Jungle Love

I just spent four days on the edge of the Sumatran jungle in a village called Bukit Lawang. The village relies heavily on tourism because it is the home of an orangutan conservation and rehabilitation center as well as a national park. It is also one of only two places in the world where you can still see orangutans in the wild.

We left Jakarta on a 7 am flight, which put us in Medan about 9:30. A driver from our hotel met us there and drove us three hours to Bukit Lawang. From the drop off spot, we had to schlep ourselves and our bags another half-hour along the river to our hotel, the Jungle Inn.

Our rooms were amazing. We had two rooms, joined by a walkway between our patios and with a private view of a waterfall coming down the rocks behind the hotel. Also, my room had a gigantic rock that formed one of the walls.

Once we checked in and had a delicious lunch of pumpkin curry, we set out on our first hike, to the Bat Cave. Apparently, thousands of bats live there. I went on the hike but didn't decide to go into the cave until we got there. It was a pretty difficult hike, through a bit of jungle, down into the rocks and then up the rocks into the cave. So, I figured I'd come that far, I might as well go inside. Lucky for me, the bats were either hiding or too far inside.

When we got back to the Jungle Inn, I thought I was soaking wet from sweat--I wasn't and I wouldn't find out what soaking wet from sweat felt like until I went on the real jungle trek--so we rented some tubes and I jumped in the river in all my clothes to go tubing down a couple of rapids. In retrospect, this was a bit of a mistake. I only brought four t-shirts for four days and the one I was wearing when I jumped in the river never got dry again.

On Friday, we got up early, had a quick breakfast, and set off for a trek through the jungle in the hopes of seeing orangutans in the wild. We'd considered doing the overnight trek. There was a part of me that really liked the idea of trekking for two days and staying overnight in the jungle. And there was another part of me that thought there was no way my knees and feet would make it through two days of trekking, and that even if they did, there was still the problem of sleeping in the absolute darkness of the Sumatran jungle with all manner of bugs and snakes and who knows what else. It's a good thing that was the part of me that won the argument.

We trekked for a couple of hours. I went with three friends and there was another couple added to our group, so that was six trekkers and three guides. I was the oldest and the most out of shape so I went a little more slowly than everybody else. But one of the guides was always with me, trying to help. I always want to do it myself though, partly because I'm stubborn that way but mostly because I'm a total klutz and I can find my balance better without somebody grabbing at my arms and trying to pull me along. It ended up being okay because it was a tough hike for everybody, so while I was going along at a steady but slow pace my friends could stop and rest and have a drink of water while they waited for me to catch up. Plus, we would stop periodically while the guides went off the path and into the bush, looking for the orangutans.

There are both wild and semi-wild orangutans living in the jungle. You can tell the difference because the wild ones are scared of people and the semi-wild ones are not. The semi-wild orangutans started out as zoo animals or as pets or were maybe trained to be in animal shows. They were eventually sent to the Orangutan Center for rehabilitation into the wild.

The first orangutan that my group saw was wild. I was too far behind and missed it. Apparently, they caught it as it was running away and they gave chase with one of the guides. We came up on the other guide and he was laughing, saying that they could chase it all day but it was gone. He called out to find them and we started walking off the path in their direction. For one moment, I lost both of the guides and was standing in the middle of the dense jungle, off of the path. I wasn't particularly scared, but I didn't really know what to do. So, I called out and they were back to collect me in two seconds. We walked a little further on and found the rest of the group. That's when things got a little crazy.

When we started the trek, the lead guide told us the rules. He explained that we'd all walk up into the jungle (and boy did he mean up...and up....and up) and then we'd take rests while the guides split off to look for the orangutans. Then, when they found them, they'd take us to them but we would walk very slowly. He told us to get our cameras out and carry them because it wasn't a good idea to unzip a backpack in front of the orangutans since they would think we were unpacking food and might become aggressive. Also, we were told we absolutely could not touch them since we might transmit a human disease and especially since we were all wearing mosquito repellent. And under no circumstances were we to feed them. The point of the rehabilitation center is to make sure that they can live on their own in the wild. He told us that the guides carried food and sometimes had to feed them in order to stop them from being aggressive with tourists, but that they avoided that if they could.

