Kelayang Beach Cottages

2 nights had been spent in Tanjung Pandan and I opted for a change of scenery. I’d already found the Kelayan Beach Cottages and, once checked out of the Herlikat Hotel, rode the moped the 30 minutes to get to the cottages.

This place has a beautiful beach and the wooden shacks that overlook the beach are rustic at best. They have two cottages, fan or air con and as there is only 50,000 a night difference I agreed to the air con room at 300,000 per night (aprox £20). The rooms are spacious, mine has a big double bed surrounded by mosquito netting and a bathroom with a western toilet and a shower. The fan room has a squat toilet more traditional in Indonesia and the view from all of the wooden verandas is the palm tree-lined beach.  I arrived at 9.30am, changed my shorts to swimming shorts and went and grabbed the nasi goreng that I’d ordered when I checked in.

Straight out of a packet, it didn’t bode well for what I’d hoped would be good food here but for breakfast it was fine. Food over, I walked the 20 or so yards to the beach and just threw myself in the warm, blue water. The beach here doesn’t have as much detritus as the beach at Tanjung Tinggi. Last year, all the beaches were perfect but the tides at this time of year still wash all manner of flotsam and jetsam onto the beaches. This doesn’t really change until after May. Anyway, Tinggi was a bit of a mess but Kelayan is gorgeous. Palm trees swaying in the breeze, fishing boats parked just off the shore, the famous rocks dotting the bay and a couple of to gaze at. (One of these, i swear, looks like a chicken but found out later is thought by the locals to look like a Garuda, Indonesia’s mythical symbol).

After the swim i thought i’d read my kindle...I’m reading “The Legends of King Arthur and his Knights” by Sir James Knowles...but instead, fell asleep on an uncomfortable single plank. Not so uncomfortable that i didn’t sleep though.

This afternoon has been spent swimming, writing, reading and I’ve just finished a really nice piece of roast chicken accompanied by a sauce made from sweet, thick soy sauce, chopped fresh chillies and a squeeze of lime juice. Served with rice, it obliterated all thoughts of this morning’s nasi goreng.

It’s so insanely relaxing here my only real regret is that Yohanna couldn’t join me.

Interrogation with a smile....

Indonesian nature is to be blunt. The language doesn’t really use please and thankyou, they have it but just don’t use it in the way that we do. Does it mean Indonesians are impolite? Not in the slightest. Just a lack of formally polite words and a seeming disregard for privacy.

Handshakes are a bit odd here too. I remember the first time I shook an Indonesian’s hand. The pained expression on his face, along with the eagerness he had to let go of my less-than-steel-like grip, was obvious. Along with a reluctance to shake hands on departure, this led me to believe I’d made something of a social ‘faux-pas’.

It turns out hand shakes are more symbolic here. I was brought up by my father to believe that a weak handshake was a mark of the man you were shaking hands with. A weak handshake meant possibly a wimp, possibly not to be trusted and at the very least, damnably insincere. (My dad was a copper and is a northerner to boot so weak handshakes were especially unmanly) “shakes hands like a girl, he does” still brings a smile on remembering an occasion when he talked about an example of the above description.

But, back to the story. March 18th found me writing blog entries outside a small warung in Tanjung Pandan. Located next to the beach I was drinking delicious local black coffee,  watching the world go by and getting inspiration for my writing. I was sat adjacent to a small park with kids play equipment and a great view of the beach and receding tide.

Do you know that feeling you get when someone’s stood directly behind you, staring at you? Hairs on the back of your neck are on alert and our nascent spider sense slightly tingling? Well, that’s what caused me to turnaround in my chair. There behind me was a short, stout Indonesian guy with a beaming smile and wearing an immaculate Batik shirt in hues of orange and black. ”Hello” he said. “How old are you?” What do you say to this? Do you look angry that someone’s interrupting your afternoon coffee?  Do you look perplexed at the question? Do you just ignore the question and hope he’ll go away? My time here has taught me many things and the first is to relax and see where it goes.

“I’m 44” i replied in bahasa Indonesian, “how old are you?” i continued. Ignoring the question, he carried on, “Are you married?” This is all extremely normal. Indonesians, especially those that don’t meet many westerners, are ridicolously curious. Turning the tables, I stood up and towered over him (I’m 5’9” by the way) holding out my hand i said in Bahasa Indonesian “My name’s Daron, what’s your name sir?” he looked at my hand a moment, maybe he’d met a bule from northern England before, then extended his hand, smiling all the time. Our palms touched, just the very slightest interlocking before quickly releasing. This is how Indonesians shake hands.

Turns out his name was  Ramansah, he’s 43 and he’s a govenment official. He was at the beach this Sunday afternoon with his wife, kids, brother and brothers family and wanted to try out his English. It’s not that he didn’t respect my privacy, it’s that I’m a westerner, on his island, and he speaks a little English and wanted to practice.  The questions came thick and fast and each time I asked a question in bahasa Indonesian he seemed a mixture of disappointed and frustrated that I wouldn’t just sit there and answer him. Still, the conversation continued and I continued to answer his questions. At one point he invited me to his house for dinner but I declined, partly because the thought of an extended interrogation over dinner wasn’t really appealing. Looking back I think it was a wasted opportunity and it always helps to know people in government. Still, I have his number and I’ll call next time I visit the island. Probably.

