travel diary — day 280
day 276 — i spent the day at the hotel and café. i had started feeling a little sick again so i didn’t want to go too far. i messed around online all day.
day 277 — i felt much better today, but i was reluctant to stray too far from the hotel. i stayed in the café and spent my time online.
day 278 — almost a week ago i’d got a message from tom, a photography friend i’d met in korea. he told me that he’d be in jakarta late on wednesday evening and that we could meet on thursday. tom found me in the morning and we had breakfast together. he and his girlfriend went out for a look around and i met yulia again. we talked all afternoon and went for a walk to the monument in the centre of town (which was not too far from jaksa).
after yulia left i caught up with tom and agatha again. we had dinner and got stuck into the beer. when the live band started, tom did some drunken dancing and we (agatha and i) laughed at him. eventually they staggered off and i decided to stick around to recycle some more beer. two bottles later i was on the stage with the band singing ‘mustang sally’. it was a pretty good rendition, but because i was drunk, i couldn’t remember the proper sequence of verses. i got through it and went back to my beer pretty pleased with myself.
day 279 — in the morning tom and i met again. we decided to get out and do some photography. tom was keen on finding a slum area and i got some leads on where we might be able to go. the three of us jumped a taxi in search of the slums which would probably be located on the edge of town.
we couldn’t find the place which we’d got a name for, but on the way we’d seen a dodgy looking street market which we guessed could have something to photograph. we headed back and got the taxi to drop us near the market. we wandered through the market and found, behind it, a small slum area full of rubbish, cats, kids, and curious indonesians who wondered what the fuck foreigners were doing there.
we took photos and attracted quite a crowd. a lot of kids followed us and tom strode off through the garbage to photograph an old woman doing some scavenging. agatha and i decided to stay out of the garbage piles and messed around with the kids who’d been following us. when tom returned we started to wander back towards the main street, the clouds in the distance looking ominous. just as we met the main road and hailed a taxi, the skies opened up and the rain poured down.
it took forever to get back to jaksa, due to the rain and peak our traffic. we had dinner and a few beers then called it a night.
day 280 — today we were all heading different directions. tom and agatha were flying to bali. i was going to try and get a bus into sumatra. it was pouring rain when i said goodbye to tom. they got a taxi and headed to the airport. yulia had come to see me and i told her i was leaving. she was teary (for reasons i couldn’t understand) and i considered staying a few more days. the rain and yulia’s tears were eroding my resolve to leave. eventually i convinced myself to go. yulia came with me to the bus station, only to be told that i had to go to a different bus station … this is the thing that pisses me off about indonesia — they have way too many bus terminals and it’s sometimes difficult to know which one to go to.
i finally got a ticket, said goodbye to yulia, and jumped on the bus to sumatra. in the evening the bus boarded the ferry which would take us across to sumatra. i walked around the ferry for a while and then went in to get some food. the restaurant doubled as a karaōke bar. it was pretty sad to see bored women sitting and singing. i had some coffee and noodles (yes, tempting fate, having already been sick), then sat and updated my diary. i read lonely planet’s information about sumatra and padang (my destination). everyone started suddenly moving and i figured we were close to reaching land. i returned to the bus and continued the trip.
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