A little bit of physics and a lot of luck

Have you ever fallen over? By accident I mean, not drunk? Depending on where and how, you know, raised paving stone, or misjudging distance for instance, it usually hurts like hell and bruises both body and, depending on whether you have an audience or not, ego equally.

Lets take it to the next level. Fallen off of something? Like a bicycle? Skateboard? Rollerskates? escalator? Grazed knees and hands are a minimum and I guess egos are again only bruised depending on the level of showoffiness.

Next step up, what about bumping into someone? Not in the metaphorical sense, I mean actually crashing body parts into body parts, and not in a bedroom sense either. It could be two people bending over to pick the same thing up and banging heads, or maybe concentrating too much on that Tinder profile while walking that you don't see the person coming in the other direction. Hurts.

At the centre of all of these events you will find physics and the numerous laws and principles that define the nature and properties of matter and energy such as Newton's First Law of Motion where A body continues in its state of constant velocity (which may be zero) unless it is acted upon by an external force. Thank you Big Bang Theory.

Now science was never my strong point so don't beat me up if, for instance, thermodynamics are also involved in any of those situations I described, it's just a device to bring me to the main part of this blog post. I was knocked off my motorbike on my way home from work two nights ago.

I've been carried from rugby fields, been struck by cricket balls and dislocated my shoulder trying to accomplish an eskimo roll in a kayak. I've crashed cars, fallen off bicycles, bruised my spine in a speedboat, been down to my last seconds of air while scuba diving and broke my big toe kicking a punching bag while learning Ju-Jitsu. But I've never been involved in a motorbike accident before.

I'm not sure that I overthink things but I definitely do think about things. When I decided to start riding a motorbike I was living in Chiang Mai in early 2009. It was a popular way to travel in a city with plenty of traffic, but organised road systems, and the decision to take the automatic moped rather than the Honda Phantom was decided as much by inexperience and price-per-day as it was by wanting to ride a mini Harley. I seriously wanted to ride the Phantom, I just didn't know how. Technically I didn't know how to ride the moped either but since it was fully automatic the worst thing I could do was over-rev the throttle.

which one would you choose?

A lot of my school mates (when I was a kid, not now I'm a teacher) rode 50cc motorbikes, I passed that by and went straight to driving cars. So with over 20 years of car driving experience, riding my first bike was fun but guided by common sense and an awareness that the protective cage around me had now disappeared. I also have a clear understanding of The Highway Code.

On arriving in Indonesia I was back on a bike inside a year but the conditions were remarkably different. I was still riding a fully automatic moped but the conditions of the roads; potholes, increased traffic, lack of signs, made riding a different challenge. South East Asia, with the possible exception of Korea (http://www.korea4expats.com/article-traffic-laws.html), also has a notable lack of Highway Codes. This means that rules of the road are more arbitrarily interpreted, by both drivers and authorities alike.

That video was of a toll road which doesn't allow the use of motorbikes, except in times of flooding... in some areas... maybe.

For a better idea of motorbikes, here's a video from Surabaya...

What was interesting in the second video is that most people are wearing helmets and not using mobile phones, this isn't necessarily the case in Tangerang and Jakarta.

These videos highlight that a person's understanding of road etiquette is only useful if the other users have the same respect. Where there is a lack of understanding, there is a driving test, where there is a flouting or disregard of the rules, there is the police and courts. So what happens if you find yourself in a country that has neither?

Of course I'm being argumentative. Indonesia does have a driving test but it is not essential to being able to drive. The driving licence may be purchased, illegally, and speaking to friends it would appear that a significant number of people go through this route. An equal proportion of people don't even bother to get an illegal driving licence, they just hope not to be stopped.

So what happens if you do get stopped by the police? Well in that case you just hand them the vehicle documentation and a folded up bank note and hope to talk your way out of anything. The highly unlikely worst case scenario is that if the policeman doesn't take the cash then it will mean a trip to the courthouse in the area in which you were stopped to pay an elevated fine.

Let me be clear, this is not some indignant tirade against the country in which I have lived for 6 years, rather it is an explanation of how things work. I now ride a Honda CBR 250cc motorbike, equipped with anti-lock brakes that I paid extra for and of all of the things that I have mentioned, the single biggest thing that I have taken into account before riding a bike and while riding a bike, is other drivers and what they might do. Indonesians are not bad people, they are a product of conditioning as we all are and where road use is concerned this area is not good.

Have you ever had that feeling, when sometimes you just know that something is going to hit you, or at the very least may hit you. Sometimes you just know you're going to be in trouble. That didn't happen to me. I approached a roundabout fully expecting that someone in the right hand lane may, instead of going all the way around to the last exit, may indeed head straight on, I was also aware that it was equally possible for a person in that right hand lane to pull off the stupidest of moves and turn left across the inside lane. I was in the inside lane, had slowed to take these things into account and then BANG! I'm lying on the road with a truck still seemingly trying to continue forward over my prone body, the only thing stopping this being the frame of my bike.

This truck had done just that, moved from the inside right to turn left at the roundabout. So even with all of my preparedness I still got hit. That I escaped with a swollen elbow and superficial cuts and bruises was down to the lack of speed on the part of myself and the truck.

