An Introduction to India

PHOTO ALBUM - Chennai, Hampi, Mumbai

Our introduction to India was in Chennai, on the southeast coast of the subcontinent. Chennai really fulfilled all the stereotypes associated with India – it was overcrowded, there was trash (and feces from many species, included the human one) on the streets, livestock in places you don’t expect to see livestock, and an uncomfortable number of beggars and people sleeping in the streets. However,  as Brian said in the last blog post,  it was also a vibrant, colorful, friendly place. A highlight of our short time in Chennai was a walk to Marina Beach. Our route was lined with book stalls, ice cream stores, tea stands, and some great people (and livestock) watching. Once arriving at the beach, we were reminded that this was a country of a billion people. The shoreline, as far as we could see, was lined with a mass of people just enjoying some time by the water, as well as plenty of fully dressed Indians playing in the waves crashing into shore. The beach area itself was huge – probably 300 meters from the road to the shore. It was covered with food vendors, tight-rope walkers, knick-knack sellers, and my favorite, a stand where you could have your photo taken with a life-size cut-out of a selection of Bollywood stars. I admit, I was tempted.

On August 15^th – India’s Independence Day - We took a day trip to Mamallapuram, a beach town a couple hours south of Chennai. Given the heat and humidity, we ended up spending most of the day trying to avoid the sun.  Most of the afternoon was spent people and cow-watching from a restaurant overlooking the beach while we started planning our time in India with our newly acquired guidebook. We were able to score an India Lonely Planet guidebook for a dollar at a bookshop in Mamallapuram, which made the entire trip there worth it. We realized that we had somehow accumulated far more books than any backpacker in their right mind would carry around. So we traded five books (plus $1) for the guidebook…I’m sure the seller thought he was making out with a steal, and we were equally happy to get rid of the books and get a guidebook for cheap…everyone’s a winner.  We took in a couple temples after the sun got a little lower before hopping on a bus back to Chennai to catch our first night train (more about the trains later) for the journey to Hampi.

The trip to Hampi took a lot longer than expected. The train reservation office booked us through to Guntakal, and said it would be easy to book a train from there to Hospet, which is only a 12 km autorickshaw ride from Hampi. It was quite easy to book the train to Hospet, but unfortunately, the lady we made our reservation with didn’t mention that the train didn’t leave until 2 pm (and we had arrived in Guntakal at 9 am).  During our (long) day at the train station, we had our first experience with the staring phenomenon here in India. From what we have read and been told by other travelers, completely unabashed staring at foreigners is not socially unacceptable here.  I don’t think it’s meant be rude, it’s probably just a reaction to us looking so different (especially me, the tall blonde beacon). They don’t just glance at us as they walk by, they fixate on us for an uncomfortable amount of time.  Groups of people will stare at us while we’re just sitting reading a book. Or one man just chose to sit down next to me and watch me read the book.  As I was making the walk down the platform to the bathroom, I actually saw a man entirely shift his position so he could continue watching me walk. At one point a young graduate of a foreign language school came over to talk to us for awhile. In the course of a 5 minute conversation, a group of about 10 people had gathered in a semi-circle right in front of us and just watched us.   I’m really not sure how this social faux pas elsewhere in the world didn’t become a faux pas in India, but this is definitely going to take a bit of getting used to while we are here.

Since the journey took longer than expected, we ended up with only one quick day in Hampi. It’s kind of like a smaller Angkor Wat (Cambodia) or Bagan (Burma) – it used to be a major royal city centuries ago, and there are temples and ruins leftover from that time period all over Hampi. It’s a very interesting landscape, as well – the area is full of boulder fields and banana plantations. We spent the day walking dirt trails and roads all over the city and exploring the temples as we came across them.  We spent time practicing English and taking pictures with local teenagers and younger adults.  We figured out that people have no problem asking complete strangers for water, and since we usually carry water bottles, we give it to them. I’ve watched all the locals here, and they all have a talent of drinking out of bottles and communal pitchers without the container touching their mouth. I’ve been attempting this myself, and usually end up with a wet shirt. We met a guy from Hospet who probably knew more about Hollywood movies than we did, and thought Brian looked like Steven Spielburg. We can add this to the list of other people Brian has been told he looks like:the mafia, Osama Bin Laden, an Argentinean, an Italian, a Spaniard, the Taliban, a maharaja (defined as a great king or princely ruler)…there’s clearly a stereotype associated with a beard. 

