I had almost decided no tot write this post, because the past week has been one of the happiest of my life, but more on that in the next post… The following I wrote on the 26 hour journey last week from Karimunjawa to Bali and it wasn’t easy:
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you, it should change you. It makes marks on your memory, on you consciousness, on your heart and on your body. you take something with you, hopefully you leave something good behind.” ~ Antony Bourdain
The pretty pictures are really only a fraction of the story, the majority of travelling isn’t very photogenic; being exhausted, drenched in sweat, and completely confused! I’m sat on a bus which I think/hope is taking me to Bali, but who knows, so far today I’ve had a 2 hour boat ride, a much longer walk than anticipated from the harbour to bus terminal, where I tried to ascertain the essential information about this bus from a grotty hole-in-the-wall ticket office. After about 15 minutes of baffling communication, I just about worked out that the bus I needed had already left but they would wait for me if we went NOW! So me and my 2 bags piled onto the the back of a scooter and was driven furiously across town. I finally bought the bus ticket which was a lot more than I expected but there was no time to even try negotiating. My large rucksack was taken off me and I was hurried onto the bus. My hopes of buying some food and drink for the 20 hour ride disappeared. I guess I would have to survive off the 10 remaining Tic Tacs and half a bottle of water in my bag. So me, very sweaty, tired, confused and hair sticking up all over my head gets on to the bus and true to form all the Indonesians on the bus take out their phones and take pictures of me! After the excitement of a single white girl on the bus died down we exchange a few words. Sufficient conversation to discover that we can’t speak a common language! Kindness, however, is not an act that can be hindered by a language barrier and through a mix of Indonesian, english and sign language, they offered me a cup of coffee. It turned out that the price of the ticket paid for some rather comfy seats and a couple of nice meals, no need for the tic tacs after all! And I managed to deduce that we were definitely heading towards Bali! I believed the tricky part was over… The following morning, after not a lot of sleep and a bumpy ferry ride we pulled into a bus terminal still a long way off Denpasar, where I thought my ticket was taking me to. Here they took my bag and told me to get off. Very puzzled, I very quickly pulled on my boots, shoved stuff into my bag, and did the “passport, phone, money” check! When I arrived at the bus door, I saw the vultures, a whole flock of them, waiting for me, ready to pounce on their prey. Taxi drivers, hungry for their next tourist. They shouted at me, trying to grab my bag, my arm, asking me where I was going – a little difficult when I had no idea where I was! I tried to ask the bus driver, where we were and why we weren’t in Denpasar, he either didn’t understand or found the whole situation hilarious, because he just kept smiling and insisting that I must get off here. All the while these vultures continue to hunt for their food, offering prices to various destinations I’ve never heard of. I did my best to get them to shut up, I would very much have liked to say something else to them but I don’t know those words in Indonesian! However, this isn’t my first rodeo, and if they thought they could prey on the blonde, white, single girl, then they can think again. I knew I needed to get out of there, but they weren’t giving up easily! I exited the terminal and the chase began, they followed me, still shouting out their prices surrounded by every lie in the book. Carrying 20kg of baggage was somewhat limiting my walking pace so I ducked into a mini market and hid for a while. Most of them gave up the hunt, but not all, so I had to elbow my way out saying “no” in as many languages I could remember. I just kept walking, not looking back and turned down the first side street I found. Finally able to breathe I ordered a grab car (like uber) for about a 10th of the price the vultures were offering… I made it eventually, we got stuck in traffic but we made it. Arrived at my hostel and collapsed by the pool for the afternoon, ordered some food to be delivered and didn’t move until I took myself to bed in the evening. It was a crazy day, a challenging day but I got through it, became stronger and I will be wiser for the next challenge to come at me!
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