So, picture the nine of us, all off the path, in the jungle bush. Then, from nowhere, all of the sudden, there were a bunch of other tourists and guides and somebody shouted, "They're over here." Remember how our guide told us to go slowly when we spotted them? Yeah? We didn't. Six people who were, to that point, being very careful about where they put their feet, were suddenly sprinting through the jungle to get to the orangutans, and I was one of them. Luckily, it was a semi-wild female who wasn't spooked by all the people that appeared out of nowhere. She had her baby with her and they stayed up in the trees, looking down at us.

Then, the other tourists, who apparently had guides who weren't as awesome as our guides, pulled out freaking bananas and started to feed her. I definitely had mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, I understand why we're not supposed to do it. Ultimately, it's not good for the orangutans to depend on food from humans. But on the other hand, she came right down to our level and it was unbelievable. I couldn't stop shaking and I almost started crying. We watched them move around the trees for about a half an hour until we were ready to move on in search of more.

After we'd been in the jungle about three hours, we got to a place that went up some more, only this time someone had built huge cement stairs. I started up with everybody else but then the guide mentioned that it would be about two hours of climbing up the stairs and then we'd have to go down. My knees are shot and stairs are the worst! Climbing up is hard, but I can handle it. Climbing down is downright painful. I thought about it and decided that after two more hours of climbing up, I'd be so tired that I ran the risk of seriously hurting myself on the way down. I also wanted to be able to enjoy the rest of the weekend with full use of my legs. So, I bailed. At that point, we were luckily only about 15 minutes away from the river crossing back to the hotel. So, one of the guides took me down and then ran back up to the group.

I got back to the hotel about noon, peeled off my sweat-soaked clothes, took a shower, had a nice lunch, read my book for a little while, and then ventured back across the river to the feeding platform at the center so I could watch the afternoon feeding. Twice a day, the rehabilitation center provides a meal of banana mush (bananas and milk) to any semi-wild orangutans who want to come and eat it. They say it's mostly mothers and babies who come to get a little extra to supplement what they find in the jungle. Unfortunately, it's the fruit season now, so none came to eat in the afternoon. But there were plenty of macaques. Those are little gray monkeys that can be very naughty. They were everywhere along the river and playing in the trees around, and on the roof of, the hotel. And apparently, they go to the feeding to get the scraps the orangutans drop. I was, not surprisingly, the last one up the path. I stopped at one point for a breather and I noticed a trail of monkeys following me. As I turned around, the all froze in place and the lead monkey became suddenly interested in the trees around him. It was so funny. It was like he didn't want me to know he was following me so he pretended to be looking at something else, just like a little kid. Natura-ally, I kept turning around to watch the scene play out over and over again for the rest of the way up the path.

One the way down, the ranger pointed out one of the 14 most deadly snakes on the planet, sleeping in a tree. I'm glad I saw it after I'd exited the jungle interior.

I got back to the hotel and my friends had arrived. One hurried off to get a massage and another took a nap. So, two of us sat in the restaurant (open-air, of course), and enjoyed a late afternoon beer. I sat with my back to the river. My friend noticed the trees moving across the river and said something about monkeys. I turned to look and all of the sudden we saw two orangutans, moving around in the trees. Right there, from our hotel. It was so cool. We learned later that they have a nest there, so most mornings you can watch them leave and most afternoons around four, you can watch them come back.

We hung around our hotel for the rest of the day, relaxing and playing cards. There was no reason to go anywhere else to eat because the food was fantastic. On Saturday morning, I took a walk down to the village to shop for postcards while my friends did a little sunbathing. I joined them for about a half hour when I came back. The sun is pretty hot at noon right on the equator. A half-hour was all I could stand.

Later in the afternoon, two of us went on a rafting trip down the river, through the village and into the farmland. I never imagined there could be so many shades of green. This time, there were two guides with us, one for the front of the raft and one for the back. The raft was three tubes tied together. There were rapids, but the water was low, so they were nothing serious, and we enjoyed a leisurely trip to a place where we climbed out of the raft and into a truck that drove us back up to the village. From there, we had to make the trek back to our hotel again. I'm glad we stayed where we did, but each time we walked back, I swear it was further away!

Sunday, we did a whole lotta nothing! I read in the sun for a half hour and then I was hot so I went swimming in the river. After that, I read in the shade. At three, it was time for us to leave. We said good-bye to our friends at the hotel and schlepped our bags back down the hill to the car that drove us back into Medan to catch our flight.

The weekend was a whole series of "I-can't-believe-where-I-am" moments and today I keep wondering if the whole thing was a dream. I'd like to go back someday but I know I probably won't. There are too many other things to see in Indonesia and it was a pretty expensive trip, by Indonesian standards anyway.