After Hampi, we moved on to Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay.  Unfortunately, Brian came down with a pretty bad head/chest cold on our way into Mumbai and so we didn’t as much of the city as we wanted to. We enjoyed what we saw, though – we stayed in the Colaba area, which is full of the old colonial architecture from the days when Britain occupied India. It makes for scenic walking, and that area of Mumbai is pretty clean, especially compared to what we saw in Hampi and Chennai. It’s not all like this - on our way to the train station as we were leaving, we did get a glimpse of the slums of Mumbai, and it’s about as depressing to look at as you might imagine.  While in Mumbai we took a boat trip out to Elephanta Island to see the caves with impressive carvings of the stories of the Hindu gods.

We are now in Udaipur, in Rajahstan state, where we plan to relax for 4 days before heading out again. This is our last stop before we make it up into the very north of India, where we hope to concentrate the rest of our time in India. This is the first place we’re planning to spend more than 2 nights – we’ve been on a 2 nights in a hotel/1 night on a train pattern since we’ve arrived in India, mostly due to the fact that we flew into the very south of India and wanted to spend our time in the very north, and need to get moving!  If you check a map, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground in the last 10 days. We’ve enjoyed the destinations we’ve been so far, but getting to them by train has been half the experience.  We’ve taken 3 night trains so far, all sleeper class since the air-conditioned cars have booked up so fast. Sleeper class is a 6-beds-to a berth, bring your own bedding, and you’re cooled with fans and open windows (except when it’s raining, or if you have a bunkmate who is paranoid about it raining in the middle of the night, even though he’s on the top bunk and wouldn’t even feel it).  Everything is open so there’s no privacy, which is okay except  there’s not much courtesy practiced in terms of the noise level…people talk loudly into all hours of the night. Food vendors roam up and down the aisles, calling out the name of what they’re selling, which of course we can’t understand but so far haven’t gone wrong with whatever we’ve tried. The tea sellers are the most ubiquitous, and you constantly here the droning “Chai…chai…garam chai”, which is welcome sound since they’ll pour you a tiny cup of the tasty drink for only 5 rupees (about 11 cents). There are beggars who walk the aisles,also -  mostly the disabled -  but interestingly, we’ve also seen the Indianlady-boys also walking down the aisles, clapping their hands and then demanding  money.  We’ve shared berths with people who have kind of pretended we weren’t there, and we’ve also shared berths with some really friendly people.   On our journey to Mumbai we shared our space with a very nice (if not a bit loud) family who managed to fit about 6 or 7 people onto 3 beds (and the floor). We had little ability to communicate with them, but they were eager to share their snacks and get us to try all the snacks the vendors were selling (we ate a lot on that train), and even passed the baby around to us, who was quite receptive to being held by what must have looked like some very strange people to her.

The trains without reserved seats are an entirely different story.  It’s a mad rush to get onto the train and find a seat, and our big backpacks that we carry around do not make getting into that rush any easier. Personal space is not an issue here; if there’s an iota of seat showing, someone will make you shove over to make room for them. It makes for some cramped journeys, but after the rush is over, everyone’s pretty polite. When a rather large woman literally fell asleep using me as her support, a man on the bench across from me just started laughing and kindly gave up his seat for me. Then the woman I was sitting next to gave me lessons on how to ‘establish my space’, or I assume that’s what she was doing when she kept tugging on my leg so I was sitting in a nice wide, open-legged stance.

