Fire Mountain

27 January, 2010



Ok, I figured it was about time to send out another update now that I’ve actually done something worth sharing. This past weekend I finally got a chance to hike up Gunung (Mt.) Merapi, an active volcano about 20km north of Yogyakarta. I have never really hiked a mountain or volcano straight up from bottom to top before, but it is an experience of a lifetime. Hmm, how can I best describe this experience to accurately share what an amazing time it was? Oh! Ok, it was kinda like climbing up an outdoor, slippery rain-carved staircase (without steps) for 4 hrs to a friend’s top floor apartment in a 900 storey apartment building, in the dark...with the thermostat on high. And, instead of having a noisy neighbour the floor below, he’s has to put up with fumaroles leaking sulphur dioxide into his living room. But it was worth it for the view from his balcony. It was breathtaking and unforgettable. I just hope Merapi doesn’t ask me to help him move.

Angga and I set out on Saturday night at about 9pm for a 2hr drive out of the city to the base camp in New Selo, a village of about 400 people ¼ the way up the mountain. Not feeling the need for a guide, we decided to try and get to the base camp in time to meet up with the nightly stream of others who make the hike. While I was at first fairly confident that we wouldn’t have any problems getting lost (just go up, stupid!), I was a little more reserved when I realized what hiking a volcano at night is like – dark. We started out at 1am toward the top with a group of guys from Solo, a city 20km north of Merpai, but soon parted ways as they stopped for cigarette breaks a little too frequently for my liking (they ended up camping about a 45min hike north of the base camp). We carried on alone with the rest of the hikers who were intent on making it to the top for sunrise.



We made it to the little camp area near the summit in pretty good time, about 3hrs, around 4am. We only made a few stops along the way for food and water breaks and to take in the view. You got a much better sense of just how populated this seemingly uninhabited area is when you can see the house and street lights at night. The lights across the island below us seemed to mirror the stars in the sky above. When we did get to the summit camp, it was about 8 degrees Celsius with a 20km/h wind (at an elevation of about 2,700m). We stayed there for about an hour to rest and wait for sunrise, which began around 4:50am. It was then that we made the final 45 minute ascent to the peak about another 200m or so of 45 degree incline on loose rock and stone. It was here that you could really smell and feel that you were on a volcano. The sulphur rolling out of the steam vents heated some of the rocks to a rather soothing temperature and filled that air with that pleasant sulphur smell :|



Sunrise, and the view in general, was spectacular. You could see about some 50km off into the distance in each direction, with highlights being Yogyakarta, the other half dozen volcanoes scattered around the area, and the ocean 50km to the south of the peak. We had breakfast – roti coklat, passion fruit and dried mango – and explored the top and took in the view for about 45mins before heading back down for the 3hr descent. It was more difficult than the ascent for a couple of reasons. First off, you were easily encouraged to let gravity help you quickly back down (after a cute, out-of-control single summersault down the steepest part of the rocky peak, I decided it best not to rush). Secondly, it was now daylight and was quite a bit warmer. Finally, I had now been up for about 24hrs with 6hrs of sleep from the night before and some 4 hrs of intense physical exercise just behind me. The most challenging part of the descent was to be mentally aware of each step on the way down so as not to repeat the fall I had much higher up. I also came to be thankful for doing the hike at night because on the way down, you started to realize just how sharp and high some of the cliffs were that you were walking along. To add insult to injury, or to give you a perspective of just how hard some peoples jobs/lives are, however you wanna see it, we would frequently have to move off the rain-eroded pathways to make way for the farmers who were coming down twice as fast as us with a 40lb pile of firewood on their head in knee-high rubber boots. Crazy.

All in all, a physically challenging but extremely rewarding 9hr excursion which I look forward to repeating sometime around the end of February/beginning of March in Sabah, Malaysia on the bigger 4,095m high Mt. Kinabalu. Anyone interested in joining?

Elsewhere, the language classes are progressing. Some days are good, other days, not so much. I’ve still got about 1.5 weeks left before heading out (ticket booked to Balikpapan, East Kalimantan for Feb 8) so I’m hoping to get as much out of the classes as possible while I can. As for leisure, there are still some temples and beaches in the area left to check out and I’m looking in to taking a small excursion to Bali the weekend before heading into the field if it fits in time-wise. Work is getting a little crazy as I’m trying to get as much done and to get mentally into a good space to get as much as possible out of the research time. But, I am in good spirits and am looking forward to the next phase, the actual research. Oh, right, that’s why I’m here...

Ohh back to school, back to school..

11 January 2010

I began language classes this morning at Alam Bahasa language school. My day started with, in my mind, my most traditional breakfast yet; a white bun filled with chocolate (roti coklat). While this was at first a welcome change from noodles or rice with sautéed meats, vegetables, chillies and tofu served for breakfast in Indonesia, it soon became apparent – due to the Halloween-like gut-rut it induced – roti coklat was not to be a mainstay of my breakfast routine. I will stop for rambutan (very similar to lychee fruit) and snake fruit (a fruit with apple-like flesh covered in a shell with snake-skin texture and appearance) tomorrow.

