KRAKATOA, INDONESIA ("visited" 1/00; written circa 12/00)

We sailed by Krakatoa on January 1, 2000. Unfortunately I was not awake to see it, as we had stayed up late working the night before (by the way, that was one of the strangest New Years Eve gigs I have ever done - there were middle aged people running around cutting off each other's underwear with scissors, on a five star luxury cruise ship!). Apparently, from all reports, there was nothing to see anyway! Krakatoa was the site of the largest volcano ever to erupt in recorded history. Many thousands of people were killed, and the eruption was felt all over the world.

From what I understand, there is nothing left of the island, so for the cruise line to tell it's passengers that they would be seeing Krakatoa must have been some kind of a weird joke, or at the very least, a marketing gimmick. Or maybe the passengers who were onboard at the time, who chartered the ship and had planned this cruise for 15 years, specifically requested to have the ship in the vicinity of Krakatoa on the day of the millenium, just so they could have something impressive to tell everyone when they got back home!

SEMARANG, JAVA, INDONESIA (visited 1/99 and 1/00; written circa 12/00)

Semarang is a large city on the north coast of the island of Java. The main reason the ship stopped here is so the passengers could venture off to the ancient Hindu/Buddhist temple called Borabodur, which is about a three hour drive from the city. However, they travelled with an armed police escort convoy, and it was not recommended to travel by taxi that far of a distance, for various security reasons. As a result, I did not go to Borabodur on either of my visits to Semarang, but I really didn't mind. I saw plenty of pictures of it!

The city of Semarang is a somewhat modern third world city, but apparently they don't get many western tourists in the city itself. I say this because as you walk around the city, in shopping malls for example, you get the strangest looks from the local people. The expression can be anywhere from "what are YOU doing here" to "wow, you must be a movie star". Many of my fellow crew members expressed the same sentiment to me. Everywhere you go in Semarang, people gawk and stare, and you are the center of attention, for the sole reason of being a foreigner. If you are a westerner and you crave attention, this could be your paradise!

Most anything of historical significance in Semarang is really run-down and almost not worthy of even seeing. However, there is a cool Chinese temple that is well maintained where you can have your fortune read using some weird system of throwing sticks on the ground.

The ship docked right next to a major ferry terminal, where people take these old rickety ferry ships that go all over Indonesia. Every once in awhile I see in the news that an Indonesian ferry sinks. After seeing this place, I am not at all surprised. It was totally chaotic place, like a scene out of a 1940's adventure romance movie, with thousands of exotic looking people cramming on these tanker like vessels, and I'm sure that safety precautions are not the first thing they think about.

Sadly, as our trash was being unloaded off of the ship, I was shocked to look down below from one of the upper decks of the ship to see people frantically combing through the dumpster for anything they could get their hands on. It's a real shame that people anywhere in the world have to swallow their dignity and scavenge through garbage to find something to eat or sell for a few pennies. I guess if you have to go through trash, luxury cruise ship refuse is considered 5-star trash. Still, it's a pathetic scene.

One of the funniest moments happened the previous time we visited Semarang in 1999. Musicians Joe Foster, Steve Romero and I all got up a little later than the passengers and decided we would hire a taxi to give us a tour of the city. As soon as we set foot on the gangway, a roar went up from the crowd of 50 or 60 taxi drivers waiting at the bottom of the gangway. This was just after the Asian economic crisis had hit Indonesia very hard, and you could actually smell the desperation. When we saw this, we stepped back on the ship to confer on a plan of action, knowing that we would mobbed if we didn't take decisive action! We decided to negotiate a price from the top of the gangway, and we found one guide who spoke some English. We motioned to her and her driver as being "the ones", and told everyone else to back off.

However, when we got to the bottom of the gangway, we were still mobbed, with people tugging on our clothing in every direction and screaming at us to go with them. The only thing I could do is start running to get away from them, and some of them began running after me, yelling all the while. I decided to start running in a figure 8 pattern to try and get them off of me. When Joe and Steve saw this, they started laughing hysterically - it was truly a surrealistic scene!

We got into a run-down minivan, and our guide was a very sweet and skinny woman named Icha. I was really afraid this van would be a death trap, but we all made it safe and sound. At the end of the tour, we paid Icha and the driver, and they looked very, very happy. It seemed like this was the first money they had made in quite awhile!

