This year I decided to spend the holidays Down Under as I have a couple of friends living in Sydney and have always wanted to see Australia. The flight to Sydney from Bali is only 6 hours, which is much more reasonable than trying to fly back to the US for Christmas. The trade off is that I didn’t get to see my family, but I hope they know they’re invited to come visit me in Indonesia any time!
Courtney and I met up with Stephanie at the airport where our trip started off with a blessing in disguise. Our JetStar flight from Denpasar was cancelled and we weren’t able to fly out until the next day. We were slightly annoyed at having to miss a day of our Australia trip, but we quickly cheered up when we discovered that JetStar was putting us up in a posh luxury resort for the night. After spending the next day swimming idly in the gigantic swimming pool and eating our free gourmet meals, we finally set off for Sydney.
Sydney was a wonderful, restorative break from life in Indonesia. My friend Nat gave us a funny look when we arrived at the house and asked right away if it was OK to drink the water. Of course it’s OK to drink the water in Sydney. Imagine that.We walked around Nat’s Balmain neighborhood and marveled at everything from the sidewalks to the nice comfortable temperatures to the beautiful harbor views. We decided that Sydney might possibly be the perfect city.
Instead of doing the usual touristy things one does in Sydney, we mostly used our time to do normal everyday type things that we can’t do in Indo. (Kudos to Steph who got out and about a bit more than Courtney and I did). We spent many happy hours at the house Nat was house-sitting just lounging around using the high-speed wireless, taking hot showers, talking over tea, eating Nat’s yummy food and dozing off while listening to Christmas carols. Court and I also detoxed and beautified by getting facials, mani-pedis and new haircuts while Nat, Steph and I spent another lazy rainy afternoon browsing bookstores in Glebe and lingering in a comfy fair trade coffee shop. All three of us also stocked up on essentials like clothes, make-up, toiletries and other hard-to-buy-in-Indo items.
One night we tried out a wood-fired pizza place in Nat’s neighborhood that had best pizza I’ve had in the last four months. The place was run by a couple of Italian guys who charmed us with their lovely over-the-top Italian welcome. The place was still empty when we strolled up in the late afternoon. When we asked if they were open the answer was, “For four beautiful women we are always open!” This was our kind of place! The wine and espresso flowed - quite literally, as I knocked my espresso over in my enthusiasm for the phenomenal tiramisu we had for dessert.
We continued our hedonistic holiday with a short trip to the Hunter Valley wine country. Wine is very hard to come by in Indonesia, especially in Gorontalo. We therefore promptly signed ourselves up for a full-day wine tasting tour of the Valley, with visions of endless glasses of Semillon and Shiraz dancing in our heads. Out of the four vineyards we stopped at, including the well-known Rosemount, my favorite was a boutique vineyard called Savannah Estate.Here, each wine tasted better than the last and I immediately checked off three to buy later - a sparkling pink moscato that would be lovely with brunch, a sweet dessert wine called Botrytis Semillon, and finally, a dark, sweet muscat that the man behind the counter said paired well with chocolate. To prove his point, he passed around a container of dark chocolate pieces and advised us to first take a sip of the muscat and then eat the chocolate. Exquisite.
On my last full day in Sydney, we finally made it to the beach. We took a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach – an iconic Australian beach full of sunbathers and surfers. However, I wasn’t interested in sunbathing or surfing; I was on a mission to swim in my first Australian rock pool. Ever since my sister sent me a link to a New York Times article about Australian rock pools a couple of years ago, we have both been obsessed with them. So, we walked past all the sunbathers and surfers, rounded the corner and came upon a little cove with a small pool nestled against the rocks. The pool was tiny and nothing like the pools I had envisioned, but it was still fun. Even more fun, however, was swimming in the Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve right next to the pool. The cool but crystal clear water was full of interesting aquatic life and I happily paddled around for an hour or so looking at the pink rocks, kelp, purple sea urchins, a sparsely-spotted singaree and even a big blue grouper!
After a mere nine days of comfort, vices and pampering, it was time to return to Indonesia. Court and Steph stayed on in Australia and headed out to Uluru (or Ayer’s Rock) for another four days while I headed back to Indo to go diving. It was a hard choice to make – four more days in the Outback or three days of diving off Bunaken, the diving capital of Indonesia. I chose to go to Bunaken, but I hope to return to Australia someday soon. There are so many more rock pools to discover…
Happy New Year! It’s been a while since my last post and one of my New Year’s resolutions is to blog more often. December was a whirlwind of travel and finishing up the end of the semester and, as a result, not much blogging got done. And to be honest, I haven’t exactly finished up the semester either, since I still have a huge pile of essays to read and final grades to report. But never mind that. I think for my first post of the New Year it’s fitting to write about my trip to Ubud, Bali last month where I visited a traditional Balinese healer.