He left following another brief handshake and deliberately drove his car in a contrary direction tothe one in which he needed to go, just to give the family the chance of seeing up close the guy he’d been talking to. All of them beamed smiles in my direction, waving their hands.

Intertesting.

What's on TV tonight?

 

There is nothing, televisually speaking, more hilarious and at the same time tragic, than Indonesian TV. In my house I have access to cable networks including Fox, Warner TV, Al Jazeera News and ESPN. I also have access to all of the terrestrial Indonesian channels.

The difference comes into stark relief when channel hopping. I’m not saying that all western TV has great production values, just look at the writing, the acting and special effects on the recently cancelled Fox show Terra Nova to see what I mean. But, when compared to the action shows on Indonesian TV, ...wait, what action shows?

Indo TV is predominantly a selection of soap operas, game shows and variety shows.You can also find loads of football and movies but it’s programmes such as Opera Van Java, a series of sketches performed live in front of a studio and home audience that are most popular and would probably have never aired on channels in the earliest days of western tv. I’m not saying it’s bad, well, I guess I am, but these programmes have a fanatical following amongst Indonesians. This is partly because of the OTT farce where people fall over a lot, partly because of stereotypes being put in stereotypical situations (there seems to be much campness)the audiences in the studios are entranced and i’ve seen people watching on tv screens in public laughing along.

I think it shows the cultural divide between the west and Indonesia. Actually, generally In the East too, as Japan is no stranger to insane tv and my experience of Thai tv was also similar.

Watching one local soap opera (I don’t know the name and don’t know the channel, but that’s ok as the formula for Indo soap operas is exactly the same) I was struck by our geographical proximity to Australia. Is bad TV catching? Is it possible that the likes of Home and Away and Neighbours could have infected the tv executives here? That same level of bad acting (Guy Pierce, I’m looking at you here) the cliffhanger expressions as a particular piece of banal gossip comes back to bite some upstanding citizen, the shaky scenery, all of these motifs are present in Indo soaps, just not as well done.

What’s interesting is that I meet loads of Indonesians who steadfastly refuse to watch Indo movies at the cinema as the plot is just too contrived, but these same people will watch an Indo soap.

Even more interesting is that the current movie being raved about for its cultural significance, great acting and brilliant directing, especially on IMDB, Aint it cool. com and Rotten Tomatoes, is a gritty drama set in a high rise block of flats called The Raid... It’s Indonesian and I can't wait to see it!

Golf course, this way...

I have had the opportunity to play golf in some great parts of the world on some of the best courses. My favourite experience would have to be playing San Lorenzo, in Portugal’s Algarve, as it had had the prestige of holding the Portuguese Open on a few occasions. I’ve played golf in the middle of the Albert Park F1 Racetrack in Melbourne. I once played a brand new course in Florida with a mate of mine where we teamed up against a couple of cigar-chewing american pilots and showed them that the Brits are ultra competitive and benefit from not laying-up, even when faced with aligator infested water hazzards.....so imagine my surprise when driving the road between tanjung pandang and tanjung tinggi, I saw this sign....

.....this wasn’t here 7 months ago.

It was worth an investigation I thought. Might just turn out to be a cluster of houses with the cluster name “Golf”. Might be a crazy golf course or a couple of pitch and put holes.

Nope...some entreprenneurial local has had the brilliant idea of building a golf course in the middle of a jungle. No pitch-and-putt either, rather it’s a 9-hole course with 5 par-4 holes and 4 par-three holes. Ok, no par-5’s but who knows what they have planned for the future.

This is the view from the first tee and, as you can see, local hazzards include the malaria filled water trap in front, snakes to the left and right and an Indianna Jones style bridge to get to your dive. This is a pretty impressive, first-of-nine, holes.  300 yards, up hill, carrying water. Nice, open fairway but i have no idea of the quality of the greens. I’m guessing slow.

So back up a few minutes....I arrived just as a group of locals were coming off the 9th. One of them asked me if I wanted a drink and when I said a yes, a perfect iced tea appeared in front of me (this wasn’t magic, a waitress brought it). I think, as is usual in Belitung, they wanted pictures with a Bule on their new course and I happily obliged. The golfers, the caddies and I then spoke in broken english and bahasa about golf, Jakarta and, inevitably, David Beckham  so I thought it the right moment to bring up playing a round. Tuesday is my best day as tomorrow I want to visit the lighthouse and this seemed to fit in with everyone else’s plans (lord knows how many people are coming!)I was asked what time and here it got quite comical. I suggested 10am as I didn’t think the heat would bother them (here they were, walking off the course at 1pm). Excellent, everyone agreed at 10......”mungkin jam sembilan?” an indonesian voice in the group suggested, maybe 9am?, ok...9 it is then.....”what about 8?” ok says I, not really wanting to get up that early, but what the hell!!....it now seemed to be turning into a competition as to who could get me to start the earliest including the voice from the back that suggested “Sunday?” which would have meant either extending my stay on the island or going back in time. Giving him the benefit of the doubt I think he joined the conversation late.

Suffice it to say, I’m teeing off at 7am on Tuesday in the extremely unofficial Belitung Open!! (God I want to buy a house here even more than ever now)