KOMODO ISLAND, INDONESIA (visited 1/00; written circa 12/00)

All of Komodo Island is designated as a National Park of Indonesia. This island is home to the fierce Komodo Dragon, which is actually considered a dinosaur. These animals are ferocious, and can easily kill a human within a matter of seconds.

This is one sleeping dragon I would not want to wake

Before Indonesia was Indonesia, the ruling party of a neighboring island used to send people convicted of crimes to Komodo Island as "punishment", knowing that they had little chance of survival against the dragons. Some people managed to survive, however, and there is a small colony of people still living on the island. Now, of course, their lives revolve around the courageous tourists who come here to see the dragons.

Pristine home of the dragons

The island itself is quite beautiful and untamed. It was refreshing to see someplace that hasn't been developed. The dragons only attack when hungry, and very close to the pier area there were several dragons laying around in a sleep like state. These are the supposedly "tame" ones that hang around waiting for hand outs from the only food establishment on the island. Still, I wouldn't venture too close. They can run faster than you, their claws could rip apart your flesh with one stroke, their tongues are poisonous, and they can climb trees. There's no escape!

A couple of "park rangers", who were decidedly unofficial looking, escorted a group of us on the 1 mile hike through the hot and humid jungle to the so-called "viewing" area. However, dragons are free to roam all over the island, and there are virtually no protective fences anywhere. Our "rangers" offered us protection by carrying with them heavy sticks with a V shape on one end, ostensibly to keep the dragons powerful jaws away from an unsuspecting tourist. I was dismayed when one of the passengers, who was inebriated, kept asking the Indonesian guide if he could carry the stick while we walked. Unfortunately, the guide consented, either out of a desire to be polite, or meekness. Fortunately, the guide stayed close to the drunken obnoxious American with the stick, just in case a dragon happened to pop up out of nowhere.

Yes they do bite

Eventually we made it to the viewing area, and lo and behold, there was a large dragon slowly meandering in our direction, with his forked tongue slirping in and out of his deadly snout. Just then, a HUGE dragon came sliding down a muddy hill on his belly, unable to negotiate the steep hill with his feet. The drunken man, who had finally given the stick back to the guide, thank God, wandered mindlessly and dangerously close to the big dragon who had just slid down the hill, trying to get a photograph, forgetting about the first dragon on the other side. The guide ran over and pulled him back to a safe distance, even though the dragon made no attempt at an attack. As this scene unfolded, I really had second thoughts about visiting this island! The possibility of seeing someone killed by a giant scaly reptilian dinosaur it not something I wanted to experience!

Thankfully, everyone returned safe and sound to the ship. Apparently there have been instances where un-alert tourists get attacked and maimed or killed by the dragons. If you ever go to Komodo Island, please exercise caution. It's a lot easier to watch a Nature video of the Komodo Dragons than it is to experience them first-hand!

WAINGAPU, SUMBA, INDONESIA (visited 1/00; written circa 12/00)

Sumba is a very quiet and non touristy destination that seems to be predominated by agricultural practices, judging by the quick overview I had while there for a few hours. I hired a taxi, and after the usual 10 minute intense negotiation that is common in Asia, the driver took me into town where I wandered around a dilapidated marketplace. There really wasn't much to see at all besides some exotic fruit. Back at the ship, however, there was a lot of vendors selling a special kind of weaving called single ikat. Apparently the artisans of Sumba have a unique way of making these cloths, and the finest pieces can be sold overseas for quite a lot of money.

The dilapidated marketplace in Sumba - tons of strange fruit

From what I gathered viewing an episode of the fantastic "Ring of Fire" video series that has aired on PBS (directed by Lawrence Blair, who was also a guest lecturer on the ship and became a good friend) Sumba is famous for an ancient tradition where men fight each other with long swords or jousts while mounted on horseback. In olden days, the fight would be to the death as a way of establishing honor. Now it is claimed that the fight is not to the death; however Mr. Blair believes that this deadly tradition does in fact continue, although it is veiled from public view and downplayed.

On my short visit to the island I didn't see anything like that! The closest thing to excitement I saw was that some of the taxi and minivan drivers were on strike and had blocked off access to one of the main roads, meaning we had to take a longer route. Not exactly a fight to the death.