Furthermore, the indicators on the truck weren't working, the truck driver had no STNK (vehicle documents) only a police slip proving the confiscation of those documents for the truck being pulled over earlier for another offense. In a slight case of irony, trucks are not even supposed to be on this particular road.

What would happen in the UK in this instance is that police would be called to the scene, drivers would exchange insurance documents, and injured parties would be taken, if necessary by ambulance, to a hospital.

What happened in my case was that I was assisted from my position by approximately 20 people, including local security guards, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. As I was able to stand and speak, and fortunately being only 2 minutes from home, I called Uchiel, my wife, to come and help out with language difficulties. The outcome was that the four guys in the cab admitted liability and agreed to attend a local garage to review the damage and agree on the amount to be paid. Insurance isn't mandatory in Indonesia, which means that most don't have it so "negotiations" are carried out privately. (http://www.expat.or.id/info/insurance.html)

The following day, the driver and his mate appeared at our house on return from the repairs garage and, having pleaded poverty, agreed to pay half of the total repair cost which they transferred electronically into our account there and then.

This post should serve as both information and a warning for what to expect in this situation. Had I not had the benefit of someone I knew at the scene, it would have been branded my fault just through me being a foreigner. Had I been more badly injured, who knows what would have happened. What I do know is that had the police been involved it would have cost us money too and we probably wouldn't have received any money toward the cost of the repair.

I choose to ride a bike. I enjoy it, it's easier to get from A-B in heavy traffic and I am aware of the pitfalls. Will I stop riding a bike? No. Will I be more careful? Well certainly at roundabouts, but I don't think that I'm a careless rider or I'd have had more problems in 6 years.

So in the words of the Hill Street Blues desk sergeant, "Let's be careful out there"

thanks to the original owners of the pictures and videos used here.

Good days and bad? Put them into perspective.

As with any job it would be naive to think that all days will be good days. It took me a long time to work out that the job that I was doing previously was giving me less and less satisfaction and, if I'm honest, encouraged me to spend more time than I should have in continuing, and to put less and less effort into it. I had been inspired when I started on the road to becoming an area manager in the pub trade and benefitted from working with some incredible people, many of whom I am fortunate to still call friend.

In hindsight there were numerous other reasons for this trajectory as my personal life was in perhaps even more disarray than my professional one and trust me when I say that that's saying quite a bit!

Suffice it to say that it was a risk in leaving the UK and heading to Chiang Mai to take the CELTA. It could have amounted to an intense month spent learning the disciplines of the EFL teacher but with nothing at the end of it, or even worse the discovery that teaching was as equally demoralising as working in the pub/restaurant trade.

The CELTA was as tough as I'd been led to believe but I can unequivocally confirm that it, and the following 6 years that have brought me to where I am now, have been some of the best years of my entire life. Sure there have still been good days and bad days, there always will be, but even the bad days aren't all bad, are they?

Today has been one of those mixed days but the way it started was just the warmest justification for why I chose this new path. I arrived to find this photo on my desk and signed by the students on the back. Somehow puts everything else into perspective.

I was once told that if you have a bad day, write it down and it becomes the benchmark for all future bad days. If ever a day is worse than the one that you wrote down, that replaces your previous benchmark. I can heartily recommend this to anyone struggling for perspective and who wants to enjoy each day as much as they can...

Honesty

When I was in my early twenties there was a group of us who used to get together to play a board game. It was called "Scruples". In this game of moral dilemmas you were given a scenario and a yes, no or depends card. The dilemma in the scenario card needed to be matched with another of the game's players who would ideally answer yes, no or depends to the situation given. As for strategy, you could be honest in your reply, or alternatively you could play Devil's Advocate to stop someone else from winning. If you chose the latter option, you had to have a good reason for choosing the way you did and your rationale would be open to inspection/ridicule from the other players. A straight, or poker face was also a useful weapon, the first sign of a smile and people would know you were lying.

There are times in life when full fledged honesty is a choice that has to be made. The whole concept of white lies, or lies that don't hurt, came about from the desire to protect someone from a harsh truth. It has also been utilised to avoid saying what is truly on your mind. The downside is that sometimes by shielding someone from a truth makes that same truth doubly hard when it is eventually heard.

The rights and wrongs of absolute honesty is a conundrum for the ages. Biblical stories suggest that Peter denying knowing Jesus Christ was an act of self preservation in the face of betraying beliefs and principles. Such extremes show people to be shallow and untrustworthy. Yet in answer to a wife's question "Does my bum look big in this?", what should the husband say?

Sycophants, blithely agreeing with a boss to allow themselves the favour that may or may not come from that, are possibly self delusional but it's hard to deny them their choice when you look at the potential rewards that come from that sort of behaviour. Alas, if the superior is at fault, the wave of support can blind one to the reality and prudence of the situation. Nazi Germany, anyone?