I'll always remember seeing the orangutans, which was the reason I wanted to go. But even more importantly, I'll remember the people of Bukit Lawang. In 2003, the river rose 10 meters in a flash flood that destroyed all of the buildings and killed over 300 people--I think that's about half of the population. The guide that stayed with me on our jungle trek lost his wife and son in the flood. Everyone in the village must have lost someone.

Just imagine that. Imagine losing half of your town--your family, your friends, your neighbors--gone in the few minutes it takes for a raging wall of water to rush through a village. Seven years later, the village is rebuilt and the tourists have returned. If you didn't know about the flood, you'd never guess. The people are warm and friendly and welcoming. Even though they didn't show the tiniest bit of sadness, my heart aches for them. I'm not sure I'd have the resiliency to recover from such devastation. But they go on, obviously proud of their village and their jungle and more than willing to share it with anyone who happens to visit.

The Great Angkot Project of 2010

I'm kind of a big picture person. I like to have a plan and I like to be armed with as much information as possible before I execute that plan. What can I say? Knowledge is power.

In Indonesia, I sometimes have to live way outside of my comfort zone in this regard. Partly, it's the language barrier. When I don't understand most of what's being communicated, it's difficult to get a big picture perspective. And, partly it's the culture. There's a habit that I find frustrating where a person will only share part of the story. At work, it might be about why a student is missing class. The student's parents will call in and talk to the front desk. The front desk will give me one sentence: "So and so is sick." If I try to get more information, they shrug their shoulders. If I ask a yes or no question, I sometimes think that they are giving me the answer they think I want. The same thing happened when I lived in Korea and it used to really piss me off. Here, I can deal with it, partly because I expected it (because of my previous experience) and partly because the people exhibiting the behavior are so warm and friendly it takes the edge off.

Still, moments like these can be frustrating and as I become more of a resident of Jakarta--and less of a starry-eyed foreigner--I'm starting to notice more. As a result, I often launch little information gathering projects. I study maps and bus routes. I take pictures and make little notes to myself about the things I see. Neurotic, maybe. But useful.

In the spirit of learning as much about my surroundings as possible, last Saturday, I initiated a new project--to draw a map of the angkot routes in my suburb. I think it would be impossible to map all of the angkot routes in Jakarta--and anyway, most of the time I venture away from my area, I take the bus or a taxi--but there are four main angkot routes running around where I live and no map to tell me where each begins and ends.

So, I got up early and set off. I took a taxi to the mall, which is where drivers from all four of the angkot lines sit in their empty little angkots and wait for passengers. The taxi driver told me the mall was closed, which I knew. But he was concerned that I didn't know what I was doing. In one respect, he was right. During mall hours, there are always two or three angkots from each route sitting in front of the mall, waiting. It didn't occur to me that when there are no people exiting the mall, they wouldn't bother to wait.

But across from the mall, there was one driver, all alone in a number 13. I made my move. I took my Jakarta city atlas and one of four colored highlighters out of my bag and walked up to the driver. I told him (partly in Indonesian and partly in pantomime) that I would give him 5,000 rupiah if he would use the highlighter to mark his route. He understood and he agreed. Then, he didn't want to take the money, but I insisted. It's only 2,000 for a short ride in an angkot, but 5,000 is the rough equivalent of 50 cents.

When he was done, I was feeling pretty good about myself and my idea. There was a number 4 angkot parked across the street, empty, so I approached. The driver looked at me intently as I explained what I wanted, pointing out to him the streets highlighted in blue, where the driver of the number 14 had marked. He nodded understanding. So, I handed him an orange highlighter. And he wrote his signature.

I tried not to laugh as I explained again what it was that I wanted. Again, I pointed out to him the number 13 route that had already been marked in the atlas. He heard "number 13" and told me I had to cross the street to catch it.

At that point, I decided to just ride in his angkot to a place near the bus station where I knew that several number fours waited for passengers. Before we reached the location, he told me I had to get out because he was getting something to eat.

Okay, so at this point, I'm one for two--a little deflated, but still feeling okay about my project. A number 30 was coming down the road, but it had people in it. So, I decided to climb aboard and highlight my own route. Unfortunately, this task was impossible because the driver left the main road and traveled through a twisty-turning series of streets with enough room for only one car. We had to stop frequently to let a car by that was coming from the other direction. Kids roamed freely, people were outside, cooking or sitting around. It was a neighborhood so different from mine, where people stay in their gigantic houses locked behind iron gates. After about twenty minutes, we came to a place where there was a line of angkots waiting--the beginning of the route.