Nothing could prepare me for the local trains we took in Mumbai to get from train station to train station within the city, though. On the day we left for Udaipur, we went to the Old Victoria terminus to make some train reservations for future trips (and were able to score beds on an air-conditioned sleeper car, bedding included, for our next journey, which we are most excited about). Our train to Udaipur was out of Mumbai’s Bandra station, which we could reach through the local trains from the Old Victoria terminus. The first train was fine – we established some space when we got on the train, and were able to hold onto it as the train got more and more crowded with each stop. It’s hard to describe just how crowded the train got. Just imagine a solid mass of people packed into a car and spilling out the doorways…it’s not for the claustrophobic. By the time the train stopped at the Dadar station, where we were to change for another train, we were caught in the middle of a mass of people leaving the train fighting a mass of people getting on the train. The stops are short, so we were actually not sure if we could make it off the train, but we did get off in Dadar. Then we had to get on a train to Bandra station, which was as full as the train we had just gotten off. The first train that came through, we didn’t even attempt to get on while watching the mass of people fight each other to pack into that train. The second train that came through, we did attempt to get on, but after some intense elbowing and position-jockying I found I was no match for the mob of men pushing and shoving their way onto the train fighting the mob of men trying to get off the train. The huge packs on our back did not help the situation.  We failed and missed that train. For train number three, we decided our chances of both of us getting on would be best if I tried to get on the ladies-only car. Not that the ladies are any less vicious in getting on and off the train, but at least I thought I could hold my own against them as opposed to the men.  I managed to push my way onto the third train with the rest of the female mob, and barely managed to push my way off the train against the strong current of aggressive women boarding it when it stopped at Bandra station.  Since we were briefly separated, Brian and I were not exactly sure what we would have done had one of us made the train and the other not.  It may have been very difficult to find each other again in the chaos that is a Mumbai train station.  Luckily the third time was the charm.  While this is an experience that I won’t forget, and even laugh at the absurdity of today (though not so much at the time), we have decided that public trains in chaotic Indian cities is not our thing, and when in need we’re just going to take a  taxi instead.  This type of aggressiveness is not something we understand.  While at a short train stop, Brian also had to fight his way through a group of people trying to buy something to eat at a snack stand, rather than stand in line in an organized fashion.  But then again, maybe it’s just “everyone for themselves” in this country of over a billion people…

Overall, our first week and half in India has been a good experience, with the exception of a very bad encounter with a Mumbai taxi driver at 6 am. We don’t want to go into it, but will just say that we were not too sharp at 6 am coming off a night train and the taxi driver was a very bad man and a talented scam-artist.  No major harm done - just some extra money that went into a pair of corrupt hands.  But we are not very proud of our performance that morning as "seasoned" travellers.  Other than that, we’ve seen some incredible sites, stayed at nice, clean hotels, eaten absolutely delicious food and drank lots of chai teas and lassis, and just enjoyed the craziness and chaos that is India. We’re looking forward to what there is to come this next month!

Sri Lanka

PHOTO ALBUM - Sri Lanka

We arrived in Sri Lanka on August 2^nd and immediately made our way to the hill country to a town called Kandy.  It turns out that we arrived just in time for the annual Esala Perahera festival that takes place every summer for over ten days to honor the sacred tooth enshrined in Temple of the Tooth.  We don’t completely understand the full story behind this sacred tooth, but apparently this tooth was snatched from the Budda’s funeral pyre in 543BC and then gained more and more spiritual importance.  Eventually a temple was built in Kandy to house the tooth and for centuries this Perahera festival has taken place to honor it.  The Perahera is a massive parade - that includes elephants, dancers, fire - every night until the full moon and the streets are jam-packed with people – some who camp out on the street the night before to reserve a space.  It is a big deal for Buddhists (Sri Lanka being an important country for Buddhism).  So by pure coincidence (our goal in Sri Lanka was simply to get a visa to India) we arrived just in time to honor the sacred tooth.

Our first priority was to get to the India visa office and submit our paperwork.  The India visa office lived up to the very poor standards that we have been warned against and expected.  They have taken first prize in making simple paperwork become completely unnecessarily complicated.  Elise and I were completely prepared, with our completed visa application forms (filled out online and printed before we arrived), photocopies of passports, and extra passport photos.  I won’t bore the blog readers with any details of the unnecessarily complicated and user-unfriendly application form on the web.  But the problem we had at the visa office is that Elise put her middle initial instead of her full middle name on her application.  Since it is in the computer it apparently could not be changed easily (despite the fact that computers should make this process simpler, not more complicated, and the guy we were submitting our passport to was working on a computer which we presume could have changed this minor error) so she had to go next door to a separate office and pay to have someone else completely re-enter her application.  This guy could not type,  was misspelling everything and had to be constantly corrected.   Next her passport photo background was deemed not “white enough” (you have to strain to tell any difference from mine) so she had to pay to have another taken which turned out to be a terrible faded photo much worse than the one we provided – but with an acceptably white background.  Next, after we received the Indian’s high standard stamp of approval for perfection in our application form (I must mention that the published India Visa information is inaccurate or misleading so they don’t live up to their own standard here apparently) we were asked to come back in ten days to pick up our visa.  The Indian officials worked feverously around the clock for those ten days, I’m sure, to make sure we got our visa so that we could finally enter the country and spend our money there.  All in all this whole thing was not that big of a deal compared to other horror stories we’ve heard about the Indian government…but it definitely meets our low standards of expectation of Indian bureaucracy.