My morning commute consisted of a 15 minute bike ride down one of the many congested and motorbike-riddled jalans (roads) of Yogyakarta. To my left, Mount Merapi – Indonesia’s most active volcano (a dubious honour) – peaks through the gaps between the jalans two-story houses, a few dozen kilometers away on the cloudless morning horizon. I blink and the images I recently viewed on Wikipedia of the pyrocastic flows from the 2006 eruption, with an accompanied earthquake some 4 weeks later which killed more than 5000 people, flash through my mind. I continue my ride through the residential streets where I am confronted by the fast flowing road race that is North Ring Road morning commute. I, together with another motorbike, cross oncoming traffic at the lightless intersection in what feels, to me, like a truly cavalier and daring feat. As we stop in the middle to merge, I catch a glimpse of my fellow daredevil; a young, prepubescent girl with her 5 year old brother standing between her legs on the bike`s frame. I continue peddling down the jalan underneath an endless constellation of dirty billboards. My eyes dart in search of “Alam Bahasa”. I see my turn and glide off into gated school.

The school, like most other buildings and houses here, has an amber brown wooden door opening into a room of high ceilings, ceramic tiles and white cement walls. I am greeted by a number of smiling, welcoming people as I make my way into the lounge area in the middle of the house-like building. I mutter “selamat pagi” (good morning) to everyone I pass and understand nothing, beyond “selamat pagi”, that is said back. A woman introduces herself as my teacher (one of three I will have during my 6 hour courses) and we make our way to the “Krakatau” room. I wonder, of the pending onslaught of new words and phrases, if my head is destined for the same fate as the volcano for which the eponymous room was named.

I sit in the room, one-on-one with each teacher, memorizing, repeating and writing out the vocabulary and phrases. We run through numbers (satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh), greetings (selamat pagi, selamat sore, selamat malam), phrases (Nama anda siapa? Nama saya James) and vocabulary (HP, pronounced “haap-eh” – cell phone, kacamata – glasses, sepeda – bike). I am deluged by these words repeatedly. I say them aloud multiple times until I am released, catching my breath in the inner courtyard for fifteen minute breaks. The words appear, to me, to have unlimited influences from all over the world. Some are obvious; pensil, telephone, jaket – English. Some draw, I’m told, direct Dutch influence; tas (bag) and kaos (t-shirt). Others carry the intonation of Chinese dialects, with lyrically rolled r’s evoking an origin somewhere in India, or the n’s and g’s of the Thai language whose sounds emanate deep in the back of the throat. My tongue contorts into forms I didn`t have the courage to try before today.

I finish my 6 hours, set loose back into a kota (city) within which I feel emboldened. I peddle back down the busy jalan, searching and listening for any sign of a word I might recognize. “Apa?” (what?), jumps out from a girl at a stop light who shouts to a friend. Success! I have made the slimmest bit of progress! I continue on down the jalan, feeling more comfortable and at home. This will be my route, I think to myself. I now have a purpose in these streets. I have a direction and a reason to be travelling along them. I feel less surrounded and crushed by the crowd of cars and motorbikes. I feel, a part of that crowd.

I roll back into my housing complex, Merapi now covered by the daily afternoon rainclouds that approach from the southwest. I am greeted by Angga, my roommate, and he asks me of my day. “So, how was your day?”, followed quickly by “What did you learn?”. “Lots”, I respond. Searching for an example to show off my newly acquired vocabulary, my mind draws a blank. “Apa!” (what!), I blurt out. Angga looks puzzled and repeats his question: “What did you learn?”. I sigh and repeat, searching for his comprehension: “apa, what”. “Ahhh!”, he exclaims as he laughs and then encourages my modest progress.

Angga departs for an internet cafe and I sit down on the front stoop to wash out the accumulated dust from the room`s small rotating fan. I gaze across to the stoop in front of me. The landlady`s cat (who I`ve named Rambutan) is casually stretched out, slightly reclined, with his back against the wall. He licks the tuft of fur on his front left paw and then gets up, limping over to some garbage and begins to eat at some discarded chicken bones. Above his paw, from ankle to shoulder, Rambutan`s leg is bare of fur with the muscle, joints and tendons completely exposed. The remaining fur of the leg runs from his shoulder to the ankle, which appears almost like a sling to support the injured leg. Rambutan appears satisfied with his snack and hobbles back to the stoop where he regains his reclined pose.

I leave for Kalimantan in four weeks to conduct my interviews and participant observation, alone, in an area with little to no English spoken. 6 hours of class down, 114 to go. Hopefully, I too will find a way to scrape by.

Update: Fiiiiiine, apparently most of you can't deal with the sight of poor Rambutan.