Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Indo Dreamin’ in Indonesia

Finally, I made my way back to Indo after a hiatus of nearly 5 months. It really sucked to be away from home for so long but I do not think I will be able to refer to Jakarta as home for much longer. I went back this time to move out of my house and into a smaller apartment. Now that I do not spend much time over there it was not worth it to keep such a big space. I am not in Indonesia right now; I am actually back in China already. I was only home for about 6 days. My cousin got engaged so I came down to attend that and ended up getting roped into being MC for the event. I actually had to come up with a speech in less than 2 days and speak in front of over 900 people! I started off really nervous looking down at my cue cards a lot but by the end of it all I was pretty drunk and got into the whole experience. It was fun and I got to do something nice for my cousin. He is more like a brother really because we grew up together most of our lives. The wedding is in June and that’s gonna be a trip and a half. If you have never been to a Sindhi wedding you are seriously missing out. It’s one whole week of absolute debauchery. Not to say this one night was any less. We totally ripped it up in the ball room and kept the party going well after the systems shut down. I wish I could have stayed longer but reality calls.



I was also fortunate enough to make a quick trip to Jogjakarta for a day. It was work related but it is always nice to be out of the big city. And this time I went far out. I had to travel about 3 hours from the airport into the mountains. It is the rainy season in Indonesia now so the forest was extremely lush and saw cocoa, rambutan, and even banana trees with fruits all over them. I felt like I was in some tropical paradise.





Once again I drove past some magnificent scenery, lush valleys teaming with animal and plant life, rice paddies above and along the mountain sides, and breathe taking views of the city from high above Jogja. But once again I did not have time to stop and absorb any of it let alone take decent pictures. It blows my mind though that only 2 weeks before this I was driving along the coast of West Africa, chilling on a beach in Dubai, and a week before that driving through the Tian Mountain range in China. I should feel like Indiana Jones or at least some kind of international business man, but the truth of the matter is most days I feel like a 16 year old kid pretending to be a grown up. I am just afraid that one day they are going to find out.


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