In our case this was absolutely no big deal because Sri Lanka, it turns out, is an extremely nice place to spend a couple weeks waiting on paperwork.  Kandy is a very pleasant place situated in the hill country with temperate weather.  We enjoyed walks along the lake to town from our guesthouse, touring the Temple of the Tooth, the Buddhist museum, attending a traditional dance performance, and walks in the surrounding neighborhoods.  We attempted to watch the Perahera one night by mingling with the locals on the street side.  We stood on a corner being completely surrounded by masses of people to the point of feeling too claustrophobic to catch a glimpse of the elephants all dressed up in lights and dancers with torches and fire rings.  This was the first night of the festival, and we heard that it only gets more dramatic and more crowded towards the end on the night of the full moon.  The next day, probably more fun than watching the elephants in the parade, we had a good time watching the elephants be bathed on the street beside the temple.  The elephants are told by their handlers to lie down (an impressive process in itself) and then are sprayed with large water hoses and scrubbed with brushes.  The elephants definitely seem to enjoy the bath.  We stayed the Peace Haven Guesthouse in Kandy which is simply the home of Mr. and Mrs. Attapatu who are extremely friendly and hospitable.  It is a great place located up on the hill east of town with airy rooms and a pleasant balcony with territorial views.  The best part was the breakfast:  a huge plate of fruit including a quarter of a large, very sweet papaya, an egg any way you like it, endless toast with jam and butter, and a large pot of tea around a large dining table in the living room.  It was one of our best guesthouse experience of our trip and highly recommended to anyone passing through.

Our next destination was the east coast of Sri Lanka, Arugam Bay to try a little surfing.  Arugam Bay is located near a town called Potavil which was ravaged by the 2004 tsunami and afterwards part of the area in the violent conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers rebel group.  Now supposedly peaceful, it sounded like a good off-the-beaten-track place to visit.  It turns out that every “cool” surfer kid from Europe was there and that it apparently has become a fairly popular place – at least this time of year.    Nevertheless, we had a great time and this area of the island is a beautiful, sunny, with savannah-like vegetation that remind me of what I imagine Africa to be like .

Even  though most places in Arugam Bay were booked full - we lucked into a great guesthouse experience.  Another World Guesthouse is a small five-room place run by a 22-year-old named Sulfi who is an incredible cook.  With good company from other travelers, every night we would all sit around a large table, and Sulfi would cook and incredible family-style meal.  His coconut sambal and pumpkin curry ranked at the top of the list.  One night we had a large barbeque with fresh grilled fish.  No one dared bother going out to another restaurant for dinner.   When Sulfi was asked where he learned to cook so well, he responded that his mom taught him how.  One interesting observation:  we saw very few local women while we were in Arugam Bay.  The east coast of Sri Lanka is primarily Muslim, not Buddhist, and from the lack of their presence, it appears that the women do not leave the house.    

    

Another thing I was introduced to in Arugam Bay was the Indian sub-continent’s amazing barber shops.   I was in desperate need of a beard trimming and hair cut.  At barber shops in this part of the world, a trim not only includes the clipping and straight-razor shave, it includes an incredibly relaxing head massage afterwards.  The scalp is oiled down with some sort of spicy smelling scalp-oil and then the greasy, smelly barber magically turns into a beautiful man-masseuse, gently massaging the scalp and all major pressure points on the head.  It was glorious.  I have heard that is the standard for both India and Nepal so for the rest of our travels, I will be treating myself appropriately and should, as a result, have a much more professionally trimmed head and beard from here on out.