So who amongst us hasn't wanted to tell a superior when they're doing something wrong? Sometimes blunt facts are the perfect broadside when leaving a job as you have no immediate reason to be wary of the words you chosse. But what if you're not leaving and still need to get your point across? A superior who doesn't want to hear the truth because they may not like it needs to look inwardly at themselves. I have seen 360 degree feedback used as an effective tool in this kind of situation. But it still comes down to the choice of words that one uses. A person who chooses to deliver information without considering the impact of what they're saying, shouldn't be surprised at the outcome, especially if in future they need something like a reference etc.

This is where diplomacy and tact join the party. These two guys allow us to pick and choose not only the words we use, but also the time and place in which we use them. Therefore it is possible to still tell the truth but also fall short of being considered impertinent. Alternatively, a good leader would encourage honesty, yet still to be delivered in a thought out manner.

As I said earlier, I guess it boils down to personal choice...

"Takeaway beer" or "take away beer"?

Wandering around the internet looking for examples of extreme, crazy, or extremely crazy laws, I found these;

Only a qualified electrician is allowed to change a light bulb in Victoria, Australia

In Canada, by law, one out of every five songs on the radio must be sung by a Canadian

In Florida, it is illegal to pass wind in a public place after 6pm on Thursdays

In all of these instances, I find it hard to disagree. Anything electrical is potentially life threatening. Who among us hasn't screwed in that bulb only to get a vivid surprise when the bulb springs to life, indicating our lack of forethought where surging volts of death are concerned? Secondly, if we all started doing the jobs of electricians, they might be encouraged to take up secretarial work, or policing, that's not a good idea.

Canada has produced some awesome songsters. Leonard Cohen, Alanis Morissette and Joni Mitchell are just some of the amazing musicians from the land of maple syrup, so the chances of having to listen to Justin Bieber or Celine Dion that often seems within tolerance levels.

As for Floridian flatulence, well chances are that you're only going to be adding to the unnecessarily high methane levels if you go around casually bottom burping so maybe it should be enforced globally?

None of these laws would stop me from enjoying my time in these countries but that is where they differ from Indonesia's recent decision to remove bottled beer from sale in Minimarts.

The government of recently elected President Joko Widodo seems to be doing all it can to appease it's conservative coalition partners. To protect the morals of young people in a 90%-plus Muslim populated country by removing the temptation from the purchaser and the Minimart sales staff, is something I could live with. 

However, as far as I have been able to determine, the ban only applies to the "local store", not the supermarkets, even going so far as to specify that any supermarket with more than 12 square metres of sales floor area may continue to sell beer as long as it is located in an area next to the checkout.

So I'm perplexed at having visited the four big supermarkets in my local area this weekend; Hypermart, Farmers Market, Giant and Carrefour, to discover that they have all removed beer from their shelves and when asking a member of staff about it I was greeted with thinly veiled contempt. And laughter. 

 



It is not a need for alcohol on a daily basis that drives me, just the need to be able to enjoy a cold, frosty pilsner in the comfort of my own home whenever I feel like it. This is why I have less of an issue with the minimarts being banned from selling it. But why the need for supermarkets to jump upon the same waggon? 

Sure, beer is still available in restaurants, but at marked up prices and not the comfort of my own home. The agreement to allow Bali to be exempt from the law, on the grounds of disrupting tourism, is so shallow it resembles a beer stain. Tourism is a driver throughout the archipelago.

I also don't believe it's 'Creeping Sharia', a term that suggests Indonesia's slow move to that kind of  government. Rather, it's probably similar to visas and other red tape where the right hand refuses to take any interest in what the left is doing.

Movies, Movies, Movies

Yesterday I talked about cooking as one of my main hobbies, but the one hobby that tops the list, that always has, is watching movies.

I have been a fan of movies ever since I can remember. I will watch any genre, however my tastes are more towards horror, sci fi, action and comedy, although not in the same movie so much. I have extremely fond memories of watching Spaghetti Westerns with my Dad as a kid growing up and I think this is also why I have a penchant for a good western movie too. It's also telling that I preferred Lee Van Cleef to Clint Eastwood. So while the man with no name went on to Dirty Harry and acting with Orangutans, I still preferred Van Cleef's more anti-hero style.

As a kid, I used to devour horror movie books too. I don't mean novelisations of horror movies, I mean things like the Hamlyn Book of Horror Movies. Containing stills of strange and wonderful movies that looked awesome to a kid, especially when taken out of the context of a plot or acting. To this day the image of Lon Chaney in London After Midnight sticks with me as one of the most terrifying things my young eyes had ever seen.

Inevitably these books would turn up in my Christmas present pile and where some kids would head straight for the shiney flashing game, I would listen to the vinyl album that my hip aunt and uncle would have bought for me and disappear with my head in the book to re-read stories of silent movies, make-up, characters and actors. These compendiums always contained the same movies, but by getting the latest editions they were updated to include the latest releases. They were nothing short of a feast and whilst in some cases I was disappointed to eventually see the actual movies, I still buy DVD 'B' movies today in the hope that they'll live up to my expectations.

So with this in mind I thought I'd try to review a few of my favourite classic movies, not as an attempt at being a professional critic, rather from the point of view of someone who just loves to be whisked away for ninety-plus minutes. I thought I'd get started with classic Hammer Horror, "Twins of Evil".......

