Indonesia Manis

Before I left for my quick jaunt to Southeast Asia, I had just finished Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, cheesy book about first world white lady problems, but I still got something out of it. Even if part of it was just amusement at my February travel mapping vaguely onto a microcosmic version of Elizabeth Gilbert's trek. I spent Eat week in Tennessee filling up on Meat and Twos, always going for mac n' cheese if they had it.

There's something adorable about the confusion on someone's face when you ask them not to put cheesy sauce on your overcooked broccoli. "No...cheesy...sauce?"

Pray time was obviously Thailand, where I walked to every wat and chedi in sight, feeling as spiritual as my cynical-leaning self is likely to get. I flicked water on myself from lotus blossoms for good luck, wai'd the heck out of the people I worked with, and did my best to reflect on where I wanted my life to go.

So Indonesia was supposed to be Lovin' and I was going to exit stage right with an older Italian ex-pat on his speedboat (spoiler alert). I was actually pretty excited to be in Jakarta to see my friend Rex (the girl on the far right in the picture above) since I had spent most of the month basically walking around either Tennessee or Thailand on my own, with a quick boop back into San Francisco to see the boy I was dating at the time. Yes, I interacted with a ton of people in the meantime, but seeing a college friend in her natural habitat is on a whole other level.

My most memorable moment here was finding out that there was no number to call for the police or fire department. People at work laughed at me, and friends there cackled at me. "Why would you want to call the police? They'd just show up and you'd have even more problems." "But what do you do if your house is on fire?" "You either put it out yourself or you watch it burn." I had been pretty excited about having a cell phone just in case I ran into hooligans in Jakarta, but no such luck.

Kopi Luwak

I finally had civet butt coffee. Kopi luwak is coffee brewed from beans that have been eaten by a civet and then pooped out. Someone then has to go out and pick up the dried feces with the coffee berry seeds. I was pretty excited to find a shop that served it, along with toast topped with cheese, chocolate, and condensed milk. Two friends and I split a US$10 cup of kopi luwak. We each took a tentative sip, sat back, and shared looks of confusion.

Part of the problem is that the coffee is served with the grounds still in it, so the texture of dust on liquid was mighty distracting. Once you get past that, we tentatively put it out there that the coffee is maybe a little smoother, but not by much, so not really worth the effort of chasing wild civets for their poo.

Pulau Pramuka

While in Jakarta, I also got sunburnt while on a speedboat to Pulau Pramuka (one of may islands just north of the city), hung out at some cafes that would have fit right into the Mission (except for the fact that they sold pig skin crisps or does that make it more Mission hipster?), and drank probably a gallon of coconut water mixed with orange juice.

The water and sand in Pulau Pramuka was pretty awesome. Not quite Miami heat and not quite Thai white sand beach, but it was really what I needed that day. Rex and I flopped down on our bellies in the water and she taught me how to say "prostitute" and other useful Bahasa Indonesian terms.

And of course there was so much nasi goreng during my Jakarta time. Strangely, the best rendition I had was from a janky cart right outside my hotel. Note the love of the krupuk (rice crackers) and I definitely had that in everything. While we had our nasi goreng, the biggest rat I've ever seen in my life was having a piece of krupuk too. 

Aside from play play, I spent my days again talking to Indonesia auto union leaders. They were as into group pictures as I was, and in the one below, yes, I did make that man wear the rice hat. The women all wanted to know about how awesome it is to be female in the workplace in the United States. 

So much eating. And so much spice. Though it was finally in Jakarta that I had awful food poisoning. Just three days of stomach churning and bowel exploding (you're welcome). I somehow made it through every work day before sprinting for my hotel room. I think it was the "smashed duck" joint that did it.

The above was my only attempt to eat as the Indonesians do, with the right hand only. I get the extra boost of texture from feeling the oily meat, but lord, I was bad at it, getting it all over my shirt.

Salak (left) and mangosteen (right)

One of the best parts of the trip was finding salak and mangosteen. Somehow I coudln't find a single mangosteen in Bangkok, every Thai fruit vendor telling me that it was out of season. FALSE. In Jakarta, mangosteen was aplenty on every street corner, and I definitely had at least a dozen of them a day (though at least on a daily basis, one would be infested with large ants and I would yelp and scream and throw it across the room. Classy.). 

Salak was a stranger taste and if anything, it tastes like a "warm tropical." Try it and you'll see what I mean. Definitely more cute as the "snakefruit" than anything else.

And a ton of tasty kebab. I kinda like how it's done in Southeast Asia, where it's little bits of meat on every stick, and not a big chunk of it. All of it is just an excuse to eat kecap manis.

Before I knew it, it was time to head back to San Francisco, but not before I spent two hours of preboarding getting eaten alive by mosquitos at the airport.