LEMBAR, LOMBOK, INDONESIA (visited 1/00; written circa 12/00)

Cycling through the lush green fields of Lombok

Lombok is a very beautiful lush green island not far from Bali. It is not as popular of a tourist destination as Bali, and as a result is less developed economically. And although there are remnants of the Hindu based culture that predominates Bali, most of the residents are either Muslim or Christian. The very day after we visited Lombok, the Muslim versus Christian violence which has plagued Indonesia over the last few years broke out in Lombok. Many Christians were forced to flee to Bali, and tourism in Lombok virtually came to a standstill.

This cow herder woman seemed very pleased that I wanted to take her picture

Fortunately, I saw no sign of any problems during my day long visit. There was a gentle misty rain falling all day long as I took a taxi from Lembar, a small village with a pier, into the closest main town. I wandered my way onto the grounds of an ancient Hindu Temple complex which had three pagodas, having nine, eleven, and thirteen layers respectively. A young man who claimed to be an official state guide offered to show me around, and I was the only visitor the entire time I was there.

Old Hindu pagodas in Lombok

This man was very nice and loved to talk! In fact, he was totally absorbed in the study of numerology, and offered example after example of sychronistic coincidences in the various features of the temple, such as the number of layers of the pagodas as compared to the three largest mountains in Indonesia. He was adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing like crazy! After a while my mind was totally spinning with numbers, and I politely asked him to stop talking so I could meditate for a few minutes. It was a very sweet and deep meditation under a thatched roof pavilion on the grounds of the temple. The rain intensified and subsided in waves. Even though there was a lot of traffic noise from the nearby street, it was very still and peaceful.

The man offered to be my guide for the rest of the afternoon - apparently he has a lot of flexibility on his official state job! We went across the street to another ancient site that was more of a garden or park with old statues of Hindu deities. There was a central pavilion surrounded by ponds, where there were a few fisherman trying to catch something to eat.

Fishing with the blessings of the deity nearby

We left that place, and before I caught a taxi to go back to the ship, the guide tried to "fix me up" with a female friend of his. I think he thought if I ended up marrying her that there would be some money in it for him! It was funny yet weird - she spoke no English, and was at work cutting someone's hair. It was an akward scene.

Back in Lembar, a large group of children gathered around the pier to say goodbye to the foreigners boarding the ship's tenders. I think they were secretly wishing for some gifts as well. These kids were some of the most adorable little munchkins - check out the photo below.

Two cute little sisters wishing our group farewell at the pier

BALI, INDONESIA (visited 1/99 and 1/00; written circa 12/00)

View of the main volcano on Bali - a really beautiful place

I've been lucky enough to visit Bali twice, both in 99 and 2000. Different people have very different reactions to Bali, but as for me, it's one of my favorite places in the world. Our ship stopped at Padangbai, which is located on the southeast coast of the island, and Benoa, which is the major port in Bali and is not far from it's biggest city, Denpasar.

Young and old in Padangbai

Pandangbai, also spelled Padang Bay, is a village that was primarily a fishing village until recently, when tourism started to creep in. We were warmly greeted at the pier with a large Gamelan ensemble of about 16 musicians and about eight dancers bestowing flowers on our heads as we stepped off of the tender. The Gamelan is one of the traditional musical expressions of the Balinese, who practice a unique form of Hinduism. I could barely contain my excitement - I had been listening to Gamelan music on CD's for many years but had never heard an actual orchestra live in person. I was not disappointed! They even invited me to "sit in" and play the bass drum. The sound of the ensemble is astoundingly beautiful and seems to shimmer in the air.

The Gamelan ensemble consists of a number of men playing tuned metallic percussion instruments, as well as an assortment of drums, other percussion, and sometimes flutes. The instruments are tuned to a variety of scales depending on the group, but a common one is A - C# - D - E - G# . The musicians play a complicated series of rhythmic riffs, all committed to memory. I believe there are also certain cues within the music. The result is an incredible swirl of sound, quite meditative in nature. The dancers are highly trained and incredibly graceful, using some movements that are similar to what I've seen Indian classical dancers perform.