Ubud is the artistic and cultural capital of Bali, known for its traditional dances, shadow puppet shows, local artisans and now also for its prominent role in the bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (which is, incidentally, being turned into a feature film starring Julia Roberts). On her tri-country search for personal fulfillment following a divorce, Gilbert ends up in Bali where she befriends Wayan Nuriyasih, a traditional Balinese Healer. In the book, Wayan is described as a “strikingly attractive Balinese woman with a wide smile and shiny black hair down to her waist”. She is also unabashedly upfront about all issues related to the body, health and sex. Gilbert consults her for a number of ailments including a wounded knee, how to make her hair grow faster and a bladder infection. Along the way, the two become close, spending many hours laughing and sharing together so that by the end of the book, Gilbert eventually helps raise enough money to help buy Wayan a new house with a permanent address so that her healing center can finally be listed in Lonely Planet.
So, when Courtney and I arrived in Ubud last month, we consulted our Lonely Planet to find Wayan’s healing center on Jl Jembawan, just a couple streets away from our pension. Courtney is a strong believer in alternative medicine and had been looking forward to visiting Wayan for months. She was also battling the lingering effects of dengue fever and was eager to get Wayan’s help. I didn’t really have any pressing issues that I needed healing for but I was interested to go along anyway to meet this real life “character” from a book I had read.
We found Wayan in her shop and she looked just like Gilbert described – long shiny black hair and a welcoming smile. The entrance to the shop was hidden behind an array of potted medicinal plants and a soothing fountain. Wayan was in the middle of helping another client but she ushered us in, asked us to sit down and had a helper whip up a couple of glasses of freshly grated turmeric juice to strengthen and cleanse our bodies while we waited. It’s the Balinese way to treat everyone as equally important so instead of having to wait for Wayan to be completely finished with her other clients, we were sort of rotated in as Wayan jumped around from person to person.
After giving Courtney some herbal tea and rhinoceros water to help flush out the dengue, Wayan did full body energy readings for both of us. We stood up while she moved her hands over our energy fields, looking for any deficiencies or imbalances in our bodies. She also read our palms. I was fascinated by the results of this reading, although a bit suspicious that Courtney and I had so much in common. Regardless, I pleased to hear that I have a long lifeline and good luck. My energy fluctuates (no kidding!) and I have an easy time finding jobs (so far this has been true!). She sees me having two part-time jobs in the future, which makes a lot of sense if I end up teaching ESL back in the States. She declared me “smart, but not brilliant”, which Courtney and I both laughed about. And my memory is not so good. This is true, especially when I compare myself with my sister, who has an AMAZING ability to recall the smallest details about events that happened years ago. As for friendship, love, and marriage, I have four close friends in life. It’s unclear if these 4 friends are already in my life or if she means I will have four close friends over the span of my lifetime. But she was pretty clear about the fact that four men fell in love with me but I brushed them off. I wonder who they were… She also said I have had two serious boyfriends, which is true. She then predicted that I will marry later in life but it will be a “big and deep” love. I will only marry once. I wonder how late “later in life” is. I’m already 32… We asked about children and she said that I have 3 eggs – 2 good eggs and one weak egg. I interpret this to mean one miscarriage and two children but my friends have offered up other suggestions as well, including two healthy children and one handicapped child or two well-behaved children and one wild child. I guess time will tell. As for my health, I need more vitamin E and A in my diet, I need to drink more water and I need to stop worrying so much.
Following the readings, we were sent upstairs to have full body massages that were designed to treat our specific needs. I’m not exactly sure what needs I was being treated for, but I will say that I quite like being massaged by three young Balinese men simultaneously!
Last weekend I had the chance to discover a wonderfully remote corner of Sulawesi – the traditional fishing village of Torosiaje, home of the Bajo sea nomads. Since the 10th century, the Bajo sea nomads (also known as sea gypsies) have roamed the seas off eastern Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Although they used to have a nomadic lifestyle searching for pearls, tortoiseshell and sea cucumbers to present to the sultans of the region, modern governments have accused them of piracy and have forced them to lead a more permanent lifestyle on land. However, the Bajo of Torosiaje don’t quite live on land; they live in a unique and fascinating village on stilts.
Ramang, a friend of mine from Gorontalo who works for an NGO active in preserving the wetlands around Torosiaje, invited Sarah, Alexa and I to join him and another NGO friend of his, Honk, on an overnight trip to this remarkable village. The trip to Torosiaje involved a long 6 hour car ride over winding, bumpy roads plus a short 20 minute boat ride from the mainland out to the village. We arrived at sunset, which gave the already otherworldly location an even more surreal feel. Houses on stilts grew closer and closer while shadows of fishing boats contrasted with the brilliant colors of the setting sun.
After a welcoming snack of tea and cookies, Alexa, Sarah and I checked out the guesthouse where we would be staying overnight. Located at the end of a long wooden walkway rife with missing planks, it offered the most basic accommodation possible, but we loved it instantly. Electricity was provided from a generator, but we asked our host to turn it off so we could enjoy quiet sounds of the sea at night. The guesthouse, like all the houses in the village, was on stilts and had a porch with a set of stairs that went right down to the water. Looking down at the coral and fish below us, we were very tempted to take a midnight swim, but nixed that idea since the toilets for the entire village, including our guesthouse, were essentially holes in the floor directly over the water.