Buying a house in Indonesia - 1. finding the right place

Yes we're finally buying a house. Not the Dream House on the Sumatran island beach, not yet. After almost two years of marriage the days of renting are soon to be behind us and, following a suggestion from a friend, I thought I'd use this blog to share the progression (or regression) that we experience from day 1.

Instead of beginning at Day 1, the story actually began about 8 months or so ago. The yearly rental on our current place was going to be up in August and we started contemplating buying something in Gading Serpong, the area where I teach. The main problem with this idea was that there was nothing within our price range that also met our criteria for the house, so with that in mind I guess what we were looking for is where we should begin.

Ideally we wanted a 2 floor house with 3+1 bedrooms and 3+1 bathrooms and for this we wanted to spend about 80,000 sterling pounds or Rp 1.5 billion!

• The plus 1's are maid accommodation and maid bathroom and are pretty normal in houses here in Indonesia where many families have live-in maids. Whilst not yet being a 'family', should we wish to sell the house in the future it would be necessary to include.
• 80,000/1,500,000,000 is a realistic figure for this size of a house. In some areas we could get a lot more for that sort of money.
• In Indonesia you are basically paying for the land and the popularity of the area in which that land is situated, so pretty much like everywhere else really.
• Foreigners are not allowed to own land. 
• This means that everything needs to be done in Yohana's name or if you were in a situation where you're unmarried you could split the ownership around random Indonesian nationals. 
• Deposits are usually 30% of the purchase price, plus initial fees for administration and bank charges.

 Saying all of that, our initial inquiries had shown us that the price range was always going to be iffy in the area in which we currently live. It's not just the fact that it is an up-and-coming area, rather it is one of the places to live outside of the city and one which has seen house prices more than double in two years, so we knew our work was going to be cut out for us. Knowing this, we had already started looking into other nearby areas such as Karawaci, Alam Sutera, BSD and Tangerang.

the greater Karawaci area

Needless to say after 8 months we were no closer to finding anything. We did consider a 'compact' house but once we saw a builders mock-up of a couple of rooms we both agreed it would have to be a bloody small cat that got swung around in it.

All of this until last week when a chance viewing of a website announced a new development about to be built in Karawaci. Not only was the price within our budget, Rp 866,000,000, the deposit was only 20% meaning that we had enough cash in the bank to do this.

the development brochure

You know those moments? The ones where you experience, feelings. Maybe the raising of the neck hairs when you sense trouble or, maybe for no apparent reason, a warm feeling of good fortune. Armed with the latter, and with only a small photo of an artists impression, we headed for Karawaci and the Binong 1 Residence development.

the design we chose

We knew we were going to have to make some compromises. There were 3 bedrooms but only two bathrooms, obviously a small price to pay. And there was no additional +1's for the maid. However there was extra room at the back of the property if we wanted to develop or add anything later. Finally, the big difference between this and another that was on display was that the kitchen was inside the house. As weird as that may seem, a significant number of properties situate the kitchen outside!

I'll leave this first post with some pictures of the model we saw and the land on which our house is about to be built

the eventual development

Balinese Wedding

Weddings in Indonesia are as varied as they are anywhere in the world and the wedding of my friends Leah and Mike was no exception.

In their case they wanted a small, quiet wedding and so it was that 6 guests; Mike's Mum Nora and Dad Ken, Stewart and Lauren plus Uchiel and myself, joined them in a private Balinese villa on the outskirts of Ubud.

Never missing the opprtunity to get dressed up for a wedding, all of the guys wore traditional sarong while the ladies all sported beautifully coloured dresses.

The setting for the wedding was truly serene. The villa is called Uma Stana and is set in its own grounds looking out over rice paddies and we could see homemade kites circling above us manned by unseen children on the rice terraces.

The villa has 4 rooms, a private pool and a communal lounge/dining area and it was our luck that in such a verdant area of Bali the rain held off for the duration of the weekend.

It was a real priviledge to be a part of this event and one that we will cherish forever.

Central Java Adventure 2014 - Yogyakarta/Jogjakarta

Landing at an airport in Indonesia, any airport in Indonesia, is always the same. It may even be the same across the whole of the Asian continent for all I know. It certainly is in every part of Thailand that I have visited. You must do battle with hordes of porters and taxi drivers trying to persuade you to take their overpriced vehicles to wherever it is that you want to go to, with most touts using tried and tested cajoling tactics. 

this photo wa taken on a day the airport was closed to taxis....and passengers

On a previous trip back to Jakarta towards the end of my third year in Indonesia, I still remember being told that a cab from the airport to my home town of Gading Serpong would be Rp300,000, or $30 (I think that you’re starting to pick up on the conversion rate that I’m using which, whilst not being accurate enough for a money changer, is as near as damnit is to swearing). The actual price at the time for this journey, using a metered cab, was closer to Rp50,000, give or take a couple of thousand. When I pointed this out to the tout in my pidgeon Bahasa he was most put out, both by my knowledge of local taxi fares as much as my ability to use his language. 

