My Indonesian Adventure

After the two nights in Yogyakarta, reacquainting ourself with the luxuries we take for granted at home, we flew out Sunday morning to Jakarta, and on to Singapore, where we arrived at 3 pm or so. Four of us were booked in at the Hotel Royal, which was away from the downtown core, while the rest of the group (except for the six that went to Bali for a weeks R&R, aka post op recovery perhaps) were at the Excelsior Hotel downtown. My roommate and I decided to invest in a Nightime Adventure tour of Singapore, to see what we could see. We were picked up at our hotel joining a group of people from other hotels) and taken first of all downtown for dinner outside at a Chinese restaurant in the "Boat Quay" overlooking the Singapore river. The food was mediocre, but it was a pleasant experience and we met people from all over (Oz, S. Africa, Holland) After that we were taken on a boat cruise of the river. Singapore is brightly lit at night, and having discovered the ISO800 setting on my camera I was able to take some nice shots without flash which has always been a challenge for me. We saw the symbol of Singapore, the Merlion, which, oddly enough is a immense statue of a cross between the tail of a mermaid(or merman???) and the head and torso of a lion, which spouts water forcefully from its mouth (making me think of my squirts...) This was followed by a visit to a pewter factory followed of course by the obligatory stop in its gift shop. The products were very gorgeous and I love pewter, but again was not in a mood to spend money. Then a stop at the Bugis market, a huge maze of endless booths selling cheap(but not necessarily inexpensive) junk, interspersed with food vendors, which I avoided for some reason. I also got my first whiff of the notorious fruit, durian, which to me resembled the smell of rotting flesh, and as a result, I wasn't remotely tempted to sample it. Apparently one develops a taste for it; I would ask: WHY WOULD YOU EVEN WANT TO??? A brain dead member of our tour group (the Dutch one)smuggled one onto our bus(although this had expressly been forbidden) causing me waves of nausea all the way back to the hotel.
Our last stop on the tour was a visit to Raffles Hotel, the historical landmark associated with Singapore, with its "Long Bar"(the place where the Singapore Sling was invented) with its floors littered with peanut shells. One of my goals of this trip was to have a Singapore Sling IN Singapore so that is what we did. Sat in the Long Bar and had a rude elderly waitress take our order, and bring us the famous Sling. Then she brought the bill...19 U.S. bucks a pop!!! And Pop is what it tasted like; I didn't even get me a buzz although we had to chugalug it in the 20 minutes allotted to us! Anyhow it was a unique experience and worth every cent!
Unfortunately, while we were gadding about in our tour bus/boat, the group that stayed in the downtown hotel had walked to a nearby place on the quay for dinner. One of the group members, Jeanette, an optician from Winfield, tripped on uneven pavement and fell, hitting her head and breaking her upper arm. She was taken by ambulance to hospital, stitched up and x-rayed, and subsequently discharged in a temporary hanging cast, with instructions to see an orthopod in Kelowna for probable surgery. Not a good way to end her trip. She was an amazing trooper however; she must have been in incredible pain today on the flight but she never complained, and smiled through it all. A tougher gal than me, for sure!
It must be apparent by now that I am at home on my own computer without people breathing down my neck, chomping at the bit to go back to the hotel. Yesterday, November the 3rd in Singapore, we flew out at 940 am having arisen at 0430 to catch the shuttle to the airport. That started off the seemingly endless flight, first stop 5 hrs later for an hour and a half in Seoul, followed by a ten hour flight back to Vancouver where we arrived at 5 am Singapore time November 4th(which was actually 3 pm November 3rd, Vancouver time) Confused yet??? I am , of course not helped by the fact that I catnapped for perhaps two 30 minute periods during the entire flight. So now, having had a lovely leisurely bath, I am hitting the hay, sack, call it what you will. My own bed...hmmmm. Good night. This saga is now a done deal, hope you enjoyed it!

We finished our clinics /OR on Thursday (which I missed due to illness: my roiling guts as well as a bout of AF). When all was said and done, the team saw about 2000 people over the 9 days, did cataract surgery on 126 of those. and gave glasses to many others. We developed new friendships with nurses, doctors and volunteers at the Emanuel hospital in Klampok, as well as a few others in the community. It was an memorable experience but my goodness, I was glad when it was over. And now I just want to be home. Today we are in Yogjakarta, a large city in central Java, and spent the day downtown shopping. (rather battling with vendors and beggars, some of whom had deformities of the kind never seen before) Difficult to see and to ignore, but we were told there is no end to it if one starts. However it certainly puts a damper on the shopping instinct and hence I did not buy much. And really, I am in need of nothing. (now that I've had a hot bath and my guts are back to normal...)
En route to Yogja yesterday by bus, we stopped in Borabodur which is the site of the ruins of an ancient Buddhist temple and a world heritage site. It was pretty impressive, and I got some cool pictures. Nothing else about the day was cool however, it was a scorcher, and again the hawkers and vendors at the site were aggressive and relentless, worse that the ones I remember in Pisa 2 years ago. And that was BAD. Thankfully the hotel we've been booked into in Yogja is quite posh, and has a real flush toilet in the bathroom (which has a DRY floor, incredibly)Excellent restaurants in the hotel as well, Chinese and Japanese, with Western choices on the menu. Yum!
Tomorrow morning we fly to Jakarta then Singapore where we spend the night. The next morning we start the long flight home to Vancouver/ Kelowna. I can't wait to see Bob's sweet face, greeting me at the airport.
tata for now. I hear a Singapore Sling calling my name...

