Part Seventeen

The Komodo Diaries


The flight to Denpasar is over before I know it. My plan to take the first taxi whose driver doesn’t try to shout me down fizzles when EVERY taxi driver [and some guys just standing around, no taxi anywhere in sight] get a load of the Big White Walking Dollar Sign and bombard me with a hundred “friendly” offers. I wade through the mess and set out on foot.

Even though Alexandros warned me about the hike from the airport to the nearest hotels, etc. by the time I reach signs of civilization (and a string of eerily silent hotels whose attendants on duty glance up from their televisions long enough to wave me away. "Full!") I am both extremely hot and severely bothered.

In frustrating times like this, there’s something truly satisfying about stalking Indonesian streets at night with a surly expression and a big bottle of Bintang. Consuming alcohol in public might be less of an affront to Balinese culture than Javanese, but it still feels really good.

When You Visit Denpasar: Be sure to check out the fumes welling up from the cracked sidewalk. Their odor specialists have succeeded in blending the unmistakable stench of human feces with the unforgettable reek of sulfur. The results may surprise you!

Buildings on the main drag range from “semi-nice” to “crumbling”. [“Jesus, Denpasar...! At least Jogja had a major earthquake three years ago. What’s your excuse?”] I eventually find a cheap(ish) hotel for the night. The room is shabby, but the bed is comfortable and I prepare to wake up early, catch the local bus back to the airport, and book my flight to Labuanbajo.

The bed is too comfortable. And I fail to reset my [cell phone’s] clock to reflect the one-hour Java/Bali time difference. I sleep late.

I arrive to the airport at 10:20. The only flight(s) to Labuanbajo left at 10:00. Tomorrow’s flights are full. The next direct flight to Labuanbajo leaves in three days. Faced with the prospect of two more nights in this ugly pile, I promptly buy a ticket to Mataram. [I think: “Lombok is a step in the right direction!”]

In Mataram I learn that today’s Labuanbajo flights left in the morning, tomorrow’s are all either canceled or full, and the next direct flight is in three days. At this point a smarter man might take the hint, see a few days of Lombok, and take the ‘in three days’ flight. Instead, I investigate My Other Options for getting there:

Flying is out. A boat will take far too long. They haven’t perfected amphibious train technology here yet, which just leaves The Bus. Travel time to get across Lombok, take a ferry to Sumbawa, and get across Sumbawa is about 12 hours, I am told. From there it’s one more ferry to Labuanbajo (on Flores), where one must charter a boat to Komodo and Rinca. It sounds simple enough. I book it.

While the hotel room in Mataram is comfortable I can’t quite call it “clean”. Shortly after entering the room I detect the sound of tiny claws on the ultra-thin “wood” of the ceiling directly above the head/pillow area of the bed. Scritch-scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch. Further exhausted by the imagined ordeal of asking for another room, I check for possible points of entry –there are none, unless the rat wants to drop seven feet onto my face– and resolve to sleep with headphones on. The headphones become an even bigger necessity when I learn that the noise is NOT in fact a nest of tropical rats. Turns out it’s a new litter of mewling kittens!

The excitement of sleeping in a real bed [even if it is a lumpy hotel bed] continues. In the morning, as I’m checking out, I try and explain to the guy behind the desk about the kittens. My halting Indonesian is insufficient, so we walk back and I show him the sound. He regards me blankly. It’s strange to me, but he finds a nest of kittens scratching the ceiling and crying all night utterly unremarkable, unworthy of even a perfunctory shrug.

Mataram is a great city for signs. Not only do I spy a license plate that reads DR ROCK, but also a motorcycle repair shop called CAT OVEN and a restaurant advertised only by plain signs that read “SEA FOOD AROMA”.

We board the bus late in the afternoon. Lombok flies by and I chat with James and Hanna, a couple of nice British kids touring Asia. Soon we’re all huddled under jackets against the harsh air conditioning, desperately trying to sleep. 15 hours later, we stumble groggily out into the port at Sape. Rows of big trucks line the parking lot. The truck stop warung does not look promising.