One of the beautiful things about Bali is that their ancient traditions are still very much in evidence, co-existing quite naturally even in the face of international tourism. I saw several funeral processions in progress while driving around the island; funerals in Bali are quite a unique spectacle. I also was able to visit several of the outdoor Hindu temples, of which there are said to be around 11,000 on the island. The temples are only used on special holidays when they come to life in a great celebratory fashion.

Even though parts of the island are over-developed and are considered "tourist ghettos", there is still plenty of beautiful countryside and small villages where people seem to live in harmony with their traditional beliefs and with the land. One such place is the ancient village of Tenganan.

Tenganan is said to be the most traditional of any village in Bali, and I believe that statement may actually be true. After you pay a small donation for an entry fee, and you sign a waiver agreeing to be respectful of everyone and everything in this place, which is considered sacred, you can wander around the village and browse the many private homes that are open to the visiting public which offer traditional crafts for purchase. Many of the objects for sale are exquisite, especially the weavings of double and single ikat. It is obvious that there are masters here of this art who continue to pass this knowledge and talent down through the generations. The people of Tenganan are very serious about protecting their cultural heritage; if a villager marries someone from outside of the village, they are outcast and not allowed to live in the village again. However, even Tenganan is not immune to modern western influences; there are only 300 people left living inside the village.

In 1999 I purchased a handmade bamboo wooden xylophone here called a ronton for about $30 or $40. It was really hard to get it home safely, but once I did, it has provided me with hours of musical enjoyment. It is tuned to a pentatonic scale, is played with rubber mallets, and has a very mellow, relaxing sound. I had the good fortune of hearing the maker of the instrument and a friend of his do a duet on two rontons, and they were fantastic.

Although there is a large influx of people from other Indonesian islands seeking employment in Bali, the majority of whom are Muslim, the island retains it's Hindu based spirituality. However, several Balinese people expressed concern to me about the erosion, exploitation, and possible extinction of their culture in the face of the Islamic ruling majority and corrupt national government. Only time will tell what will happen to Bali.

Every day in Bali, people offer flowers to the Gods and Goddesses in front of their homes, on their altars, and in their vehicles. There is a really sweet and gentle nature about the people. Their traditional artwork is everywhere; in addtion to the fine weaving it also includes carvings, sculpture, architecture, paintings, and many other forms. Ubud is a village in the middle of the island that is a center for arts and music. We got to spend an hour or two there rummaging through the many shops and vendors that offer all sorts of goods for sale.

Artfully designed fishing boats or alien beach invaders? (Padangbay)

Denpasar is a big city with a lot of traffic. But even there I saw processions of people dressed in traditional clothing celebrating who-knows-what! I even stumbled upon a private wedding and was invited inside the family's complex to join in the festivities, even though I was a total stranger. I missed the actual ceremonies, but they kept offering me many different types of foods, and asking me all kinds of questions.

In the evening after work I decided to go to a huge disco called The Hard Rock Cafe at Kuta Beach. This night was in stark contrast to everything else I had ever experienced in Bali, and was quite a disappointment. Although the club was big, modern, and impressive, there was a decidedly unfriendly and stuffy atmosphere, and everyone was trying to be cool, or to be something that they weren't. There was a Phillipino band dressed up like rebellious American youth playing grunge rock. The place was packed with immigrants from other parts of Asia, opportunists who were only in Bali to make a buck off of the tourist industry, and there was no sense of the welcoming and warm feelings I had sensed in all of my other encounters with authentic Balinese people. It was really depressing!

On my last day there, we went to visit a place called Goa Lawah, which is also known as the "bat cave". This place is actually a temple built onto a site where people worship a cave full of bats! All of the travel guides said to prepare yourself for a nauseating stench, but actually I didn't think it was that bad. One funny thing that happened here was that I ran into a girl who had been selling souvenirs in Padang Bay two days earlier when we arrived. She had offered to trade me some items if I could secure an American t-shirt for her. So I went back to the ship and got a t-shirt that I had bought for myself as a joke that said "Puerto Rican and proud of it". I used to wear this shirt around my home city of Paterson, New Jersey just to throw people off.

