moralities, social concepts and preconceived notions. The spirit might be willing to deliberate on the higher moral ground but the flesh could nonetheless remain weak. Current social attitudes and imperatives that govern relationships between the sexes in America can arguably be summed up in the phrases, "No sex is safe, no matter how many condoms you use", and "Celibacy is cool" - I think it's cold. Now… I'm considerably past the middle of my life and old enough to occasionally, justifiably ponder the end of this life and the beginning of the next. After seeming eternities of frustration and longing, admittedly alternated at times with wonderful and satisfying relationships, and realizing that my time for fully partaking and enjoying is likely more limited even then the numbers of my years, voluntary celibacy is inconceivable.
I have also felt for the longest time that marriage requires more compromises than I know how to make. Earling doesn't want to understand this but even if that weren't true I'd still not marry an uneducated village girl with six kids no matter how much I cherish our time together. Besides half my journey yet remains. But in another life could I just relax and enjoy the beach, the salt air, the endless warmth? Living it up here in my twilight years on minimal Social Security would hardly be an awful last resort.
For now, after five weeks, which is barely skimming the surface of a place like the Philippines, I'm moving on.