It had been suggested to us that we would arrive at Sape around 7:00 AM and would board the 8:00 AM ferry to Labuanbajo. Our first clue that the tour company may not have given us ALL the details of the journey comes when the guy overseeing the bus ride collects our tickets and the bus disappears. Unsure how to proceed, I ask some of the old men with faces like wadded-up lunch meat selling overpriced water and snacks about the 8:00 ferry. They chuckle to one another. No, they tell me, the only ferry comes at 5:00 PM.

At this point it starts to look like the tour company in Mataram completely fucked us*. [WHY did I have to sleep for that extra hour in Bali??] I have never wanted a Round Table Pizza as much as I do right now. *Turns out they didn't. Oops!

The sun has reached full intensity by the time I venture out to explore the dusty main drag leading to the ferry stop, a depressing little slab of small-town Hell. I knew this kind of place must exist outside of movies but I never expected to find it in this part of the world. This photograph makes this place look about 1,000 times cooler than it actually is:

I mistakenly wander into a cool, clean warung and sit down at a table before realizing this place is the social nerve center for the town. The other patrons crowd around me to make their introductions and ask the same handful of questions that every Indonesian asks as a matter of course (Name, Rank, Country Of Origin, Marital Status, etc.). In a surreal moment, a group of local teachers enter in matching tracksuits to get a celebratory juice after a successful sporting event. [Later I will regret not asking what sport gets played so early on a Sunday morning. Or, I would regret it if I cared.] I drink my Coke and beat a hasty retreat.

Accounts vary, but I have either seven or eight hours more to wait until the ferry arrives. Somewhere in there I scrawl in my notes: “Best thank your God I’m not armed, folks. This town would look great with the bodies of every human I’ve seen here strewn across its streets.”

Nearly 2:00 PM. Three hours to go, approaching ‘crunch time’. I need to silence the incredulous part of my brain that keeps asking if the ferry ride could possibly REALLY take 8 hours. “Have you learned nothing on this trip?” I scoff at it, “Of course it could!” [Spoiler alert: The ferry ride doesn’t take 8 hours. It takes 8½!]

The Labuanbajo ferry arrives at 6:00 PM and finally departs a little before 8:00 PM. On the ferry I meet British Steve, an amiable bloke given to sneering terrible jokes. [My personal favorite was one I’d heard before. Q: “How long does it take for an English woman to have an orgasm?” A: “WHO FUCKING CARES?” A charming man.] I manage to sleep for about 30 minutes at a time folded around my backpack on the bench seat, when not staring blearily at the Indo HBO playing on the TV. While The Next Karate Kid is still an absolute turd, I’m pleased to report that Michael Ironsides chews more than enough scenery to make up for teenage Hillary Swank’s truculent horse-face.

Except for the ferry and the mosques, Labuanbajo seems to be asleep when we roll in at about 4:30 AM on May 4th. [For anyone keeping track of days, the answer is YES. All the bus action only got me there about 4 more hours than just waiting for the next flight would have. You shut up now!] James and Hanna hop another bus and I wander the streets with British Steve. We roust some hotel employees and get a room to grab a few more hours of sleep.

Labuanbajo is oriented like any coastal tourism town, with one main drag running parallel to the ocean. But there are many boats and the horizon is filled with distant islands. The people don’t hustle me for anything on sight. This place makes good on everything I imagined I would find in a country made up of 17,000 islands.

I walk around and make some inquiries about booking a boat to Komodo or Rinca (smaller island, closer than Komodo Island, also part of the park). I shy away from the package group tours and book a one-day trip to Rinca.

Later in the day British Steve and I have some lengthy conversations about world affairs over meals of tasty seafood (like the slab of tuna pictured above). As usual in chats like this, I listen politely while he pontificates and interject my two cents when called upon. Steve has some interesting theories about the human race – he’s traveling around the world to find a good place to ride out the impending apocalypse! He’s also fond of referring to people as representatives of their nation’s government. (“When you lot went into Iraq…”) I bristle at this. Is it a uniquely ‘liberal American’ thing to feel disconnected from (and to avoid association with) the actions of one’s government? “Hang on, man. The United States government is just as much a ‘they’ to me as it is to you!”