You could always try to circumnavigate this process by staying in a hotel that offers a courtesy car service which will pick you up from your airport or station of choice, or you can try to stoically walk past them with a look of determination on your face that says you know what you want and where you’re going to go to get it. We decided to choose the latter approach.

The last time we were here in Yogyakarta was for our mini honeymoon. On that occasion we gave in and took an overpriced, non-metered taxi but this time we sneaked our way through the taxi drivers and departing passengers and made our way out to the main road to flag down a passing cab. As we were waiting, Yohana struck up a conversation with a guy working in a roadside shop and talked about the best direction for Malioboro, the street on which our hotel was situated and he kindly suggested a suitable spot in which to wait.

I have lived in Indonesia for more than five years now and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it is the friendliness, inherent in Indonesian culture and which encourages these wonderful people to speak to random strangers, that makes me want to stay forever. 99% of the time the chief reason for this friendly banter is curiosity, a trait that while sometimes uncomfortable for Westerners who aren't overly happy about being asked their inside leg measurement as an opening question, does indeed grow on you. I have been drawn into conversations in all manner of places, from restaurants to urinals, on subjects as varied as my home town to how to shoe horses with one hand tied behind your back. 

Not all Indonesians are that pure in their conversational intentions though, so consequently it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between that friendly banter I mentioned and someone who is sizing you up for a sting. Having had my good nature bitten on more than one occasion, I tend to approach all conversations with a healthy dose of suspicion but not to the point of rudeness. If the end of the ‘where are you from?’ conversation ends up with a request for money, I just use a tabloid journalist technique; make my excuses and leave.  So as I watched the guy approach us now I still didn't know which way the conversation would go. As it happened, there was no pretence at all towards small talk, it was just a question. ‘Need a lift?’ and for a quickly negotiated $6 we were winging our way towards our hotel.

I should point out that my original holiday plans were for a solo trip. Every year I have the opportunity for a break between contracts and this year I decided that even though it meant a week unpaid, the benefits of an extra week off would be worth that sacrifice. Yohana originally couldn’t have the same time off from her job and her holiday year and mine do not run in sync, so it was only at the last minute that she found she was able to get the time off work to join me. Fortunately she was also still able to book seats on the same flights as me, even paying the same price, plus I’d already picked double rooms in each of the three hotels in which we’d be staying.

 I digress slightly but I really, really dislike small beds. When I first left home at the ripe old age of nineteen, I rented a room in a shared house in York. It was a box room in a terraced house, facing onto the busy Bishopthorpe Road and only contained a tiny single bed, a chest of drawers and a meter fed radiator. It is true what they say that we learn from our mistakes as many was the cold, cold night that that meter needed to be fed the fifty pence piece that I’d unwittingly spent on a kebab or a pint of lager. With the exception of my first house on my own in Indonesia, where a borrowed single bed was the extent of my initial furniture, it was the last time where I spent consecutive weeks in a single bed. My dislike of single beds reached its extreme when a year before I left the UK to work in Indonesia I went so far as to buy a super king-size bed. The pretext was that the room it was going in was big enough to house it but so huge was this thing you could roll over three or four times and still not fall out of it. How I know this is a story that would see me digress too far.

 The general plan for the week was to see some of the rich culture of Central Java, the earliest area for trade between Indonesia and the Indian sub continent, China, and Europe. The area is home to Batik, the distinctive, sometimes garishly bright, colourful fabrics worn throughout Indonesia and especially on Fridays in Jakarta. This, along with the museums;some of which depict Javan Man, supposedly the closest link between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, were of great interest. Plus I just wanted to relax, take some photos and write my blog.

To say that Yohana dislikes walking is something of an understatement. She comes from that Indonesian point of view that believes that Andong (horse drawn cart), Becak (a three wheeled bicycle in which two people can sit in a basket at the front and the rider is perched, cycling, behind you), Bajai (a motorised version of the Becak, called Tuk-Tuk in Thailand), Ojek (a motorbike taxi), Angkot (a mini minibus that holds anywhere from one to seemingly thirty people), Taxis, and trains, were all invented to remove the need for physical exertion, but she agreed to do some walking and that if I wanted time to see things that she didn’t, she’d just go shopping. I stopped short of broaching the fact that with her particular brand of shopping she would need to cover a few miles on foot in a market.  So it was that the deal was struck.

Yohana trying anything to get out of walking

The flight to Yogyakarta would see us spend  a whole day and night just hanging out in Malioboro, following which we would take the early morning  train to Surakarta (now called Solo) for a couple of days. The next stage would be a train North, to the coastal city of Semarang for another two days before finally flying back to Jakarta on Friday. Not so much an adventure as a carefully planned few days.

As for the hotels that I’d booked, they were all pretty basic and budget priced but I’d still plumped for AC instead of fans and made sure breakfast was included. In addition, the first two had swimming pools which for the price was an added bonus. The third, whilst not having a pool, had the added attraction of a pub attached to it. I believed that I’d thought of just about everything, especially with the World Cup showing every night.