That was basically the way my weekend was...
Saturday was, in fact, spent touring a batik factory. That was very interesting, but a bit sad when we were told these people work for approximately $1 per day (which is about 1/2 of what the average Indonesian makes per day(20,000 rupiah) 8 hr days, 6 days a week. Of course there was a shop attached which had all sort of stuff for purchase. I wasn't in the mood as probably my guts were preparing for the workout of their lives. I did manage to hang in the for the rickshaw tour in the afternoon. Twenty seven white people touring the downtown streets of Purbalingga. We were treated like the spectacles we were, to be sure. Many of the people in this part of the country has seldom, if ever, set eyes on a Caucasion before and they all found it quite amusing. It was like we were on parade. Most people waved and smiled, some ran up to shake our hands like we were celebrities, but many just laughed...??? Weird. The rickshaw of course is the kind that is a seat attached to the front of a three wheeled bicycle, driven by the scrawniest and most disparate group of individuals, who tried relentlessly tried to jack up the agreed upon price, in the midst of our tour. Anyhow, I'll try anything once, but it felt way too much like being in a wheelchair to me, to be enjoyable. But it was interesting.
Yesterday I missed out on the trip up the mountain, as it was an unsafe bet to think toilets would be as close as I needed them to be. And the fever and headache would have prevented me from doing the steep hike they(the group that went) ended up doing, so I'm not real sad about missing that. As I had been awake the entire night, I spent most of the day sleeping, after Pepto Bismol had a chance to do it's job.
Once again, my fellow internet users are anxious to go back to the hotel so I will wrap it up. A week from today this adventure will be over... I'll be ready for retirement for real then!!!!

Yesterday afternoon, in the bus going home from the hospital in Klampok(about a 20 minute drive) we spotted a batik store only two blocks from our hotel. After a hasty wash up, my room mate Linda and I set out to find it. We did and were impressed with their selevction and prices. I told the young lady cashier that I would be back with some friends and also told her what we were doing here etc etc. She was sweet and spoke English fairly well. So back to the hotel we went and told all the others. who were all suitably jealous and wanted to go there too. So tonight after dinner, about 14 of us trekked back there en mass. The girl was all giggly and embarrassed saying she didn't expect so many people. Next thing, she introduced us to the shop owner, who a few minutes later, invited us into her home(all of us!) She is the wife of a prominent local doctor apparently, and when she heard we were volunteers, and nurses (some of us) wanted to entertain us. A friend of hers (Lia, a young Muslim woman) soon joined us and acted as interpreter. She said she had learned English on the internet and wanted to practice it. Well, she entertained us and had as laughing uproariously with her comments about american politics, and ever other subject under the sun, while the lady of the house (the shop owner) and her servant perhaps, brought out bowls of fresh cashews, fruits, cookies, candies, etc, and cold iced sweet tea. It was so unbelievable to be treated like this, by total strangers. Just before we left, her husband came out of his office(he had an evening clinic) and shook all our hands, and welcomed us as well. We were all overwhelmed by their kindness and generosity. It still nearly moves me to tears.
Back to the job at hand. The week went well, but I am glad it is the weekend. I am proving to be a fairly competent circulating nurse(in my humble opinion) We are doing about 14 cataract surgeries a day. The clinic, however, where the majority of the group is sweating away, sees about 250 people in a day, and have a harder job than those of us in the OR. So I am thankful for that. The days are long, up at 545. brekky at 630 leave the hotel by 730, and dont get back home til 530 or 6, when it is just getting dark. We are all pretty tired, but manage to make it to dinner at 630, after which most of us just crash, or perhaps go for a short walk like we did tonight. Sleep is elusive some nights, and especially as the "Call to prayer" always wakes us at 4 am with a sound that resembles a very LOUD cow in labour.Whoever thought THAT practise was a good idea???? And 5 times a day no less...
Tomorrow, Saturday, after a stop at the hospital for Post op followups, we are going to another village to see a batik factory, after which we are all going for bicycle drawn rickshaw rides. I am looking forward to that although I already feel sorry for the poor sucker that gets stuck hauling ME around... Sunday we are heading up a volcano to a place with awesome views apparently, hopefully will get an opportunity for more pics, as I haven't had a chance to take very many yet(scenery anyhow)
That's all for now, my hour is up. Til next time...

Our third day is behind us now. We are blessed to have the only OR that has Air conditioning, and Ione, Brenda,Mathias and I are lucky to be the ones working in it. Our clinic upstairs where the rest of the group spends the day registering, sight testing, consulting, refraction testing, prescribing and giving out glasses,is sweltering hot and extremely busy, so really I have nothing to complain about other than sore feet from being on them for nearly 10 hrs with a short lunch break. Our group consists of as varied selection of people, four of us from Armstrong. A very nice bunch, every last one. MY roommate in particular is a breath of fresh air and is proving to be the wind beneath my wings. She is so good with the people and they naturally love her.
The food we have had so far is interesting and often not recognizable. Soup features here often, chicken and "meatcow" (as opposed to vegetable cow I guess) Satay is everywhere, haven't had any yet. Everything is very cheap, internet time for example is 30 cents per hour.
As usual my group is anxious toleave. it is apparently noone else is as chatty as me... This may have tow ait til I get home and have so time on my hands....