At that point, the driver tried to make me get out, but I was now the only passenger and I saw my chance. I explained to him what I wanted. He got uncomfortable and called out the window for someone who could speak English. This nice man came over and tried to help. His English wasn't great, but he could understand my Indonesian/pantomime routine, so he told the driver what I wanted. Except he told the driver that I wanted to ride along and draw the route myself when I would have preferred to have it drawn for me. But I'm nothing if not flexible and my schedule was clear, so I climbed into the front seat so I could see where we were going, asked where our precise location was on the map, and got my highlighter ready.

Turns out, the route of the number 30 is super long. It leaves my suburb and heads for another area of the city, further north, all the way by the docks. My driver got out soon after we left the neighborhood and a new driver got in. I had to explain all over again what I was doing. It took him a really long time to understand, even though I was sitting there with a map and a highlighter. Eventually, he understood though, and he took me all the way to the end of the route and brought me back. The 30 is the angkot that I take every day to work, so when we got back to my neighborhood, I thanked the driver and jumped out, deciding I was done for the day.

On Sunday morning, I considered trying the number 4 again, but I was reading a great book (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and I went to a coffee shop instead so I could finish it.

This weekend, I have plans to spend the weekend in Kemang--a sleepover!--and the weekend after that is my awesome trip to Bukit Lawang. But before May is over, I figure I'll have the angkot routes figured out. I probably won't use them any differently than I do now. But at least I'll know that I'm not missing any important piece of information!

Sumatra, Here I Come!

I have a four-day weekend coming up in two weeks and I have booked my ticket to Medan, in Sumatra. From Medan, I will take some form of vehicular transportation for the three hour trip north of the city to Bukit Lawang. There, I will spend three days and nights trekking through the jungle and visiting orangutans in their natural habitat. I'm so excited, I think I might wet myself.

Oh My God, I Live in the Suburbs

How did this happen? I swore I would never, ever, ever, EVER live in the suburbs. I mean no disrespect to those of you who do live in the suburbs. I understand many people find the suburbs to be the best of both worlds. I'm simply not one of them. And now I find that I live in an honest-to-goodness suburb. Crap.

It's not like I didn't know that my school was located on the outskirts of Jakarta. It's just that Jakarta is huge and before arriving I thought of it more like Los Angeles than Chicago. In Los Angeles, everything is a suburb, so technically suburbs equals city. And I gotta say, I was perfectly happy with that explanation. In my three months living in said suburb, I have found that it can meet my basic needs. It's easy to get to work. There are a ridiculous number of malls where I buy necessities and find entertainment. It's green and pretty, if you ignore the trash and pollution. Yes, I've seen parts of south and central Jakarta, but usually I'm either in a car or it's dark out. So, while I realized that my part of the city had a different feel, I wasn't able to make an apples to apples comparison. Plus, I was still kind of starry eyed and overwhelmed with every new thing.

Now that I've had some time to get settled in, I'm starting to notice the little details. Like the women who live in my city dress like suburban moms. And they all drive SUVs. And their kids are massively over-scheduled with things like piano and badminton and English lessons (Yes, I realize if there were no English lessons, I wouldn't have a job). Okay, so that's fine. I just figured that was all part of the culture of Jakarta. And partly it is. But this weekend, I discovered Kemang.

Kemang is an area of the city that is a long way from where I live. I'd heard about it--mostly that a greater number of foreigners lived there--but I'd never been. On Saturday, that changed. I hung out there in the afternoon, and had a chance to stroll up and down the equivalent of the Main Street. It feels different than Kelapa Gading. Very different. It took me about five minutes to figure out that's because it's urban. Which means Kelapa Gading is not. Hence, my realization that I live in the suburbs.

It's okay though. Kelapa Gading still has everything I need and now I know about Kemang. If I had to compare it to a Chicago neighborhood, I'd go with Bucktown. It's got plenty of boutique-like stores, restaurants and hip bars where you can hear live music. It also has a sports bar where I had a Twilight Zone moment. We walked in and everyone was white. It could have been any sports bar in any English-speaking country in the world. There were Americans, and Brits, and Australians and Canadians and probably some Irish too. And basically only the staff was Indonesian. It was weird but it will probably be a fun place to watch the World Cup games. We ended up at a place called the Elbow Room--no connection to the Elbow Room in Chicago--where we heard an excellent band while enjoying reasonably-priced cocktails.

