Liz's Birthday in Pangadaran's Paradise

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An early start to the day led to a very LONG travelling adventure, including 4 hours by train, 6 hours by bus, a few cabs and culminating with a becak (the local tuk-tuk) ride.  If you're looking for good ways to get to Pengadaran, I don't have any -- it's a painful journey (well over 12 hours from Jakarta, and over some pretty unpleasant terrain), but let me tell you that it is well worth it!!

Some other pointers that will help me get my culture shock off my chest...
1.  Trains are generally not air-conditioned here unless you are in EXECUTIF class... we're not.

2.  Buses do not have schedules.  Show up at a bus station and hope there is a bus going your way.  You bus will also make a million and one stops and allow as many people that are around to get on your bus, no matter if there are seats are not.  Also, random sales people and buskers will board your bus at random and demand money for things like singing you a song or giving you an orange.   Apparently it's your choice of whether or not you want to pay them...

3.  Buses are not A/C-ed either (see above for crowding concerns)

4.  People smoke everywhere... including above-mentioned non-A/C-ed trains and over-crowded buses.  Ick!

So we finally arrived in Pangadaran around 9PM at night and were then treated to a becak ride.  Now, the becak is the local transport like a tuk-tuk in Thailand, but it is nothing like a tuk-tuk, because, for starters, it is not motorized!  Basically, it is a big cart that is strapped to a bicycle and the driver pedals and pushes the cart, which you sit in.  It is great fun, but quite slow, as I'm sure you can imagine!  As we are travelling as a group, we must have been a sight to see, with 12 becaks pedalling down the street at night -- only 1 person per becak!

Okay, so we arrived at the hotel and Ubie (our guide for this leg of the trip) wasn't kidding when he promised me that this accomodation would be a 9/10.  I actually give it a 10/10 -- a definite first for Intrepid so far!  (He also said it was the nicest place we stay, so we had better enjoy it!)  When we got to our room, we noticed 2 things: 1. It's on the beach and you can A. Hear the ocean, B. See the ocean, C. We ARE ON THE FREAKING OCEAN!!!  and 2. We have a SHOWER CURTAIN!  We have not had a bathroom with a shower curtain in over 3 weeks, so this was extremely exciting and definitely called for the 10/10. 

The next exciting revealation was the SWIMMING POOL... okay, so we're not talking Cabbages & Condoms infinity swimming pool over the ocean, but it was still the first pool in far too long and it was gorgeous.  After 12 hours of travelling, a dip in the pool was absolutely needed, and we attended to those needs after first running / skipping / jumping in circles and yelling at the top of our lungs to the ocean. 

In the pool, we had our we're-in-a-new-place meeting to discover all the wonderful things to do in Pangadaran, then grabbed a bite at the hotel's restaurant before finally calling it a night far too late once again.  The last thing I remember hearing before falling asleep was the sound of the ocean... ahhhhh....

Next day, we quickly caught the buffet before closing at 10AM -- although some crazy people, including Liz, woke up to see the sunrise at 5:30AM.  We were all a little tired, but very quickly rejuvenated when Udie walked out carrying a cake for Liz!  We all sang and I filmed the entire thing!  I'll have to try to figure out how to send that out, because it was really cute.  We decided to save the cake for later on that evening.

After breakfast, Tonya -- new woman on the trip, who also happens to be a yoga instructor -- decided to instruct a yoga class, to which we were all invited!  How nice!  We were quite the focal point for everyone in the restaurant as we stretched and posed in this lovely common space.  We could faintly here the ocean, our area was surrounded by greenery and halfway through, the staff put on this CD of hymns... it was a scene directly from one of this chintzy yoga videos, that's for sure!  But it was really great and Tonya kept commenting that we were so in-shape... thank god for all the walking!