Our guesthouse:
Before retiring for the night, we had a delicious dinner of fresh fish and rice at our host’s house. I’ve never been a big fan of fish served with the head and tail still attached, but this weekend was a turning point. Starting with lunch en route at Bolihutuo Beach, where was no choice except for cooked whole fish, my aversion dissipated. That’s because the fish was served with dabu dabu iris– a local salsa made with coconut oil, onions, tomatoes and chilies. I had been avoiding it because spicy food makes me hiccup, but at this particular restaurant they served the dabu dabuiris without the spicy chilies and it was heavenly. It’s a good thing I took a new liking to this dish because it was served for three consecutive meals.
After successfully navigating the holes in the walkway with our flashlights, we arrived back at our guesthouse and spent the rest of the evening stargazing. The stars here were amazing. The three of us laid down on the walkway with our feet dangling over the edge and made wishes on the shooting stars. We slept really well that night and awoke the next morning to the sound of the fishing boats gliding past the house. In our pajamas, we sat on the porch and watched the sunrise at 5:30.
Not long after sunrise, the village came to life and we quickly threw on some clothes to take a walk around. The villagers were hard at work at their daily activities of cooking, doing laundry by hand, chopping wood, drying fish, cutting coconuts and chatting with each other. People were happy to pose for pictures and it was fun being in such a remote, traditional place and being able to greet the people in Bahasa Indonesia – Selamat pagi! Good morning!
Drying fish:
After a breakfast of fried rice and eggs, we took a traditional fishing boat out to an uninhabited offshore island for a little snorkeling and exploring. The beach was beautiful. The water was various shades of deep tropical blues and we could just make out the village of Torosiaje on the opposite shore against the mountainous backdrop of Sulawesi. Our snorkeling was cut a bit short by the presence of stinging plankton where the shelf dropped off, but even very close to shore in about one foot of water there was a lot to see. Sarah and I spent a good amount of time here watching sand-camouflaged starfish move at a surprisingly rapid pace over the bottom.
This trip was so amazing and special that it helped confirm the decision I had already made: I’m going to request to stay a second year in Indonesia. Hopefully, I can stay on Sulawesi. I’m starting to feel a strong connection to my island and would like to have more time to explore it.
I have encountered the names Grabe & Stoller several times in my TESOL career. I think I first became aware of them was when a friend and I were doing a mammoth assessment project on reading and writing ability in grad school. I just checked our references – their names appear no fewer than six times. Then last year I saw them present at the TESOL conference in Denver. Their presentation on “Debunking Myths about L2 Reading Instruction” was dynamic, interactive and made a lasting impression. Needless to say, I was thrilled when my supervisor from the U.S. Embassy informed me that Grabe & Stoller would be coming to Gorontalo as English Language Specialists to present two 90-minute workshops on reading and vocabulary at UNG. It was hard to imagine two such big names in the TESOL field coming to my remote little outpost in Indonesia, but they were here, it’s true! Here’s a picture of us to prove it:
As we shared meals, car rides and even a bentor sightseeing trip around town, Grabe & Stoller became Bill and Fredricka. What an amazing opportunity to get to know two such big movers and shakers in the field on a very personal level. We chatted about what it’s like to live and teach in Gorontalo and they asked for my opinion about how the workshops went and what I thought the participants got out of them. Interestingly, Fredricka told me how she and Bill found the reading text she used in her workshop here years ago when they were preparing another TESOL presentation. The text just so happened to be about biodiversity in Sulawesi! She never dreamed that she would actually come here, let alone use the text as a basis for a vocabulary workshop here.
Fredricka was especially interested in taking a bentor ride around town. Bill decided he was too tall for one, so he stayed back at the hotel while Fredricka and I went exploring. I’d like to mention here that I now have the next best thing to a personal chauffeur – an English speaking bentor driver who I can text to pick me up anywhere. Ahmad has made my life here much easier since I met him last week. A friend of Tia’s, he attends a hospitality professional school in the mornings and is free to drive me around town in the afternoons and evenings. So, he was the man I texted when Fredricka announced her interest in seeing the town with this special type of transportation. We only had half an hour to spare, but we managed to visit the oldest mosque in town, go down an arcaded shopping street and most importantly, Fredricka got a taste of what it’s like to ride in this type of public transportation that sort of feels like riding in an awkward Epcot center amusement park ride. Here’s a picture of Fredricka, Ahmad and I at the end of our little tour around town:
Bill and Fredricka’s short stay in Gorontalo ended with a group dinner at a new seafood restaurant right on the ocean. We arrived too late to catch the sunset, which I image must be magnificent from this spot, but we did see a fantastic lightening show in the distance. Over non-alcoholic mango, soursop, jackfruit and avocado cocktails, we talked about the events of the past two days with my supervisor from the Embassy, his assistant, my counterpart, the head of the English department at UNG and another lecturer in the department. Getting to know Bill and Fredricka on such a personal level is a great perk of being an ELF!