There is some trepidation involved in arriving at any hotel that you’ve booked. You hope against hope that it is the same as it looked in the brochure or on the page on the internet. Even worse, it could have been recommended by a friend whose word you took and, even though part of you said that you shouldn’t listen, you booked it anyway. One man’s meat is of course another man’s muckle. Therefore driving across Yogyakarta, smiling at all of the beautiful hotels and hoping yours would bear a passing resemblance whilst inwardly cringeing at the awful ones, turning the corner onto Jalan Pasar Kembang, the street on which our hotel was situated, was enough to encourage a couple of butterflies in my stomach. If it were me on my own I’d make my complaints, if there were any, to the manager and then put up with whatever I’d let myself in for. Now I had the wife to think about too.

Those initial thoughts dissolved as the Istana Batik Ratna came into view and immediately struck us as perfect. The traditional Javanese fascia of the place with it’s decorated teak panels, a well swept frontage (we were adjacent to a busy main road) and working  signage bulbs were all pointers that we’d picked something  right. We were slap bang in the middle of one of Java’s biggest cities and yet this hotel wouldn’t have looked out of place in the fresh hills of Puncak or the lush fields of Ubud. All good signs.

Approaching the desk and armed with our printouts from Booking.com, we were checked in with the full knowledge that we couldn’t have the room until 1pm. A look around the pool and breakfast area left us happy to pay for the room in advance which at Rp412,000 per night, approximately $40, left me feeling good to have booked it purely from Tripadvisor reviews. The key to why I had booked this hotel in particular was not only the cost, it’s location adjacent to Jl. Malioboro, a thriving market of a street specialising in Batik material, souvenirs  and traditional food were of equal importance.Top reason though was that It was also directly opposite the train station from which we intended to make an early start for Solo/Surakarta the following day. So at 9am, leaving our bags at reception, we walked the few hundred yards towards Jl.Malioboro.

The city is more commonly referred to by its shortened name of Yogya, or Jogja as it is sometimes spelled, and it is a big city. It is home to a number of highly thought of Indonesian universities and is also considered to be a creative city, hence the Batik I guess. It has on its doorstep two very high profile temples in Borobodur and Prambenan, both of which have UNESCO heritage status and the city feels as different to Jakarta as black does to white. If the cities were to be compared to animals, then Jakarta is a chamaeleon whereas Yogya is more of a peacock. Yogya does still suffer from many of the same problems that plague much of the archipelago; traffic, pollution, a proliferation of litter, yet it also has a different ambiance which gives the visitor a more engaged feeling. Jakarta is vast with no true centre to the city whereas with Malioboro, Yogyakarta has it’s heart. 

Walking along the covered pavements, lined with shops on one side and hawkers on the other, it is a testament to the durability of the locals that whilst everyone is selling exactly the same products, they must all be earning enough to support themselves and their families. Outside the pavements, the open streets themselves are also subdivided. The central two lanes are for motorised traffic such as cars and the more numerous mopeds and motorbikes. On either side of these, next to the pavements, there is another lane given over to the horse drawn ‘andong’ and their poorer cousins, the becak. All forms of small public transport are open to negotiation with westerners, or at least non-Indonesians, coming in for a usually less than subtle price hike. My wife is from the town next to Yogya and even that is insufficient when negotiating with a Bule (non Indonesian) by your side. To tour one side of Malioboro by andong would cost you $5 or Rp50,000 in local cash.

We enjoyed our morning enormously, stopping for a newly introduced Wall’s Magnum pomegranite flavoured ice cream, haggling with a store owner for a baseball cap to keep the intense glare of the sun away from Yohana’s head, passing the time of day with locals who threw out random comments of ‘hello mister’ and at one point undertaking a survey to help local high school kids practice their English. Interestingly, the involuntary nervous reaction amongst teenagers seems to be an uncontrollable fit of the giggles.

Something that was pleasantly surprising was the number of obviously city council motivated modern art pieces on display on the street. The theme was obviously recycling, given the materials involved. Old and rusting paint cans had been turned into a ball around one particular lamp post, plastic bottles had been used to create a kind of sea monster and old water drums had been turned into highly decorative shields. The sad part was this focus on litter didn’t seem to have influenced the local populace to use the numerous rubbish bins any more than the last time we were here.

Form a culinary point of view, and whilst not particularly hungry, Yohana was keen to try some of the food from her childhood that just isn’t the same outside of the area in which you first try it. I consider myself to be from the North of England (even though I was born in Bedford) and the singular truth is that the national English dish of Fish and Chips is only at it’s best when served in the North. At the risk of alienating myself, the North to me includes; North Yorkshire, Cleveland, Wearside, Tyneside and Northumberland. On a good day it may include very specific parts of Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumberland but this hardly ever happens. So it is that Yohana believes that certain foods are exceptionally associated with specific places. This thought process was confirmed a second time on telling the staff at my office where I was going on my contract break. “We want Bakpia(a sweet, doughy ball) from Jogja!!” came the cry in unison. When I suggested that this would mean me carrying it around for a further 5 days and that I could easily buy it from Semarang, you could have been mistaken for believing I had committed an act of unconscienable heresy.