In the morning I bid British Steve farewell (he is traversing Flores by motorcycle) and walk to the docks to meet Hut and [Hut's brother, whose name I forget to write down], my boat chauffeurs.

Their boat is slow, so the ride to Rinca takes around 2½ hours. This is fine, though, because our route takes us through a dreamlike stretch of water with anonymous islands on all side; green, mysterious, seemingly uninhabited. It’s an incredibly peaceful time, save for the twinges of fierce loneliness. [I silently promise never to travel alone again, especially to a place like this.] However, I have enough time to weigh all the factors carefully and my ultimate decision is that the boat ride would be improved for everyone (in the world) if we spent it slurping red wine + Limeade and blasting some Lil Wayne.

The travel books overstate Rinca’s desolation. For the most part it reminds me of Northern California. My guide, Suryman, is a friendly young guy who speaks good English and makes it very clear that we have no guarantees of seeing ANYTHING, but he’ll do his best. We set out on the longer path, a hike that runs just shy of two hours.

The terrain is mostly easy, running through bright forests, rocky riverbeds, and grassy hills. After the first few times Sulyman warns me about the huge patches of water buffalo shit in the path I automatically revert to my normal hiking posture, head mostly down, picking my steps along the path. So I almost run into Sulyman’s back when he stops abruptly and whispers: “Dragon!” Caught off guard I jerk my head left, right, all around until I see it. There is a Komodo dragon standing in the middle of the path, about 25 feet directly in front of us. The goddamn thing’s well over five feet long and I probably would have stepped on it before I realized what it was. We watch as it ambles into the underbrush and I take some awestruck pictures:

This is the first of three dragons we see. Shortly after this, noise from the boisterous French ladies behind us drifts through the forest to us. In a rare show of Indonesian disgust, Sulyman shakes his head. “They are stupid people”, he says. “They talk so loud! The animals hear it, they go away!” We pick up the pace until they’re out of earshot.

The second dragon is laying low in the shade of a tree to cool down. It is person-sized. When we get close it shoots us a slit-eyed look of what I choose to interpret as disdain, as if we would be totally uninteresting to kill.

We hike on. The valleys are all monkeys and buffalo watering holes:

The last dragon we see is laid out at the edge of the forest, near the end of the hiking path. Sulyman identifies her as female and estimates that her swollen belly probably contains an entire deer. She breathes slowly and raises her head about once a minute to heave a great sigh. Each time she does this it appears as if she is trying to stand, calling out in the mushmouthed Augustus Gloomp voice we used to use to characterize Ben’s cat Jeff: “Oh, I would kill you good if I -oof- wasn’t so full of -oomph- bacon grease and chocolate!”

The next day I assume that it will be easy to charter another boat to one of the other islands in the neighborhood. No dice! Everyone wants more notice and no one wants to leave the same day. No worries, though, Labuanbajo is a fine place to bum around in for one more day. I watch the boats, eat more tasty fish, plan the rest of the week, and generally collect my thoughts… [This last point is a bit frustrating since I’ve had about 8 MONTHS to collect my thoughts. Trust me, my thoughts have never been more fully collected. I itch for action.] Still, it's hard to complain about sights like this:

I learn two interesting things about the hotel on my last day in Labuanbajo. First, all the construction noise we’ve been hearing is actually demolition noise. A crew of four guys is collapsing the brick walls at the back of the hotel with sledgehammers, sledging the knocked-down wall into pieces, and tossing the debris into a pit behind them. During my stay they have removed a skeletal staircase (leading to an already-demolished second story). Now they’ve worked their way back through Room #9… #8… and from the shower in Room #6 it sounds as if they’ve already breached #7. I’m getting out of here none too soon. I made it this far without getting killed! To get clocked in the head by flying bricks while crouched over one of Hotel Mutiara’s horrid toilets would be a disappointing fate. WHICH REMINDS ME…

A Note To The Proprietors of Hotel Mutiara (Labuanbajo, Flores - Indonesia)

On behalf of all Westerners, let me say: the traditional Indo squat toilet is fine. We can take it. And the standard Western toilet one sits on? Fine too, of course! The body of a Western-style toilet with no tank and no seat that one must awkwardly half-squat, half-stand over to use, where one must cross their fingers the first time because one has never been required to aim like this before? Yeah, you might want to look into replacing those. Westerners can handle the Indo toilet, no need to try and "meet us halfway" there. Halfway is worse.