It made me so happy to be in a place where I can look around and realize everybody is cooler than me. It also made me think about Chicago neighborhoods and how there are a lot of parallels to be drawn. My neighborhood, for example, is Oakbrook. Kemang, like I said, is Bucktown. The people are urban and there are lots of cool things to do. Jaksa, where I've been hanging out sometimes on the weekends, is like Rush Street--which explains why it kind of bores me. It also explains why people there drink so freaking much. Ancol, on the water, is like Navy Pier and Grant Park--tourist traps and open-air festivals. Each neighborhood has its charms. But I can't wait to spend more time in Kemang!

Update: I just read another blog where the writer called Kemang a suburb. Pshaw, I say.

Two Incredible--and Different--Weekends

Two weeks ago, I had a cold. It lasted about a week but by the weekend, it was better. Last week, I had a stomach virus. I missed one day of work and didn't eat much of anything for four days, but by Saturday, I was feeling all right. It's no fun being sick, but at least the illness have the courtesy to leave me in peace for the weekends because that is when the real fun happens.

Last weekend, I left Jakarta on a bus in the middle of the night on Friday, which was technically Saturday. We met at 3 am but didn't leave until about 4 am. We drove to a tiny village about two hours from the city where we were extras in a commercial shoot.

They started filming at about 7 am, on the bank of a river where they had set up this elaborate picnic scene. Across the river were endless rice paddies with mountains as a backdrop. My part in the first scene was to stand in the river, with water up to my knees, and pretend to catch fish (with my hands). There were eight of us trying to catch fish while the rest of the foreigners were lounging around on the river bank, enjoying the picnic. They had the fish in little cages with open tops, so we could easily pretend that we had some crazy hand-eye coordination skills.

For about two hours, I followed the director's instructions, moving around, being excited about catching fish. Then, we had to play in the water for another hour while the crew moved on to filming scenes on the riverbank and we were just background. By 10 am, my part was done. So, we moved back up into the village, which was really just a couple of houses and another elaborate set that the crew had constructed. They pulled another group to go off and do something else and I was free to nap.

Unfortunately, lying in the hot sun on a bamboo porch is not ideal for sleeping. After about an hour, I gave up and went for a walk. At some point, they fed us. Then, after lunch, they took more people off to film another scene. While the camera crew were gone, the building crew got to work turning our little makeshift huts into a serious party scene.

Because of the language barrier, it's sometimes hard to understand what is happening around me. I had an agent--or at least the person who had recruited me to be in the commercial--but she was off sleeping somewhere so I couldn't ask her when we'd be done. But as the crew was working on putting up lights and lanterns, it became clear that the scene was meant to be filmed in the dark. So, I settled in for the long haul, contenting myself with chatting up strangers and going for walks. It was pretty cool being there, seeing the village and seeing how a commercial is made. I was tired, but managing.

Finally, at about 5:30 pm, the sun started to descend and they gathered us all together for further instructions. The scene was a barbeque that the village was throwing for the tourists. We were about five minutes away from beginning when the rain started. You can tell when the rain will be heavy because the first drops are extra large and they fall with a loud plop. The first drops fell and everybody made a beeline for the covered patios. There we sat for about an hour and half, miserable, tired, and wondering if we'd get to go home. We heard that if the rain hadn't stopped by 8 pm, we would get to go home. So naturally, at about 7:45 pm, it stopped. It took them about an hour to reset everything and then we spent another six hours filming various scenes at the barbeque.

The rain had been heavy, but I still couldn't believe it when I walked to the river bank. The bridge that you see in the first picture above had washed away completely and the place where I had stood only a few hours earlier, up to my knees, was now completely raging. There were a few families stuck on both sides of the river, wondering (I guess) how there were going to get back to their houses.

I've rarely been as tired as I was on the drive home. The road was so bumpy, it was impossible to sleep but my muscles were done supporting me. So, I sort of slumped over and waited for it to be over. As tired as I was, I'm glad I did it. It was great to see what life is like outside of the cities and I met some cool new people too!

I have to say, though, that I much prefer what I did this weekend, which was take a boat back out to Pulau Seribu for another two days of sand, swimming, and snorkeling. During our first weekend, we were content to let the boat take us from place to place, but this time we just wanted to find a beach and relax for a while and then go to just one snorkeling spot. It turned out that there was really nice coral right off of the beach, so we just swam out and got our snorkeling fix without ever going anywhere else.

