Takengon, Part II: The First Day

(continued from previous entry):

I rolled over and woke up from a solid sleep at something like ten AM; a lordly five hours of rest had done me good. We soon discovered, however, that there wasn't enough water in the Mandi for us all to shower yet (Mandi = the all-purpose plastic scooper and water cistern in an Idonesian bathroom. The scooper bucket is your shower. It is also your sink, and your toilet-flusher. You ladle water into the throne, or kingly squatting-hole, to send things on their way. I embarrasingly had to ask how to do this my first day in-country, when I went to flush my plastic western-style toilet [I'm damn lucky for that, by the way; I have to thank my boss, Brian, for having it installed last year] and realized that it wasn't connected to any sort of water source or toilet-tank. There was a fairly physical demonstration, and I learned that this was a 'traditional' toilet). I've actually grown somewhat fond of the mandi, especially under certain circumstances. Here, we routinely suffer from a little phenomenon known as mati lampu (dead-lights, or power outages). The great thing about a Mandi is, you don't need power. You can ladle yourself down, and keep flushin' that toilet, just as well by candlelight or no light, when any other water source would just be dead. My mandi tank also happens to be huge; I honestly use actual running water, in the house, only about once a week, and that's only to refill the Mandi. That and the occasional luxury of turning on the tap (which means going outside to plug in the rickety electric water pump) to wash my hands in the "kitchen" instead of using the scooper to do so.

Pardon the diatribe. So, a few of us managed to stumble out of our place and down the hill in search of coffee and something to stuff our gullets. We ended up at one of the coolest Waru Kopi (Coffee Shop)s I've ever seen. It's a very cool, rocked out place, covered in paintings and artful graffiti by local artists, mostly young ones. The place has a giant "Parental Advisory" warning from an American music album on its sign, and bills itself as a meta-cafe. It's a concert venue, a place to hang out, a place to chill and a place to meet. It also serves some of the spectacular local coffee, called Gayo coffee, some of the best I've ever had anywhere. The local specialty is a cup of coffee that also has some kind of whipped egg in it, a Gaston special, if I may. It's a little too rich, but it'll sure as hell wake you up in the morning, and give you some protein to get the day started. Just don't ask too many questions about it.

After our caffeinated protein mud, we wandered outside, not sure quite what to do. Then Ricardo said we were getting in a car. Apparently, somebody, someone's friend, or an administrator, or public official, or something, had driven up and we were going to go to their house. I didn't know what else was going on, so I shrugged and hopped in the chase car (the guy in question was up with some of our other friends in a Jeep type thing that actually did look like it could eat mountains for lunch. Never actually met the guy). Instead of a leisurely trip to the other side of town, though, we blasted out of the city, down a small road towards the mountains, into...something resembling the American old west. With mosques. We stopped on an empty country road in the middle of a vast valley, a lonely track that led off and up into the hills. At first glance, the open country around us looked like prairie, but when you look closer, it's actually just dry rice stalks. During the rainy season, that land must be incredibly fertile. For now, though, it's just open horse country. We piled out of the car and wandered down onto the paddies, following a little dirt track up to a family of nearly-wild stallions grazing near a wood shanty. I assume they were the property of said shanty-folk; the Gayo are prizewinning horsemen, and hold festivals and competitions of the like that are famous nation-wide. Also, being Indonesia, where it's cool to just let your animals graze wherever (the middle of the highway is a choice spot for cattle, it seems; a real test of motorbike prowess is dungheap dodging at road speed), we just...wandered up to the horses. In the middle of the ricepaddymidwest. Started taking pictures. My buddy was just standing there, trying to pat a little foal while the mother whinnied disapprovingly. The road lost itself up into the foothills down the way; a brightly-colored Labi-Labi (turtle-turtle, the slow-moving trucks with benches in the back and an open door you can fall out the back of; they're the local form of bus. I'll get a picture up later and tell you about our labi-labi party sometime. They play a style of music, labi labi music, that sounds kind of like a techno party that ran into a rasta gang, got stoned, stumbled off the dance floor and found its way into a hammock somewhere) rolled past incongruously, reflecting the gleaming silver domes of the mosques in the foothills off its shiny hubcaps. If John Wayne had stumbled out of that shanty in a coolie hat, I would not have been surprised. Where the hell am I?!

So that was awesome. We got back in the car, and headed up into the mountains. Then, we passed our guide, and...I never saw him again. I think we did pass his house, at some point. No big deal. Instead, we were just on this tiny, one-lane mountain road, twisting off into coffee-plant-filled jungle infinity. Sometimes there were chunks of road missing. Sometimes there really wasn't much road. Then, all of a sudden, we'd be in a tiny village, nestled in the folds of these mountains. We passed a wedding, where pretty much everyone from the surrounding areas was standing in and around the road, as well as some kind of small bus that had made its way back in there. We drove around like this, staring agog at this magic place outside the windows, for a solid half hour. Almost skidded off the road only once. Bottomed out on a rock only once. Then back to the ginormous lake, back to town, a fast lunch at a local fish joint (tiny fish seem to be the specialty, very crunchy) and, finally, jumped into our gear and strapped on our helmets. To the bikes!

To be continued...