By the time yoga was completed, it was nearly time for our afternoon activity: a hike through Pangadaran's National Park with the neighbourhood Dr. Doolittle, Mr. Iaope.   I have to say that I was a little skeptical about Iaope's true abilities, but I was quickly convinced.  2 minutes into meeting me, he had already spoken to a dog, had a little joke with it, made it laugh and then scared it into running away.  I was blown away.  And he actually made some weird barking noise... very bizzare.  When the tour actually started, he led us to the park, where we quickly saw a group of deer very far away.  He made a strange noise a few times and all of a sudden, the deer came running towards us!  Deer... possibly the world's most skittish animal, was coming at us, not running away!  We were all in-awe of this sight.  He then produced some coconut, which he used to lure them closer, continually making the funny noise, which he taught us.  I have great photos of the deer extremely close (it's now posted).

Next on the list was monkeys, which are longer as impressive because we have seen them so often.  But he talked to them and bought them so close that they were taking food from our hands.  Pretty cool.  We next went into a cave -- pretty far into a cave, such that it was totally dark and the sound of thousands of BATS overhead was nearly deafaning.  To make matters better/ worse, Iaope proceeded to call over PORCUPINES.  For this process, he made a weird gutteral noise and shook his bag of food, while we stood there in the dark -- no flashlights allowed!  When he had finally summoned them, we were allowed to turn the lights back on and there were 2 porcupines sitting 4 or 5 feet from us and Iope was feeding them coconuts, which they were taking right from his hand!  Got some great photos of them and the ceiling-full of bats, too.

We then visited a clump of trees where we met a family of monkeys.  Using the coconut again, we were able to lure the monkeys over to us and feed them directly from our hands.  Liz dug out a bag of honey-flavoured cashews, which they greatly enjoyed as well.  The funniest part was when Iope produced a monkey skull and showed it to the leader-monkey.  He got really upset and barred his teeth at us and ran away.  We half tormented the poor thing a few more times (he kept coming back for those cashews!), but more to witness his dramatic reaction to this skull -- monkeys are definitely smart!  I filled a video of the leader monkey ruling the roost by chasing around a bunch of other monkeys.  Iope explained that the leader monkey was exerting his dominance in front of us, as a show.  Very interesting. 

We then hiked for about an hour, seeing other creatures like birds (Ioape also talks to them), a curious creature called a mouse deer (basically a mini-deer), more deer, iguanas, etc.  It was so much better than any zoo because Iaope could talk to them!  Ioape also explained other wonders of the jungle, including which plants can be used to cool you down and he even died by hair RED by rubbing a leaf against my blond hair!  The end of the tour was at Pangadaran's white sand beach, just in time for the sunset.  Since Pangadaran is a very small peninsula, you can easily see both the sunrise and sunset in one day!  It was beautiful.

We walked back to the hotel, but not before placing an order with woman on the street for a kilo of mangosteens... yum.  Back at the hotel, Sara had ordered a massage to her room and generously offered the masseuse up to us when she was done.  Since it was Liz's birthday, we all thought she deserved an hour with Momo (the lovely masseuse).  When Liz was thoroughly relaxed, we headed out for a seafood buffet dinner, where we sampled same-day seafood, such as shrimp, scallops, calamari, snapper and bow-wow (the local fish).  Everything was amazingly delicious -- and all for only 50,000 rupiahs (about $7.50 CDN)! 

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel to pick up Liz's cake and then walked back to the beach, when Udie had arranged for a beach bonfire party for Liz!  It was so SPECIAL.  Sitting on benches, right beside the beach, with a huge bonfire, a full moon, singing along with Udie's guitar -- and did I mention the cake?  So good... and of course, with beer and some local wine.  We sat on the beach, making up the theme song for our trip, telling jokes and drinking until nearly 2AM.  It was really wonderful and such a chill evening -- exactly what Liz wanted I think.