ANYWAY... The other thing I learn is that the tiny creature I’ve seen scuttle into the drain hole every time I open the bathroom door is not -as I had assumed- a frog or -as I had feared- a rat. It is, in fact, a slimy black crab.

For fun (and because I don’t really have time for much else today) I go directly to the airport after breakfast, arriving about 4 ½ hours before my flight leaves. Oh, but the call comes shortly after that- the flight has been delayed! Make that 5 ½ hours. Maybe my will has been fully beaten down after so much time here, but I’m not even upset by this news. If nothing else had gone wrong, THAT would have been surprising...


Up next: The final week. Darmasiswa closing ceremony in Jakarta, goodbyes, conclusions, etc.
All posted weeks after the fact! Also, there's a new mix posted here.

Part Sixteen

“And Now We Enter... End Game.”


The end is near.

My original plan was to stick around for about a week after Second Semester ended. This would have put me back in Portland around the end of June. The hefty payday from Merah Putih made balancing the benefits of my studies and the annoyances of day-to-day life much easier, and my mood had drastically improved.

However, something unexpected [and awesome] happened: I got offered A JOB at home. A super-flexible job with awesome guys I used to work with that seems tailor-made for working around projects, finishing school, etc. I enthusiastically accepted and began the arrangements for a mid-May return.

Even though a premature evacuation crossed my mind a few times before, I always put the thought aside because –as hard as living here has been at times- leaving this thing unfinished would just be LAME. The decision to come back for an ideal job situation was an easy one, but misgivings about the LAMENESS of ditching out early persisted for a few days. Until –as so often happens with me- I talked myself out of any problems.

Q: "HAVE I ACCOMPLISHED WHAT I SET OUT TO ACCOMPLISH BY COMING HERE?"

A: Well… I wanted to learn about a totally different type of performance, different way of telling a story, designing characters, a different way of playing music, and how those elements interact. Admittedly, I didn’t learn much about the history/philosophical details about wayang tradition(s) because a) my Indonesian is still insufficient for following a University lecture, and b) that stuff doesn’t really interest me. My goal was a more intuitive understanding of the art form, and I believe I achieved that. In a way, this was a fact-finding mission; I viewed most things here through the lens of my art, noting the relevant/inspiring parts and politely ignoring (or just tolerating) the rest.

And, of course, outside of school I’ve amassed enough ideas for art and music projects to keep me busy for years. So… in the end, my time here has been fruitful in all the ways I’d hoped. And more."


Once I realized I had satisfied my main goals for coming here, my apprehension about cutting out before the end of the semester faded away. Everything, it seems, is looking up. I fly out of Jakarta around 10 PM on May 14th and (through the magic of time zones and long-distance travel) I arrive 18-20 hours later at 8 AM on May 15th. That's it!



Coming next: final thoughts, the Darmasiswa closing ceremony in Jakarta, and a detailed account of my solo voyage to Komodo National Park, the only Indonesian locale I feel a strong, inexplicable need to see.

Part Fifteen

"War Were Declared"

MARCH: For a few weeks my studies here take a backseat to more pressing matters, namely getting paid [with a capital PAID] as an extra in another Indonesian movie.

I neglected to mention my first gig as an extra here… Back in December the makers of Ketika Cinta Bertasbih needed some white faces to add “international” flavor to a crowd during a wedding scene. For Rp. 300,000 a day we (some Darmasiswa friends and I) were happy to oblige:

Sadly, no photo can truly capture the feeling of listening to the same Indonesian ballad on repeat for the entire ELEVEN HOURS we were there.

We were told that the film would come out in March, but there’s been no sign of it yet. Alex and I may have to wait a little longer to see our December beards plastered across a big screen.


Filming for Merah Putih* is… a different experience. This one’s a war epic chronicling Indonesia’s bloody struggle for independence in 1947 and they need bule to play Dutch soldiers. They need us to run around in uniform being white and perpetrating atrocities until Indonesian rebels slaughter us all. This turns out to be precisely as awesome as it sounds.