If further proof were indeed needed, it came in the form of a warung halfway along the opposite side of Malioboro to where we had started. These warungs, or street food stalls, with no stainless steel prep benches or colour-coded chopping boards, defy everything that my years in catering ever taught me. It is easy to think that you’re going to walk away with a stomach parasite that will eventually push tendrils so far through your body and into your brain as to make you want to voluntarily listen to Justin Bieber songs, on repeat. But in five years I can guarantee I have never wanted to voluntarily listen to the Biebs. Something that I would suggest is that if you’re a vegetarian, or more importantly a vegan, this may not be the place for you, and by that I don’t just mean Yogyakarta. The warung at which we stopped, selling only Lumpia (spring rolls), offered 3 varieties; Egg and vegetable, chicken and vegetable, or just vegetable. Yet they are all prepared in the same space, using the same equipment and then cooked in the same oil. Indonesians just don’t see food issues and dietary restrictions in the same way that westerners do. I have never once come across an Indonesian who is lactose intollerant, a celeriac or allergic to nuts. I guess they must be there, I’ve just never met one. The crowd here was, I kid you not, five people deep, always a sure sign that you’ve hit the jackpot of whatever it is you’re looking for. There were other places selling Lumpia, but this one was obviously the best. Rp3,000 bought you a single Lumpia of your choosing, and I still don’t see how they made a profit once you add in the chillies and garlic. It was also here that I undertook the student survey, grew a beard to rival Father Christmas and mastered 3 new musical instruments, we waited that long. It is another Universal Constant that the longer you wait for something, the better the outcome.  Here was the proof.

Hurriedly walking along the street, clutching our long awaited spring rolls, we were looking for a stall that sold Javanese Coffee (a sludge of the most perfectly balanced coffee in the world) where we would also be able to eat our prized lumpia and we soon found ourselves in luck. We ordered our drinks and opened the packet of six huge, piping-hot spring rolls, accompanied by a bag of volcanically hot green chillies and, more importantly, a small plastic bag full of pureed garlic. On biting in to one of these rolls of joy, dipped in soft garlic flesh and supported by an explosion of pleasure/pain that can only come from the tiny, green cabe rawit, the only expression that comes to mind is the currently overused vernacular of OMG!! These deep-fried parcels of pastry, containing a mixture of beansprouts, chicken, julienned vegetables and spices were surely too good to be true. Having left Yogya and able to reflect on the experience, it was still nothing short of spiritual.

After this the rest of the day was spent crashed out by the hotel’s small swimming pool before retiring to the room for a well earned afternoon sleep. The room was basic but clean and the bed more than comfortable. 7pm arrived far quicker than we’d hoped but hunger was starting to kick in. We showered and dressed and once more made our way back to Malioboro and to the Legian Garden Restaurant.

We’d noticed this place earlier in the day, a first floor building perched on the corner of a street leading off Malioboro. It looked interesting, was strategically lit and would offer a great view of Malioboro’s night time street life. We made our way up the marble stairs and along the veranda to a window table. The menu had a variety of Indonesian and western foods but the emphasis was on the local dishes. Yohana chose Nasi Gudeg, a dish of steamed rice and jackfruit famous here in Yogya while I went for a sate with rice. There were three to choose from chicken (ayam), beef (sapi) or goat (kambing) and I went for the latter as it makes a much more flavoursome dish.

The waitress returned with the Gudeg and a few moments later with my sate. “sate sapi” she said as she put down the earthernware pot with the sate sticks on top and a burning coal in the chamber below. “I’m sorry” I said, “that’s not what I ordered.” “What did you order?” she enquired. “sate kambing” I replied. “Yes, this sate kambing” she responded with a huge smile that could also have been a nervous grin. There is a choice to be had here...on looking at the meat on the sate sticks, I knew it was beef and on tasting it it was unmistakeably beef. I could have called the waitress back and got her to change it but by that time Yohana would have finished and it really just wasn’t worth it. The sate was perfectly edible and was served with both a peanut sauce and a sweet soy sauce mixed through with red chilli slices. A cold Bintang beer helped to wash it down and 30 minutes later we were on our way back to the hotel. As we left the restaurant, there was just enough time for a little more street food. Yohana spied a Wedang Ronde stall which would make a suitable dessert. It’s a strong, sweet fresh ginger tea that has pieces of white bread, freshly roasted peanuts and small pieces of jelly, all served in a bowl with a spoon. Ideal to soothe the colds that we had both been nursing on and off for the last week.

We fell into bed exhausted and full, sleep immediately taking the pair of us and both looking forward to a train journey to the historical Surakarta the next day.

You want to work in Paradise too?

There is a steady stream of people who decide, for one reason or another, to up-sticks and head for Jakarta. Some people do as I did and head for Asia and then consequently find themselves in Jakarta. Other people head for Jakarta or other parts of Indonesia specifically.

The reasons for coming vary enormously too. It could be to work for a company, such as in the oil industry. It could be a gap year, or it could be as simple as needing a change. Whatever that reason, if you want to work your way around a new country, then teaching is a great choice for many reasons.

