A very warm welcome to Syed Nazrul Islam of Portsmouth, England, the guy who used to sit next to
me in high school (and was one of my best friends!). Welcome, Nazrul!
I wrote the following a while ago but didn't have internet access at the time. Here are the next
six days of Indonesia...
THURSAY JUNE 22
Took an early bus back to Sungai Penuh. A light breakfast, heavy fruit shopping at the local
market, a mandi and it was time to embark on the long journey to Bakaheuni. The bus was an hour
late, leaving at 11:30am, but you don’t worry about an hour much on a journey that takes more than
a full day.
We couldn’t afford the 95,000 air-con bus (9500=1USD) so were in the smokers’ bus. I’ve talked
about this before but the chain smoking is a real pain. It is my mission to find an Indonesian
male who doesn’t smoke, just like it is to find a Dutch person who doesn’t speak English and a
Turkish guy (in Turkey) who doesn’t have a moustache!
The other annoying thing about Indonesia, at that time anyway, was the serious lack of vegetarian
food in restaurants! These Padang restaurants, where our bus stopped for every meal, were
particularly annoying. Before you’ve even made yourself comfortable they’d bring six, seven and
sometimes eight dishes to your table. You’d only pay for what you eat but the problems were that
the dishes were always cold but more than that none were vegetarian! Not even eggs! Mustafa had a
great time but I often had to content myself with just plain rice and chilli sauce. And in the
evening I even had some meat - beef curry. It wasn’t too bad but I had to eat quite quickly.
Despite the smoke, the rain that seeped through the window and the scary blokes around me, I
managed to get a good few hours of sleep.
FRIDAY JUNE 23
We’d planned to visit the Island of Krakatoa and climb the active volcano of the same name. But
unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. We knew that Kalianda was the best place from which to take a
boat out to the Island but there was a misunderstanding and our bus conductors, rather than
understanding that we wanted to go to Karakatoa Island, understood it to be Krakatoa Restaurant!
They tried to drop us off at the restaurant, which was past the port.
We were then told that we could take a boat from Bakaheuni but when we arrived there were told
that the only boats for Krakatoa were from Kalianda. We were negotiating the price of a ride back
to Kalianda when a policeman told us that it takes two days to climb the volcano. For some reason
we thought we could do it in one!
And so we abandoned Krakatoa and took a ferry to Merek, Java. I regretted not going to there, even
though I knew we’d fall further behind. But I don’t any more, knowing that Indonesia is my
favourite country and I will visit it soon, Inshallah. Que sera sera!
I felt sad about not going to Krakatoa but this wasn’t the saddest thing of this day. No, the
saddest thing was to miss Jum’a and be stuck in a bus full of smelly smokers.
From Merek, phoned a friend (from North Sumatera) in Jakarta but only spoke to the mother. Arrived
in Jakarta at about 8pm. Went straight for the travellers’ centre unfortunately, as I couldn’t
contact my friend. You may be asking why we keep staying in travellers’ centres even though we
don’t really like them. It’s simple – they’re by far the cheapest places to stay!
SATURDAY JUNE 24
Despite sleeping at something like 3am I woke up for good at about 9pm. Met up with a couple of
friends – North Sumatera and East Java - after breakfast (time). They’d had breakfast already, and
by the time we were ready to go out for the day it was time for our usual brunch.
They had a car so we drove to the Beautiful Mini Indonesia Park. It tried to show the whole
country in one park, the cultural diversity of the 27 provinces. The exhibits included 27
traditional houses for the 27 provinces and miniature replicas of the country’s major landmarks.
It was pretty interesting. I particularly enjoyed watching a show about Indonesia on a huge IMAX
screen; some fantastic footage from all around Indonesia.
But more than the park I enjoyed just spending time with friends (and being driven everywhere, not
having to struggle with public transport!). It was great just to be at a place, not caring much
about what I did or saw.
From the park we went to the house of East Java. Met the family and went to pray Maghrib at a
local masjid. Have I told you that Muslims in South East Asia do unbelievably long dhikirs and
duas after each prayer, especially maghrib?