The main lesson learned  about surfing:  jump off of the surf board before you reach the shore.  Very important.  After a “road-rash” from being washed ashore while feeling like I was being put through a washing machine full of gritty, sharp sand – and afterwards fighting for a spot on the wave with the “cool” surfers (who were sometimes a little too grumpy when we got in each other’s way) – we decided that the next time we try will be somewhere where there is less people.  Sulfi’s little brother (who helps run the guesthouse) decided to “help” my road-rash by spraying perfume on it resulting in it stinging very badly.  He didn’t speak English so I’m not really sure what his thought process was, but maybe perfume has special healing powers for the Tamil culture of the east coast of Sri Lanka.

There is some good wildlife in the area too.  We spent one day with a rented motorbike searching for wild crocodiles and elephants.  We did see one crocodile, though we were not completely sure it was one until we got back and zoomed in on the photo.  With the bare eye, it looked like a rock in the middle of a pond and we were throwing rocks within centimeters of its head and it wouldn’t move.  No wild elephants were spotted, but we did hear one. 

After Arugam Bay we went back to Kandy to pick up our India visas and spent a few more comfortable nights at Peace Haven Guesthouse.   Then on August 13^th, we flew to Chennai, India to begin our six weeks here.   So far it is exactly what we expected – one of harsh contrasts:  one giant pile of dirty, smelly, filth that is also vibrant, colorful, fascinating, and friendly.  We will provide more details in the next blog post, but we’re “settled in” and very much enjoying it so far. 

The most important cultural lesson we have learned lately (this applies to both Sri Lanka and India): 

People have this unique way of showing acknowledgement by bobbling their heads.  It really can mean “yes”, “no”, “maybe”, or simply “acceptance” or “contentment,” or that they are enjoying your company.   The “head bobble” should not be mistakenly interpreted to mean “no” – it looks sometimes like shaking your head.   We learned when we tried to order a meal at a restaurant and thought our server was telling us that we could not have anything we ordered.          

Wedding Crashers

PHOTO ALBUM - Labuan Bajo (Flores) & Komodo Natl Park

PHOTO ALBUM - Bajawa & Moni (Flores), Bali

Brian left off our last blog just before we were about to go on a 29 hour journey from Kuta, Lombok to Labuanbajo, Flores.  It actually turned out to be even more painful than it sounded at the time.  We took off at 11:30 am from Kuta for a bus/ferry/bus/ferry island-hopping marathon.  Two broken down buses, a sleepy bus driver who did the right thing and pulled over on the side of the road for a nap, a missed shuttle bus, and a unexpected extra night sleeping on a bench on a 9-hour ferry with the noise of Indonesian TV shows blasting in our ears later, we were in Labuanbajo at 3 am, 39 hours after we left.  To top that off, arriving at that time of the morning, we found ourselves sitting on the side of the road waiting for someone to serve us coffee and let us in a guesthouse to wake up.  Lukily we found ourselves in some good company with some fellow travelers so we all sat around on the side of the road waiting and chatting. Around 5:45 am we found a hotel with rooms available and an owner that was awake. We dropped our bags, got some breakfast, and then went to sleep. About that time, all I could think of was that Flores better be worth it!!

I’m happy to say, Flores was definitely worth it. The day after we arrived in Labuanbajo, we went diving in Komodo National Park, another world-class dive site. We signed up for 3 dives with the Bajo Dive Club – two reef dives, and one manta ray dive.  The dive sites were about 2 hours away on a boat ride out toward Rinca and Komodo islands that passed by small islands lined with white sand beaches and covered with arid hilltops. It was a gorgeous trip out, and the return trip during sunset was even more spectacular. The diving was some of the best overall diving we’ve done on this trip. Some of the highlights were the manta ray that swam directly over me within a few meters, a couple shark and turtle sightings, some absolutely gargantuan fish, and watching the completely coordinated movements of a school of neon-blue fish trying to avoid becoming food for a handful of mackerels hunting.  These dive sites are known for some crazy currents which help create incredible marine life and also made for a little more challenging diving.