*Red and White, AKA The Colors Of The Indonesian Flag, AKA The Colors Of Our Necks And Torsos After 5+ Days Filming In The Sun

The filmmakers are throwing jaw-dropping amounts of money [in Indonesian terms, anyway] at this thing, putting the 200+ person crew up at decent hotels, providing all of our meals and transportation, and the lowly extras get Rp. 1,000,000 for each day of “work”. [If that number sounds familiar, that’s because it’s my monthly Darmasiswa living stipend.]

The first weekend of shooting is in Semarang (2 hours north of Jogja). While Semarang leaves something be desired as a town [the rats are bolder than in Jogja and the city air carries a piquant odor I’d describe as ‘boiled piss’], the shooting location is an awesome old colonial building with cavernous hallways and some nice stained-glass windows:

I’m don’t arrive in Semarang until the end of the week, so I miss out on the rapes and the village bullying. :( From what I can tell, the weekend’s filming centers on three Indonesian dudes (one a 12 years old boy) sneaking into the Dutch outpost and killing everyone. My own onscreen activity during this time breaks down as follows:

1) Lay facedown in a hallway as the corpse of someone killed the previous day. The “blood” on my back is pungent strawberry syrup.

2) Stroll down a hallway and pretend to idly chat with one Indonesian dude who maintains a vicious sourpuss for the entire production.

3) Patrol a village with one of the actual Dutch guys playing a Dutch soldier.

4) Stand guard outside an outpost, scan the horizon, size up one of the rebels as he approaches the entrance.

Over the course of three days I see <>30hours reading, writing, sleeping, eating, and just sitting around waiting. It’s painfully boring, but we all hold onto the same thought:

Q: “What did you do today?”

A: “Nothing. Oh… wait, no. I did make a million Rupiah. But other than that, nothing.”

Here we see Vlado and Esteban mistreating one of the locals. I believe Vlado’s expression is inappropriately tender:

The days in Semarang are fun [and lucrative!], but on the following weekend we get the call about more shooting, this time for a seven-day engagement in Bandungan. [“Chuh-chinnnggggg!!!!!”] Once again, I miss out on the real mayhem: the day before we arrive, the rest of Holland's surliest, hardest-raping recruits get to burn down a village and brutalize more of the villagers. :( :( :(!!!

Bandungan is the site of one of the film’s biggest action sequences:

The Dutch convoy rolls down a hill, crosses a small bridge, and finds the road blocked by a herd of goats. A few soldiers hop out to clear a path when the alarm goes up: “Ambush!” One rebel appears and plants a bomb on the side of a tanker truck. He leaps heroically off the bridge as the truck explodes.

Rebels open fire on the convoy from the surrounding hills. Half the soldiers in the main troop transport are killed immediately. The others assume defensive positions and are also gunned down.

At the same time, a band of rebels storms the back of the convoy. Their leader 1) throws a knife into a Crying Dutchman’s chest, 2) throws a grenade that blows up another truck, 3) delivers three flashy slashes across a second soldier’s chest, wielding his machete samurai-style, 3) leaps onto the hood of the jeep to better hack at a third soldier (possibly decapitating him?), and 4) triumphantly raises his fist and bellows –flames billowing behind him- “MERDEKAAAAAAAA!”

Then the rebels blow up the rest of the Dutch trucks all in a row BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!!!!

We arrive on Saturday night. Sunday morning is spent warming up and learning some basic falls and bullet reactions from the team of Australian stuntmen:

The second day, we mill around at the village location as they film one soldier getting stabbed. Deciding which of us to stab, setting up the shot, and filming three takes somehow takes the entire day.

That night, the phone in our hotel room rings: our call is at 5 AM. We groan a bit, but prepare to wake up early.

A few minutes later, the phone rings again: call has been pushed forward to 4 AM.

A few minutes after that the phone rings again and the others beg me not to answer it.

Of course I do. 3:30 AM!

Of course, in the morning when we’re all ready to go at 3:30 we’re told we won’t be leaving until 4:00 (and once there, shooting starts well after 9:00). We’re all unclear if this is normal movie-person double-speak or if it’s a uniquely Indonesian thing.

