I started by waking up at 5:30 AM to watch the Bobcats play football at 6. In hindsight, this may have been a waste of my time and limited bandwidth, as those of you who watched the game are aware.
During the game, my friend Pak Habib came over. We watched the rest of the game together, and I taught him a little bit about football. The end of the game was disappointing, but fortunately, the real reason Pak Habib was here was to go swimming. I figured we would just swim in the hotel pool, but I was wrong.
Instead, Pak Habib took me to a big public pool at the military academy, which meant riding on the back of Pak Habib's motorcycle---these are the preferred mode of transportation here.. Fortunately, Pak Habib is a more cautious driver than many of the other motorcyclists in Indonesia.
The pool is located in what is in either a valley or a manmade depression. There are over 100 steps down to the side of the pool. He told me that the water in that pool is much better. I was also much deeper, and there was more room to swim. Pak Habib is a very good swimmer, because he is also a snorkeler and a SCUBA diver. I am not a very good swimmer, because I'm an American who always had a strong preference for land-based sports. Still, it was fun. Pak Habib said that I'm a good swimmer for someone who is not very good at swimming. I do not use my legs enough, though. Probably because they have given me lots of reasons not to trust them in the past. There was also an artificial fish pond at the pool, with some very large (and very outgoing) fish in it. Visitors are allowed to feed the fish.
Unlike the public pools I am used to, you do not have to worry about people stealing your things when you're at this pool. Apparently its location next to the military academy keeps folks in line. Or maybe Indonesian people just don't steal as much as Americans do.
After swimming, we ate a very early lunch of traditional Indonesian noodles and traditional Indonesian salad with peanut sauce. This was the first time in my life that I have ever eaten a salad that was spicy. I enjoyed it, though. This is far from the first time I have eaten noodles, but I enjoyed those, too. We also made a quick stop in the area for Pak Habib to buy chips. These chips were actually made from casava, grown and then fried by local organic farmers, and they are excellent. They're much more flavorful than the American potato chips I'm used to.
After a quick stop to discard some wet swimming gear, Pak Habib took me on another, even longer excursion hiking to a temple.
As I had previously alluded to, people in Indonesia often go to villages and farmland to go hiking, rather than the backcountry favored by Montanans. As I understand it, rice farming is extremely labor-intensive, but it's hard to deny that it's a very beautiful way to grow food.
It's very quiet out here, a feature that Pak Habib told me he especially enjoys. Mostly, I heard flowing water, birds, and the two of us talking. There was the occasional sound of motorcycles, but there is no place I've been in Indonesia that doesn't have that sound. At this point, I find it less intrusive, and more of a gentle reminder that I am indeed still in Indonesia.
It was not long before we reached a stone gate
and a stone stairway up to the temple grounds.
The temple itself is actually fairly small, one of thousands that dot the countryside in Indonesia.
It is an ancient Hindu temple. Pak Habib does not know when it was built. He told me that he suspects that the government knows but will not tell. I don't truly have enough experience with the Indonesian government to comment, so I will refrain from comment. What I do know from experience is that you can go inside the temple.
There's a small room inside for praying, which I did silently.
After I came back out, a rainstorm hit, so we stood under some small awnings nearby, within easy sight of the temple.
Then we hiked back down.
On the way back, we encountered some motorcrossers. That noise did not strike me as a gentle reminder of my location. It did look kinda fun, though. I guess Motorcross in Indonesia is a fair analogy to four-wheelers or snowmobiles in Yellowstone, in that way.
Pak Habib wanted to go home and take a nap, but there was still one more event planned for the day. That evening, he invited me to go to his friend's art gallery, where an exhibit was opening. It was photography, in varying degrees of abstraction. Some of the pieces were visually fascinating, and at times I was pretty sure I could see concepts at work, but I did not really figure out what they were. I do not understand art.
I did ask the artists a couple questions about the processes of making the pieces. I understand photography a little more than I understand art, and I figured that asking about how it was made was the best way of showing interest available to me. This opening also involved a dinner of "Soto," which is traditional Indonesian soup. This Soto was spicier than the Soto I had on my first night in Indonesia.
Next time: a traditional Javanese festival.
Some of my readers might recognize the title of this post as a song lyric. Some of my readers probably have taste, though.
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