After getting to bed so late (again with the sound of the ocean lulling me to sleep), getting up for brekking was tough, but the smell of the hotel's banana pancakes made it a lot easier.  :)  Most of the group was going out on a tour of the Green Canyon, but Liz and I opted to stay back and enjoy lovely Pangadaran on our own instead.  Around mid-morning, we finally made it to the gorgeous black-sand beach and hunted for a place to rest.  Walking along the beach, we were quite the sight, as we were certainly the only white people for miles.  We finally found a quiet strip, which was also sort of hidden behind a long boat and settled in.  An interesting part about our day in Pangadaran was that we seemed to keep running into people we knew -- and we certainly didn't know that many people!  First, we saw one of Udie's friends from the night before with the bond fire on the beach.  He is actually the beach's lifeguard and he offered to watch us if we went into the water -- very nice indeed!

We had a lovely afternoon of tanning, interspersed with trips into the ocean, but not too far because the rip-tide was extremely strong.    Everytime Liz or I got up, we were stared at, by anyone within staring distance.  It was sort of disconcerting, but we are slowly getting adjusted.  The black sand beach was certainly beautiful, but black sand sticks EVERYWHERE!  And it does NOT come off, no matter how intense the scrubbing.  Full of sand, we eventually left the beach and wandered about the town for about an hour, stopping to grab some fresh seafood for a late lunch. 

On the way back to the hotel, I had an 80-year old woman moment and little fell face first into the gravel, taking off a significant peice of my toe and part of my knee.  Can't explain why -- my ankle just completely gave out for no reason -- and I was bleeding everywhere.   Luckily, I had my towel with me and we weren't far, so we quickly hobbled back to the hotel.  An interesting point in this drama is that right beside the point where I fell, there were 6 or so Indonesian men sitting playing cards at a table.  While they all looked up when I face-planted, none of them offered any help whatsoever!  I guess I truly understand the "saving-face" culture now!  Since it was my obvious inability to walk (hugely dumb moment that I would have surely laughed off had I not been bleeding everywhere), they didn't want to embarass me further by coming to my aid.  Luckily, Liz does not subscribe to this culture, too!!

Anyway, my first aid kit was put to the test (it passed!) and after bandaging myself up, we enjoyed the calm of the poolside restaurant, enjoying a mid-afternoon fruit salad snack.  At 5:00PM, we walked down our little road to pick up our order of mangosteens, but before we reached the market, Iaope drove up to us, with the mangosteen bag in his hand!  He had remembered about our order, gone to see the market lady and apparently she didn't have any, so he drove on his motorbike to another orchard and got us some himself!  Iaope is the SWEETEST man ever!!!  I had a genuine love for humanity at that very moment.  At this moment, we also realized that we had re-met almost every Indonesian person that we met the day before.  On the street, Liz and I had run into Momo (the masseuse), we saw one ofthe guys from the bondfire on the beach and now seeing Iaope in the street -- really, it was a small world!

Liz and I sat in utter bliss, eating our mangosteens and enjoying our patio.  Soon enough, our bliss was disturbed by Tonya -- the yoga master woman and resident crazy-person.  She explained that she had a complete meltdown on the tour of the Green Canyon and asked to be taken home!  What kind of 40 year-old woman has a public meltdown and says, "Please take me home!"  She also had strong words with her travel partner, Jeff, who had apparently been snoring all night (thanks to beers on the beach) and she hadn't slept all night.  So she's basically the most dramatic person I have ever met and I know quite a few dramatic souls, including myself.  Wawawa... she whine to Liz and I for about an hour.  Really can't stand this woman...  Glad I could get that off my chest.

Anyway, we eventually made it to dinner and because I am a gimp, I rode on a motorbike so that I wouldn't have to walk.  It was my first motorbike experience and I was really excited to try it!  Before anyone freaks out, our tour guide, who is also Udie's friend and had been hanging out with us the who time we were in Pengadaran, was driving and I felt totally safe.   And it was great -- although I would never ride it during the day because the traffic is just too insane.

Dinner was alright, made more exciting because of the live kareoke in the restaurant.  Hahaha.... very entertaining.  Our "small world" theory proved more true, as we saw another woman we had met on the beach at the restaurant.  4 people in one day!  After dinner, we called it a night and tucked ourselves in for our last sleep in paradise.  :)