We had dinner again at the floating restaurant and we spent Sunday morning on the same island where we met all the kids last time. They were there again, but our jet skiing friends were not. No worries though. This time, we hired a boat that stayed with us until we wanted to leave so we made it back in plenty of time to catch the boat back to Jakarta. Pramuka Island is fast becoming a comfortable and familiar place for me. I can't wait to go again!

Crap, It's Hot

In the space of a week , it went from being between 87 and 89 degrees every day to being between 91 and 93 degrees every day. I wouldn't have thought that 4 to 6 degrees would make a big difference but it does--at least to me.

When I got here, I was so hot and sweaty all the time and it felt gross. At home, I generally don't sweat, even in the summer, unless I'm exerting myself, so to have the back of my neck and my hair damp all the time felt icky. Luckily, it only took about a month and my body adjusted and was back to mostly not sweating. Walking places would make me sweat, but once I got somewhere and spent ten minutes in the air conditioning, I was good.

Now, however, the rainy season is officially over and the dry season has begun. It's still raining a lot. But now it's even hotter and I am sticky all the time. I imagine in a couple weeks, I'll be used to it again but this week has brutal. I think partly it's because I have a cold so my head is full of goop. Whatever it is, it's been compounded by some water problems. First, on Tuesday morning, our power went out. I understand that I should expect frequent power outages during the dry season when everyone is running their air conditioning more often. Ours turned out to be a circuit breaker, but we didn't figure that out until after getting home from work on Tuesday evening, which meant on Tuesday afternoon we had to find a place to take showers. Our water pump is electric. When it doesn't run, neither does the water.

So, we loaded ourselves into a taxi and headed for our friends' apartments. Problem solved. Until last night. We got home from work and were greeted by a laundry room flood caused by a broken water pump. Someone from the school came over to look at it, but it couldn't be fixed until morning. That meant no showers and no ability to flush the toilets. Also, we couldn't do the dishes, so I imagine the roaches and ants had a pretty good evening.

This morning, someone else came to fix it. He's still working on it. I went to my friend's house for a shower again but, boy, was I cranky about it. Mostly, I was cranky because I felt bad all day yesterday from my cold and I was sweaty and clammy and when work was finally over I was looking forward to getting home and washing the grime off before climbing into bed. Oh well. Best laid plans and all that.

So, this week has been a little weird. I've been sleeping a lot because I don't feel good and I've been cranky. Also, my first round of classes is ending so I'm a little bit sad about that too. I've had 80 students for almost 12 weeks now and over the next two weeks, they will all move into different classes with different teachers. I feel like I'm just starting to get to know them, too. It's kind of a bummer. But also kind of exciting to get a whole new group of students.

One other weird thing happened this week. One of the Indonesian friends that I've made is a commercial casting agent and she asked me to come to a casting on Sunday. I have less than zero desire to be in a commercial but she's so nice I didn't want to say no. So, I went. I stood in front of a camera and did what the people behind the camera told me to do--pretend to be an excited tourist, fishing and riding a water buffalo. It felt weird and uncomfortable. I guess it didn't show because I got the job. On Saturday, I'm going to a village outside of Bogor to shoot a commercial. I'm consoling myself with the fact that I get to spend all day in a village with my camera and will only have to be in front of someone else's camera for a small part of it. And also, I get paid. It's still weird though, right?

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

As of the date of the latest census, in 2000, there were approximately 200 million people in Indonesia. Of those, 86% are Muslims. So, it makes perfect sense that Good Friday should be a national holiday.

Of course, I'm only joking. Indonesia's constitution grants religious freedom and the country is mostly proud of its reputation for religious tolerance. Most of the people on Java, where I live, are Muslim. Bali has a large Hindu population. Places on Sumatra and Flores are largely Catholic. Other places on Sumatra and Sulawesi have many Protestants. Atheism isn't recognized as a valid choice, so I don't bring up religion very much and when asked, I generally say that I was raised as a Christian but am not religious.

That said, I certainly do not mind having days off from work because of Muslim, Christian, and Hindu holidays. There are only two months of the year that are holiday free and twice--once for the end of Ramadan and once for Christmas--I get an entire week off. Last month at Nyepi (Hindu), we had a free Tuesday so naturally we had a barbeque. This month, it't Good Friday.

