I left New Zealand with very similar baggage as I had left with for the first time back in 2005. It has been a while since I have been able approach a check in counter without having to worry about how overweight my check in will be, able to carry, rather than wheel, my luggage. I wasn’t going somewhere to live or to work: I was travelling again.
Gateway to India
Taj Mahal Palace Hotel
To India. I have always regarded India as a rather challenging travel destination, and I have had friends tell me how it will be a mind blowing experience. I haven’t spent a huge amount of time here yet, however I’m finding it all very… easy. Perhaps it is all relative, and after living in Indonesia, there is just a certain degree of inconveniences, communication difficulties and cultural misunderstandings which I take for granted. Sometimes you’ve got to squat and there usually isn’t toilet paper. Get used to it… and carry hand sanitizer.
Police Line around Wall Street (during the stockmarket crash!)
New York Stock Exchange
Times Square
Durians in New York
Ground Zero
Irony
For some reason an article titled “Charities struggle to spend cash for tsunami”, with a few chunks cut out of it became an art piece in the Museum of Modern Art. I appreciated a certian irony, given that my trip to North America was partially funded by my Rest and Relaxation (R&R) allowance from the charity I work for, using money donated for the tsunami.
Inscription from the foyer of the American Museum of Natural History
A suitable epilogue to my North American Expedition.
Having been in Indonesia for over 6 months straight, they decided it was time I took a holiday. So I decided to go somewhere completely different… Canada.
When my parents came to visit me in Indonesia, I took them to Bukit Lawang, a former Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, bordering on a National Park. They got slightly closer to nature than they expected…
Mother and Baby
Dad vs Ape
They’re so like people…
… Hairy people
Mother and Baby (or is it Baby and Mother?)
!
The Jungle Inn
Disclaimer: Contact with Orangutans is strongly discouraged, as it can lead to infection by human diseases. However, as you can see in the video, Jackie, the orangutan, came straight out of the jungle and attached herself to my mother. Some history may put this into context: Jackie had previous had a baby, who died, due to eating plastic rubbish which had been left in the jungle, and since then has been approaching people who entered the park; My mother is a psychotherapist. After the incident Jackie followed us to the river at the edge of the park – her feeling of loss and need for connection was very apparent.
My work took me to the island of Nias, off the coast of Sumatra. This is one of the more remote and poorer parts of Indonesia, and close to the epicenter of the earthquake which caused the tsunami. I fortunately also got a chance to travel round the island.
Village
Nias is also famous as a surf destination
The Wave
Traditional Houses (Styled after boats)
Traditional Houses (made without any nails)
Traditional Houses (no longer built, because they require too much wood to build)
The Big House (where the Chief lives)
Boar jaws from a feast (they’re not Muslim here!)
Traditional Artifacts
Town Square
Funeral Ceremony
Traditional Coffin
Stone for jumping over (For scale, I’m 1.92m)
Training staff to use the Supply Chain Management Database (I was actually there to do some work)
Stone jumping was a traditional method of of training warriors for battle, which has become a modern method of extracting money from tourists (about $10 for a jump).
I was impressed by the town square, as it provided a large public space for the community. The historical reason for this space isn’t so pleasant – it was used to gather the troops before battle. I wonder How many public spaces around the worrld eixst because of such militaristic orgins?
Freddies Resort (officially named Santai Simur Tiga) on Sabang, the ultimate weekend get-away spot from Banda Aceh and venue of a number of Yoga Retreats which I organized.
January 28th, 2009
