Selamat Hari Natal (a.k.a. Merry Christmas!)
Our first married Christmas wasn’t really the way we imagined it would be. There was no ‘First Christmas’ ornament for the tree. No family gathered ‘round drinking eggnog. No Christmas carolling or turkey dinner or gifts. It kinda went down like this:
4 AM – Call to prayer from the nearby mosque
4:30 AM – Roosters awaken
5:00 AM – Silent Night blaring from a speaker positioned directly outside our window
5:30 AM – More roosters, one being chased and caught by locals – dinner?
6:00 AM – Christmas electricity! As a present, Santa is leaving our power on all day. Very exciting as it’s 35+ degrees and that tiny fan with the one setting (low) is a godsend.
6:30 AM – Give up on sleeping and go for breakfast
6:45 AM – Buns, grey meat-like substance and curiously, donuts for breakfast (where is the tourtiere??)
7:30 AM – Attempt at a shower. No water pressure. Brendan claims the shower is like “3 small children peeing on him”. Decide to apply extra deodorant.
8:00 AM – Daily dose of Immodium and Gravol for the day
9:00 AM – Yay! Another bus trip! 5-6 hours today. Switch-backs up a mountain. Beautiful views.
1:00 PM – Break from the bus. Two items on the menu – you guessed it, fried Mr. Noodles and fried rice. This time the seasoning is just salt – and lots of it. Exciting Christmas find at a street stall – OREOS!
2:00 PM – Arrive in the hill town of Bajawa. Find internet for first time in a week – two computers for the town. Exciting!
3:00 PM – Check in to a new low in accommodations. Mould-covered ceiling, plastic covered headboard and too much nastiness to describe (Mel’s mom is reading this after all).
3:15 PM – Wander the town in search of cold beverages.
3:22 PM – Tour complete – unsuccessful.
4:00 PM – Sit on a step outside waiting for time to pass.
6:00 PM – Decide to dress for dinner. No working shower here either. Wonder if we brought enough deodorant.
6:01 PM – Brendan screams like a little girl when reaching into his pack. Mel assumes cockroach. It is far worse: a scorpion has hitchhiked on his dress shirt.
6:10 PM – Scorpion dispatched. Scorpion goo will likely remain for years to come.
6:20 PM – Show picture of scorpion to locals – find out it was actually quite dangerous and would have killed a small child. Luckily for us, would just have made us very very sick. Consider ourselves lucky. Another brush with death averted.
7:00 PM – Go to only restaurant in town open. Chinese food. Recount our theory that the Chinese are the world’s largest sleeper cell poised to take over the world from every tiny town in every part of the world via Chinese food restaurants. People in the group look at us funny.
7:15 PM – Begin dreading going back to the room.
8:30 PM – Food arrives. Actually not that bad. Try hard not to think of turkey and mashed potatoes. And tourtiere. And wine. And Mom’s homemade bread. And stuffing. And chocolate roll. Can we have another Bintang?
9:00 PM – Thorough scorpion check. Acknowledge this will likely be part of traveling with our packs for years to come.
9:30 PM – Fourth check under the sheets for scorpions. Dreading sleeping, yet dreading being awake in this room.
10:00 AM – Mel begins plotting her escape. More about that soon.
11:59 PM – Still falling asleep, with visions of scorpions dancing in our heads.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Tags: Indonesia, Travel
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