Taking full advantage of a day off is important and, yesterday, I had the good luck to be invited to go along with some friends to a safari park outside of Bogor. I'd seen the park before, on the way to Cibodas, but since the only way to see the safari is to drive through in your own vehicle, it wasn't an option. But my friends have access to a car and driver, so off we went!

Riding in a comfortable cross between and SUV and mini-van while an experienced driver worries about negotiating traffic and directions is a luxury I could get used to. We left early and missed most of the holiday traffic so the trip only took a couple hours. It was well worth it.

The road to the park entrance is lined with kids selling very fresh, very orange carrots. We bought three bunches and off we went. The drive through the safari park took about an hour and a half and we saw a multitude of different types of deer and antelope and water buffalo. Many of the deer and antelope roam freely between the slow-moving parade of cars, begging for carrots at the windows. The first elephant enclosure was fenced in by a wide stream, but if the cars got close to the edge of the road and one of the bigger elephants reached out with her trunk, she could grab the carrot out of a hand. The camels could too. The zebras walked right up, took the carrots, ate them, and stuck their noses right into the window to get more. There were bunches of little monkeys--the kind Ross had on Friends--and they were freely moving around their area, but they didn't come up to the cars. They also preferred oranges to carrots.

About half way through the trip, the car entered a gated area where the animals were sectioned off, at least from each other. Before entering, we were warned to stay inside the car and keep the windows rolled up. First up, lions. They were all sleeping on raised platforms and didn't look too interested in the cars, so we rolled the windows down half way and snapped some photos. I don't imagine anyone would be stupid enough to get out of the car but there was a park ranger nearby sitting in a jeep, presumably with a tranquilizer gun just in case. The tigers were equally uninterested and so we rolled the windows down again. They also had black bears, which looked like they'd be more at home in North America than the tropics. The bears were allowed to roam between the cars. We rolled the windows down to snap, but as they walked closer, the windows went up in a hurry! At the hippos' lake, I took a picture of the largest hippo as we drove by. His mouth was open and in the picture it looks like he's about to take a bite out of our car. But he just stayed there, by the water's edge, with his mouth wide open, waiting for the cars to drive by and the carrots to be thrown in. Hilarious!

After the drive was over, we went on foot into the other section of the safari which was part zoo, part amusement park. The rides were mostly for kids, so we headed for the baby zoo where we got our pictures taken with tigers and a baby orangutan. Then, we had a bite to eat and explored the other animals. There were exotic birds flying around in an aviary, close enough to touch, lots and lots of monkeys, a creepy reptile house, an enormous Komodo dragon, and another picture station where we got to hold a python and another, older, orangutan. For the record, I had my picture taken with the baby tiger, the baby orangutan, and the adolescent orangutan. The python was too big and scary for me!

I didn't care that much about the pictures, although I'm glad I have them. The best part was getting to touch the animals. The tiger wanted to play. The baby orangutan was curious and, just like human babies, immediately wrapped one hand in my hair. The adolescent orangutan was friendly and weighed a lot. At first, she sat on my lap but then the trainer had me stand up and hold her on my hip. I couldn't believe how heavy she was.

There were elephants all over the park. Some of them were in the enclosed area on the drive. Others were available to ride through the park, with a trainer of course. We came across the paths of several during the drive. The trainers have taught them a neat trick. They put their trunks into the windows of the cars they are walking past. At first, we thought they wanted carrots, but they don't. They are looking for money. When you put the bill in their trunks, they immediately lift their trunks and give the money to the guy on top. It's a riot. In cars that didn't have the windows down, they hopefully knocked on them with their trunks. When we ran out of small bills, we closed our windows. The next elephant to come by trumpeted his disappointment when we didn't open up. The way an elephant grabs something small, like a bill or a carrot, is to close the very tip of its trunk around the item. When it grabbed from my hand, I got to feel the tip, which is moist and slimy but so cool. At other places in the park, elephants were hanging around with trainers and we got to touch them. The rest of the skin is dry with wiry hair sticking out everywhere.

The whole day was just another to add to the list of incredible experiences I've had since I arrived in Indonesia. I have mixed feelings about zoos because I think it's sad to see animals penned in and held captive but I also think it's important to be able to learn about them. I felt equally weird about interacting with them so intimately. But the one thing I noticed was that all of them looked very healthy. Their noses were moist, their eyes were bright, and their hair and skin were shiny. Must be all the carrots.