Anyway, she was really happy about this and the jar of peanut butter and various other sundries from the ship that I gave to her. When I saw her at the Bat Cave, which is apparently her and her family's home selling turf, she was proudly wearing the t-shirt and looked really happy to see me there. She showed me her vendor's stall and introduced me to her entire family. Then they offered me a traditional wood carved ceremonial mask. They would not accept any money from me for it. These people were dirt poor yet they were offering me, a wealthy (by their standards) foreigner, a gift. This is the kind of generosity that blows me away.

All in all, even with the modern transgressions such as the Hard Rock Cafe, I have to say that Bali is still an incredible place to visit, and I would go back there in a heartbeat. The Balinese people have a wonderfully pure-hearted philosophy on life, and have successfully interwoven music, the arts, and devotion into their everyday lives. To me they are a culture existing on a high plane of humanity.

PALOPO, SULAWESI, INDONESIA (visited 1/99 and 1/00; written circa 12/00)

Sulawesi is a large and oddly shaped island of the Indonesian archipelago, located north of Bali and east of Borneo in the sea of Celebes. It is pretty far off the beaten track, and not many tourists venture there. The biggest attraction is the culture of the Toraja people, who live in the interior highlands.

The nearest port town to the Toraja highlands is Palopo, and we stopped at Palopo both in 99 and 2000. On both visits I was unable to accompany the passengers on the long bus trip to see the Toraja people. However, I heard a lot about them, and saw many photographs depicting the unique way they have of honoring their dead. They are buried high up in cliffside caves, with strange looking effigies of the dead with unforgettable eyes staring out and standing guard at the entrances to the caves, clothed in the deceased person's actual clothing. Some of these effigies have actually been stolen by looting treasure hunters. Last year the passengers from the ship got to witness an "actual" funeral, which just "happened" to coincide with their visit (was it real or staged?), where a live bull was slaughtered using a machete right in front of everyone's eyes. The ship's photographer posted graphic shots of this event on the photo display board, and it was utterly disgusting.

Palopo is a sleepy and poor seaside town that is beautifully cradled by majestic mountains all around. They don't seem to get many foreign tourists here because there is really not much to see; I received a lot of strange looks from people, just as I did in the other places in Indonesia which are similarly isolated.

As we were sailing away from Palopo, I was standing on the bow of the ship with Dr. Lawrence Blair and his wife, Ali. We spotted off in the distance what appeared to be a fire burning onshore, and unfortunately all indications was that it was probably a church burning, a casualty of the ongoing Muslim versus Christian violence. It was rumored that many people were killed in Palopo or nearby towns the very day before we had arrived (this year - 2000). Dr. Blair explained to me that the violence has less to do with religion than it is a class struggle of the "haves" versus the "have-nots". In Indonesia, the official religions of Islam and Christianity are often a thin veneer over more ancient animist beliefs, especially in remote areas, and people live very simply and consequently tend to settle disputes in a more simple fashion.

MAKASSAR (UJUNG PANDANG), SULAWESI, INDONESIA (visited 1/99 and 1/00; written circa 12/00)

Makassar is the biggest city on Sulawesi, and it's in bad shape! The city is extremely run-down with a lot of half standing buildings and piles of rubble everywhere. A lot of refugees were sent here from East Timor just before we arrived, and there was definitely a heavy vibe in the air. One funny thing is that they had previously decided to change the name from Makassar to Ujung Padang, presumably because it was more of a true Indonesian name. Since our 99 visit, however, they decided to change the name back to Makassar - I don't know why!

When we visited here in 99, the agency that was supposed to deliver fuel to the ship attempted to steal the fuel payment money and disappear, and consequently we were "stranded" in Makassar overnight waiting for a fuel shipment. The captain announced that our ship would never come back to this port again. However, one year later, we were back again - it's the only possible place to refuel in the entire region!

One of the other ship musicians and I took bicycle rickshaws down the main street late at night after we finished work, and there were lots of young male transvestites strolling down the avenue trying to "make a sale". It was a bizarre scene.

My main memory from our very short 2000 visit there was that I was able to check my phone messages back at home from the post office in Makassar. I had received a message from my longtime friend Avi Bortnick, telling me that he had just gotten the gig to go on tour with the great jazz guitarist John Scofield's band. I remember being so happy for my friend Avi when I heard this news that I let out a yell! Way to go, Avi!

to the next PhotoJournal page - "MYANMAR"

all text and photos Copyright (C) 1999-2000 Harry Miller