The next day, we chartered a boat out to Rinca island with Ian,  who we’d been hanging out with since we arrived in Bima, and an Australian couple also staying in our hotel.  Rinca island is one of only a two islands in the world that are home to the Komodo dragon, the largest lizard in the world.  Our purpose? Hunting for the elusive dragons (before they got to us!). It turned out to be pretty easy. Upon arrival to the island, we saw 7-8 dragons hanging out by the ranger’s kitchen, attracted by the smell of the food (and because it’s likely they’re fed scraps).  While impressive in size, I was not nearly as intimidated as I thought they’d be, probably because they didn’t appear too interested in anything but laying around in the shade waiting to be fed.   After a brief photo session, we headed out on a trek through Rinca island in search of more Komodo dragons. Walking over the island felt like we were in a scene from Jurassic Park.  You half expected velociraptors to come tearing at us out of the bushes. Not to worry, as our guides carried with them long sticks to fend off the dragons.  But  since these dragons can take down a full-grown buffalo we hoped not to have to find out if they were trained to use the meager sticks with any effectiveness to protect us.  We soon came across a stack of pig and buffalo skulls, which our young guides proudly informed us were “dragon carnage”.  This was followed by more sightings of dragon food, a wild boar and a large buffalo, which we were told could be devoured by 3 dragons in only 17 minutes.  We’re not sure if that is true, but nevertheless, Komodo dragons are still pretty bad-ass to take down such large prey. Their bite is poisonous, so a dragon will bite it’s prey, then stalk it for days until it becomes weak enough to become dinner.  During our hike we saw beautiful scenery, various dragon food, a few monkeys, but only one Komodo dragon. It was a baby dragon hanging out on a branch well off the ground. Not only are large mammals dragon food, but other dragons are dragon food. Komodos will live up in trees until they are about 3 years old, big enough to hold their own, because otherwise they’ll likely be eaten by mom or another hungry Komodo.  I was actually quite amazed how small they start out, considering how large they end up!

After our day with the Komodo dragons, we made the 10 hour journey to Bajawa, a small town set high in the hills, meaning cool days and downright chilly nights. We had big intentions of climbing our last volcano in Indonesia, Gunung Inerie, but those plans were thwarted as soon as we took our rented motorbike five minutes up the road to the trailhead. We’ve taken motorbikes on some pretty bad roads, but we decided this one just wasn’t worth it. Instead we rode around to the nearby villages, enjoying the scenery and unique houses in the villages. It was a relaxing couple days before heading on another 7 hours to the village of Moni, at the base of Kelimutu.

Kelimutu is famous volcano that last erupted in the 19^th century, leaving behind 3 lakes, 2 of which change colors with no warning. The color change is due to mineral deposits in the lakes; the lake that doesn’t change color is a bright turquoise color, while the other two lakes vary between blues, browns, greens, and red. The Moni people believe it’s a sacred place, and that the spirit  of the dead will go into one of the three lakes. As all good things in Indonesia seem to happen at sunrise, we dragged ourselves out of bed for a 4:30 am motorbike ride to the parking area, a 20 minute walk from the summit of Kelimutu, where we warmed up with a cup of ginger coffee sold by a man who threatened “no coffee, no sunrise” before making our way up to the summit (which despite our coffee purchase, was covered in clouds).  However, the clouds cleared as the sun rose, and the lakes suddenly appeared. The biggest lake was a gorgeous turquoise, the lake next too it almost the same color, and the third lake a dark green. Interestingly, our Lonely Planet guidebook, published in 2010, describes the lakes as turquoise, brown, and red….goes to show how drastic a change you can see.  We walked the 14 km down the mountain, which was not nearly as pleasant as described in the guidebook, probably because we missed the shortcut which would’ve cut 6 km off the trip and taken us down a dirt trail through farmland and villages, rather than a knee pounding paved road. We took a walk up the shortcut a couple days later to see what we missed (very nice scenery and villages), and realized how much less sore we would’ve been had we taken it!