Returned to the house, where we were to spend the night, had some refreshments (including a
macaroni thing that, despite containing small bits of corned beef, tasted fantastic!) and then
North Sumatera and we went out for dinner with three other friends.
Despite a limited vegetarian selection, what I had was very good. I’ve told you about the
difficulty of finding vegetarian food in Indonesia. Well, no more. My friends introduced me to
quite a few local vegetarian dishes. My favourite is Gado-Gado, a fantastic combination of
vegetables, tofu, tempe and peanut sauce had with rice. Yummy!
Dinner was great but the conversations about Indonesian politics and economy were even better.
SUNDAY 25 JUNE
As per usual, went to bed very late but woke up for good quite early. (We were seriously in need
of catching up by that time.) Went out shopping after a very big breakfast. I was still hunting
for a baju Melayu and thin trousers. Couldn’t find either. So I decided to settle for a normal
shirt and trouser.
There was a wedding to attend in the evening so I had to buy something smart. Spent far too long
but eventually settled on a royal blue trouser, a silver-grey shirt with fine royal patterns and a
royal tie with fine white patterns. Sorry for taking too long guys!
North Sumatera and East Java then took us for a drive in the central and Dutch part of Jakarta.
Some of the damages caused during the riots of May 1998 were still visible. It’s so sad that
Indonesia has to go through so much trouble.
Went to the Jakarta History museum that, despite the name, only seemed to tell the history of the
development of the maps of the region. It might’ve been more interesting had I had the energy to
carefully read the displays though.
Sightings of the Presidential Palace and the biggest mosque in South East Asia, arguably the
biggest outside of Saudia Arabia, and it was time to return to Jalan Jaksa to get ready for the
wedding. (Both North Sumatera and East Java had relatives staying with them so there was no room
for us unfortunately.)
We had plenty of time to eat, pray, shower and get ready but started talking to these two wackos,
one of whom once lived in the worst city in the world (I am of course talking about Dhakah!), over
dinner and lost track of time. It was a mad rush in the end and we were late in waiting for our
friends, who were to pick us up, but fortunately they were later still!
It is true to say that “when you’re not moving up, you’re moving down”. There’s no such thing as
staying on the same level. If you try to do that then you will invariably find yourself moving
downwards. What am I talking about?
Well, do you remember me telling you that this trip has been very good for me Islamically? Yes, I
was improving a lot in the beginning and also in the first few weeks of the South East Asian leg
of the tour. But then, for some reason, I stopped improving.
Subconsciously, I thought I didn’t need to improve any more, or rather didn’t need to improve any
more for the time being. It was as if I satisfied myself with the level of Islamicness that I’d
reached for that time. Needless to say I didn’t think that I’d reached perfection but I thought it
was enough for the time being. It was like “you’ve done well so far; maintain this for now; you
can improve more later”. Of course, none of these were conscious thoughts but I’m sure that was my
train of thoughts.
So, what’s the significance of all this babble? Well, this Sunday I’d reached a low point that
made me realise all this – I shaved off my beard. In the previous week or two we’d been very lazy
about prayers, often being late for them, particularly Fajr prayers. You of course will remember
how we missed Jum’a the previous Friday. Shaving the beard was a very symbolic culmination of it
all. But I’m glad I shaved it off for it made me realise how far I’d drifted. As I always say
“everything happens for a good reason” and this was a very timely reminder to stay focussed. Also,
it hammered in the point “if you’re not moving up then you’re moving down”.
Anyway, got picked up by the two friends at about 8pm. The wedding was at the 5-star Shangri-La
Hotel. It was the most lavish wedding that I have ever been to. The food, which included plenty of
vegetarian choices, was exquisite, the 600 or so guests, except for Mustafa and I who were in
sandals, looked fantastically well dressed and the big chandelier-clad main hall certainly put
receptions at Stepney Green and St. Paul’s Way to shame! They even had one of Indonesia’s leading
singers to entertain. Sorry, but I don’t think I can afford such a reception guys!