The bulk of our day is spent in the back of a truck. The convoy trundles down the hill, someone yells “CUT”, the convoy reverses all the way back up the hill, and we wait about an hour until they’re ready for the next take.

This is the lead jeep, the truck with the soldiers in it, and the tanker truck, as seen from the top of the hill (where we spend most of our time hanging out, waiting):

I’m mildly alarmed when I learn that we’ll be sitting in the truck when they blow up the tanker and that my position at the back of the truck gives me a front-row seat for the explosion. The scene goes off without incident, though. No limbs lost, no lasting trauma.



Except for the explosions –which are always fun- the rest of filming is pretty mundane. All the action at the back of the convoy occupies much of the crew’s attention, so it takes them two days more than expected to complete the post-explosion shootout where we are (though I do have to spend hours laying ‘dead’ in the spot where I will have died, as background for some scenes that take place after the ambush).

My ‘big scene’ has me crouching behind the truck firing a 30.06 at the hills. One of my buddies gets shot, I shoot back a few times, and am shot in the back. This requires two squibs (exploding blood packs) for entry and exit wounds. When they rig you up with these they use lots of tape:

The shot apparently goes well, since they only do it once. With a little luck my expression of panic over having never shot a rifle before will translate into believable panic about getting shot at.

A nice moment - on Sunday afternoon a thick mist rolls down from the hills, blotting out everything for a few hours. I know this is a thing that happens in this part of the world, but it’s an exciting thing to actually experience:

It’s unclear exactly when Merah Putih will be released, and in what format. We heard it would be a six-part television miniseries here, we heard there would be a feature-length version released to theaters… Either of these [or neither] Rumor has it Partai Demokrat is rallying to get it released in time for the presidential elections in July. (Propogan-tastic!)


Adventures In Indonesian Television #1

While filming Merah Putih I get the chance to watch a lot of Indonesian television in the hotel room. I posted some photos earlier from of a country music special featuring an all-Indonesian band, singers, line dancers, etc. I jokingly refer to this as Jakarta City Limits, but I have no idea what it is really called or why it exists.

At any hour of the day, chances are good that at least half your available channels are showing a different inane soap opera where hurt women look longingly/accusingly at unhappy men. These are unwatchable, except when the characters have bizarre physical traits, like wild facial hair or crazy eyes.

For example, we saw enough of this soap opera to ascertain that it was awful in spite of this girl’s huge scar:

Adventures In Indonesian Television #2

I was floored by a commercial for feminine hygiene products in which the severity of each girl in the commercial’s "flow" is illustrated with a gaily-colored CGI icon floating over her shoulder.

The first teenage-looking girl has a wobbly watering can floating next to her, spilling a few tiny drops. The next has an overful bucket that sloshes more cartoon water out from side to side.

Cut to the beautiful spokeswoman explaining the product’s efficiency. As she stands, her secret shame materializes next to her: she is currently gushing like a high-pressure shower head turned on full blast; the imaginary torrent runs down the entire length of her body.

Is this any more bizarre than the tried-and-true American method of illustrating absorbency by dumping a vial of blue liquid onto the product in some sterile lab? Now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure.

Entire blogs and books could be –and no doubt have been- devoted entirely to the ways non-native speakers blithely abuse the English language. This is usually good for a cheap laugh. For example:

But, like in the Patton Oswalt bit about the poetry of p0rn emails, Indonesian writers’ errors often achieve a peculiar quality unavailable to those with even a basic understanding of grammar.

Case in point: The incredible slogan for a DJ event held at Jogja nightclub Papillon, a slogan emblazoned across a banner over the entrance and on the t-shirts of all the club’s employees that evening, a string of words you could almost call a sentence. The banner says:

THE LEGEND WILL ALWAYS A LEGEND

NEVER CHANGE AND NO ONE CAN EVER CHANGE

I can’t choose a favorite part of this. The mysterious reference to The Legend is rich, but the menacing last line “AND NO ONE CAN EVER CHANGE” tickles me to no end. I’m going to assemble a To The Neck comp and call it The Legend Will Always A Legend Never Change And No One Can Ever Change.