Later that night, we crashed our first wedding, so to speak. Technically, we were invited by a lady who lived next door to our homestay, Jenny, and the wedding was also mentioned to us by multiple people since we’d been to Moni. From what I can tell about weddings in the villages of SE Asia, there’s no invite list, anyone who wants to show up can. After 8 months of traveling, I have very few clothes left that look nice enough for a wedding, so Jenny dressed up myself and another girl staying at our homestay, Abby,  in traditional wedding apparel – ikat sarong, a nice blouse, earrings, handbag, and some pretty hideous lipstick.  Brian, myself, Abby, and Chris, also from our homestay, hopped on motorcycle taxis (ojeks) to get a ride to the party. This was a challenge in a floor length sarong; they originally wanted the girls to sit sidesaddle on the bikes, but I think the fear in our faces convinced them we should straddle the bikes. So we hiked up our sarongs and hopped on, which resulted in a rather harlot look, at least judging by Jenny’s auntie’s frantic yanking on my sarong to get it to cover more of my legs for the ride. We arrived to the big event, which was attended by at least 300-400 people by the time we arrived. Everyone lines up to greet the bride and groom, who were on display on a platform at the front of the room the entire night. Everyone drops a present of money into a box on the way up, which is supposed to help pay for the wedding feast – in this case, two buffalo were slaughtered to feed the masses, which turned out to not be enough (making us feel a little bad that we partook in the meal).

Elise and her dance partners

There was a cutting of the cake, similar to the American wedding tradition, except here the bride and groom hand out pieces of cake to a line of 7 or 8 couples (I think they were probably parents and brothers and sisters), and everyone shoved cake into each other’s faces. There were some speeches, and eventually the dancing started. They started out with some traditional local dances, which they were quite excited to teach us. It reminded me of line dancing in that there was a very specific pattern that took me a while to pick up, but I got there eventually (which I still cannot say for line dancing!). After a few rounds of traditional dances, they broke out some dance music I think I’ve even heard back home, which drew all the young people onto the dance floor. Being the only tourists, our presence definitely attracted a crowd. There was never a shortage of people to dance with, and I pretty much had a group of 12 or 13 year old boys with me most of the night.

You know how it seems like at most wholesome family events, there’s always a group of guys that have snuck a cooler of beer that they stand around drinking behind a truck at every stolen opportunity? The equivalent in Indonesia is a group of men drinking arak, locally brewed rice whisky, at the back of the room, and they were quite excited to grab the tourists and pull us into their little drinking party. We’d tried arak at a restaurant in Bajawa, although it was mixed with honey and lemon, which was quite a tasty cocktail. However, the arak they were serving us that night looked like the petrol they sell in the water bottles along the side of the road, and I doubt it tasted much different.  They were especially interested in getting the single girl, Abby, as drunk as they could, given the size of arak shots they were giving her.  After about round 3 of arak, we decided it would be best to get back on the dance floor before they pushed more on us.  We started getting tired around 10 pm or so (having woken up at 4 am  for the sunrise that day), but being the most noticeable people in the crowd, it took a good hour to make our way out of the wedding party. A gazillion pictures later, Abby and I hopped on a couple motorbikes and Brian and Chris took the long walk home under an amazingly starry night.

The rest of our time in Moni was spent doing what we seem do best on this trip – chillaxin’. Moni has a pretty temperate climate and beautiful scenery, which made for nice walks and great sleeping weather.  Our next door neighbor Jenny took good care of us – we got home-cooked meals, massages, and a good deal (we hope) on some ikat sarongs. We had some nice evenings talking to her and auntie, who’s still looking quite good for 75. Like everyone else we’ve met, she was quite shocked to hear we had no kids after 5 years of marriage. She was also quite shocked to hear my parents didn’t do their part in populating the earth, as I only have 1 brother. I actually saw her mouth drop open.  Brian’s parents, who brought 4 children into the world, were clearly more of the norm in her eyes.

All good things must come to an end, and a couple days ago we took a flight from Ende, a city about an hour and a half from Moni, to Bali. We spent two nights on Kuta beach, which was like a reverse culture shock – the place is covered with all the normal fast food joints, high end shopping, Starbucks, and stores that sold anything else you might possibly miss from back home. We enjoyed our nicest room in all of Indonesia – there was almost a hot water shower – and caught up on errands. At the end of our last day we made it onto the beach checked out some surfers - some really good, some not so good. Brian has now been inspired to try surfing before we get back home…hopefully in Sri Lanka. We flew into Kuala Lumpur this morning and are staying in a ridiculously expensive (by our standards) hotel near the airport since we have another early morning flight to Sri Lanka tomorrow.  Admittedly, we are enjoying the relative luxury here (super-hot, high water pressure shower, towels, pool), especially given it may be the last luxuries we see for awhile as we head into Sri Lanka and India!  We’re excited about Sri Lanka…just wish us luck on getting our India visa there!