Before going to bed (an early one at 2am) enjoyed watching the Netherlands trounce Yugoslavia 6-1
in the Euro 2000 quarterfinals!
MONDAY 26 JUNE
We were spending longer in Indonesia than had planned to as we were enjoying it way too much! But
we knew that we would have to leave sometime, unfortunately. Had to book plane tickets out.
Went to a nearby travel agent to ask about flights to different points in Australia from Denpasar,
Bali. While various options were given to us, I casually mentioned that we could fly though
Brunei. Mustafa looked at me, I looked at him and we both started laughing! Brunei had made a
dramatic last minute come back!
There was noway back, unless the passage to Oz via Brunei proved to be ridiculously expensive. But
it wasn’t! In fact, it was the cheapest way to fly there! What more, one of the cheapest places to
fly to was Perth (Denpasar-Bandar Seri Bagawan-Perth). This was fantastic as we have a couple of
friends there we’d met on the North American tour of 1997 whom we were very much looking forward
to seeing. It’s amazing the way things work out. It was a great day!
We had a late start to the day – it was Zuhr by the time we’d finished brunch. (We finally caught
up on some much-needed sleep.) Went to a few airlines and ravel agents before getting the Brunei
deal. So it took us most of the afternoon. This was the first time that we’d travelled by
ourselves in Jakarta so it was also great to get a feel of the city – travelling around in a car
is more comfortable of course but you don’t really get to know the city (unless you’re the driver
maybe.)
Went to a masjid near Jaksa for Asr and Maghrib where we met a revert brother from San Diengo,
California. He came to Indonesia about seven years ago, married and now lives in Lampung province
of Southern Sumatera. He was very glad to meet us and talked about how happy it made him. He was a
very nice guy but a little confused. He came out from prayer and yet you could smell alcohol on
his breath. Though he knew that alcohol and dope were haram he kept saying that they were not,
trying to convince himself. He’s just been hanging around the wrong crowd. He gave us a lot of
contacts in California and Washington states.
Went to the North Sumateran friend’s house to catch up on some writing. Though a quarter of a page
worth of writing was done, most of the time was spent talking. On the way back to our guesthouse
we took an auto-rickshaw. The driver didn’t know the way and spent ages driving around like a mad
man. Eventually a policeman stopped him. We paid half fare and took a regular taxi. Arrived in no
time.
TUESDAY 27 JUNE
Again it was a late start to the day – we were seriously in need of sleep. Headed straight for the
gigantic Masjid Istiqlal. It is certainly the biggest mosque that I have ever been to. Though from
the outside it doesn’t look all that different, the interior is quite unique. The steel grills on
the roof, the walls and the many levels of balconies overlooking the main prayer hall make it look
like a multi-story car park! But it is very pretty when one takes the broader view rather
concentrating on particular things. Jakarta is a very hot city but because of the steel domination
the mosque doesn’t need any fans or air conditioning.
On the way to the masjid we passed Monas (Monumen Nasional), a giant column topped with a gold
flame in the centre of the city erected by Soekarno, the first president and the father of the
current deputy president, Megawatti Soekarnoputri. It was the school holidays so we couldn’t go up
Monas for it was too busy with kids.
Mustafa was to leave for Bandung this day so we headed back early. On the way we bought 20 Kodak
400 camera films. Each one came with a free glass! (We misunderstood and thought that a free 100
would come with each 400!) What to do with so many glasses? We gave six each to three street food
vendors. It made them so happy. Fantastic! We kept 2 for ourselves.
After Mustafa left, I called North Sumatera who I was supposed to be going to Bandung with the
following day but found out during the phone conversation was already on the train to the capital
of West Java! Another friend (East Java II) was also going to Bandung on that day and by the time
I called they were already on the train. I spent the rest of the evening writing.
To be continued...
Wassalamualaikum,
Abu Nasir Muhammad Abdul Hafiz ibn Rashid
PS: Soyful, Mijan, Usamah, Imran and Wisam have you received the postcards that I sent recently?
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