If you choose teaching, and teaching English, it usually means learning a new skill (more about that later). It allows you to then take that skill and potentially apply it anywhere that needs an English teacher. Depending on how the experience progresses, you may find yourself diversifying into other jobs. One thing I can pretty safely guarantee though is that the experience will change your life.

So, how to begin........
Well, assuming you aren't currently a teacher then you need to get some experience to become one. Most institutions are looking for some qualification that proves you understand what is involved in teaching either EFL (English as a Foreign Language) or ESL (English as a Second Language). If they're not interested in you having any teaching qualification, worry.

Many teachers take a TEFL course, the 't' stands for teaching. This is often through a company such as  i-2-i (http://www.i-to-i.com/about-i2i/careers-with-i2i/) who offer both online and classroom based opportunities. I'm not familiar with this as it's not the route that I took somy advice is that you really do need to check what your future employer is looking for. So don't skimp on the research. Put another way, it may seem relatively easy to do an online course, but will the qualification get you a job? Or just onto an extended course for further qualifications?

I went down a slightly different road and took a CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) with a company called International House based in Bangkok (http://www.ihbangkok.com/index.php). I really can't rate this highly enough. It was the toughest month of my life in some ways. It was also the most satisfying ( I should apologise to my ex-wife for that last sentence). What I have found since is that the Tefl courses seem fine but the CELTA is just so much more developed. I can only tell you how I felt at the time coming off the course. It was so in-depth and extremely focussed on lesson planning and delivery that I still adhere to it's formats over two years later.

So why Thailand? Well, Thailand has it's knockers (no pun intended) but International House are a reputable company and the CELTA is directly affiliated with Cambridge University so carries a prestige too. The second reason was that they offered a residential course in Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand which appealed enormously to me. I had absolutely no intention of staying and travelling in the sweatbox that is Bangkok, but Chiang Mai offered a different perspective.(The picture below is not the accommodation, rather it's the view across a serene, tranquil catfish lake, perfect for reflecting on your teaching practice or essay writing.)

This is the website for the residential course location http://www.nugentwaterside.com/ you don't book your accommodation, it comes as a package but this site shows better angles than my photos!

There is a maximum of twelve teaching students on the CELTA course and ages and experience vary enormously. below are some of my friends from the course.

The added benefit of taking the CELTA in Thailand was that with the classroom teaching practice, I taught non English speakers and in hindsight this was immense value when starting my first job.
The students are locals from Chiang Mai and are offered a structured English course for free, as long as they don't mind being guinnea pigs for the teaching students!
(above is the computer and research room and below is one of our training classrooms at Nugent Waterside)



"I've passed my TEFL/CELTA, what's next......"

Well next up is to apply for a job but who to apply to?
For me I'd settled on China or Indonsia in the first instance. China because I'm fascinated with the culture and Indonesia because I knew next to nothing about it. Why not Thailand? Well, the CELTA course had finished in February and the fact is that the State schools don't really recruit until May/June and financially I needed to be working.
My Uncle, who has a great deal of academic experience of China was at pains to suggest I didn't go there. Before anyone hyper-ventilates, this is my blog, with my experiences. I hear many good stories of experiences teaching in China. I have never worked there so really can't comment other than to point out that my Uncle didn't consider it to be the best move I could make. So it came to pass that I took up an offer with EF English First in Jakarta.

I reccommended earlier that people should do their research carefully. I did not. I was partly so happy to get the job I'd applied for (I had also been offered a job in China) that I just kept anticipating putting the hard work into practice.
Not researching carefully enough usually, after having started the job, leads to cries of "what?" or "You want me to do what?" or "I'll be sharing a room with two goats and Grandma Probolingo?". I have been lucky. This comes from being placed in a great school with an academically excellent Director of Studies. But my advice to everyone is DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

Have a list of what you want to know:-
location
salary
what ages will I be teaching
expectations of ability to follow your own interests outside work
accommodation
etc etc

This way in any interview, you will be prepared as much to ask questions, as to answer them.
If you're offered the job and time allows, I'd expect the Director of Sudies who you'll be working with to contact you and offer the opportunity to speak to or email current teachers. Another chance to ask pertinent questions. This along with the research you did earlier will ensure you don't arrive and immediately think "what the ......?"
In all likelihood you'll be taking on a one year contract. That may or may not be extended depending on your performance as much as your intention and any extension depends on what you want to do next. I know teachers and DoS's who have continued into their fourth years and beyond.

Finally. This is a job of work you are taking on. If your goal, as in the words of the immortal Artist Formerly Known as Prince, is to party like it's 1999, then don't do it. Do something else. Get into party planning or wedding organising. You're going to be responsible for impressionable minds. Of course you'll have plenty of chance to let your hair down but you're not on some kind of extended holiday. Better to hear this now than when you're struggling to get a reference for your third job in three months!

Life as a teacher is hard work but there's also fun too. My school is often organising day trips or overnights to different places. Going off on your own is also fun and there's always plenty of help and support to do this.

Good luck and feel free to comment here or ask for further help. I'm happy to oblige.