This time we did not succeed. The inhabitants of the country don’t speak at the end of this article. Why? Away from government offices, universities or tourist strongholds, almost no one was able to speak English anymore. The Indonesians have proudly turned away from their colonial masters with their Dutch, Portuguese and English and agreed on a common, easy-to-learn language for all islanders. And unfortunately we did not manage to listen to more than two lessons of our audio course “bahasa indonesia”. We did not get beyond the usual conversations such as bus connections, prices, accommodation. We talked a lot with other tourists or foreign owners of accommodations and restaurants. Only at the very end on the island Una Una we involuntarily slipped into a situation to help an Indonesian family. We were suddenly in the back of beyond, part of a family, shared the worries and fears for their son, without words, but still with them.
In the back of beyond? Yes. In this country, you’re always far away somehow. Far away from pizza, telephone, internet or medical care. Decompression chambers for diving accidents are only available scarcely. To reach an Indonesian doctor it sometimes takes three hours or more by ferry, bus and taxi. In no other country have I been asked for medical advice as often as here. I helped with two emergencies and treated one alone. As a traveler, I was challenged to make the right decision in such remote areas.
And how does Indonesia deal with all the masses of tourists who come to the country every year? Most of the visitors travel to the islands of Java and Bali. From Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan you can easily fly to Bali directly, from Europe with one stopover. This has led to a puddle of miniskirts, drug use, prostitution, alcohol excesses and unbelievably little tolerance for local customs such as fasting in the month of Ramadan. Not tolerable for Muslim believers.
If you trust the reports and newspaper articles, many observe an increasing overeagerness in complying with the rules of the Koran as well as a radicalization in the country. For us this sometimes meant in the month of Ramadan: breakfast at three in the morning or none at all and the next warm meal after sunset. In between we drank water and ate chips and cookies unobserved. Super unhealthy! We were once rejected by a hotel because we could not present a marriage certificate. A headscarf? I didn’t have to wear a headscarf, but when a woman here in Indonesia wears a headscarf, then not a single (!) hair sticks out. And the youngest child with a headscarf we saw was six months old. Even in Iran this was not interpreted as tightly as here… How will this gap between tourists and modernity be brought together in the near future? We are curious.
Indonesia remains for us a very contradictory, fantastic country with friendly, helpful, reserved people and full of beautiful nature.
“I’m happy to have been born here.” Taxi driver from Bali
And as always we say goodbye with a song, which we associate with much too long bus and ferry trips.
