Winds of Change

Thai visa application was accepted in Jakarta, followed by 24 hours of travel back to Mae Sot. My previous volunteer position has ended in my absence as my students were accepted into a post-10 school, their version of university, congratulations! I was intent on continuing to teach but I was planning on moving out of the group's home upon returning with Eline anyway. We have checked into a $4 a night guesthouse with a primitive kitchen and a beautiful balcony where we will spend the next couple of weeks.

The current plan is to move to Rangoon (aka Yangon) as soon as possible. A Katrina-sized cyclone unexpectedly jumped out of the Bay of Bengal into the Irrawaddy River Delta killing an estimated 10,000 people and making over a million homeless. In Yangon, the capital city to the East of the river delta, 59 people were killed and major damage done to the infrastructure.

In the Bangkok airport, news agencies have personnel holding signs directed at tourists returning from Yangon asking for any photos coming from the region. There is a huge lack of information coming from within. A task for me? Perhaps.

The national referendum vote for the pro-junta constitution was scheduled on May 10th. This date will be upheld in the majority of the country except in the disaster areas where voting will be pushed back to May 24th. Due to the secretive nature of SPDC, the controlling junta, relief workers including UN employees are being denied visas until after the referendum vote, I am told.

In the coming weeks Eline and I are going to try a few avenues for visa acquisition though it sounds like we will have to wait just like everyone else. Using Mae Sot contacts, we are going to get in touch with a school in Yangon for the opportunity to obtain 10 week work visas. Meanwhile, a boarding school on summer holiday needs some sort of summer classes to entertain a gaggle of kids too far from home to return for break.

Indonesian photos soon!

Jakarta, Indonesia

Cebu Airlines to the Philippines has two major problems; a website that cannot process credit cards and three customer service numbers that do not pick up, so we were forced to take an alternative action for the great visa run. From an internet cafe in Bangkok, Eline and I got a pair of tickets to Jakarta, Indonesia for later that day. We flew with only the address of the Thai Embassy written down; we landed at 1 AM greener than green in the unfamiliar city. A taxi took us to the backpacker quarter under a thick misty fog. We eventually found a cheap room from a quiet Muslim man.

We woke up in the small cell heralded as a guesthouse room and taxied to the embassy right before noon when they closed. My application was rejected due to a lack of exit ticket from Thailand. It was friday, and Indonesians are not so into the internet as to have cafes every ten feet, so we were screwed until at least monday.

We were in a strange city, without a map, without a Lonely Planet and hard up for a good time. Jakarta is a toxic waste dump combined with an open sewer, so we frantically needed information about a more habitable region of the island. A man who spoke broken Dutch told Eline about a place called Carita where there is a beach and swimming. A police officer helped us to the bus terminal, and three hours after being rejected from Thailand we had front row seats for a four hour bus ride to a destination we knew nothing about besides its name. Trust, it seems, can take you a long way.

Indonesia's privatized public transportation system is worth telling about. A team of three, driver, money collector, and "cowboy" combined with an old decrepit coach bus can make serious cash running main roads. A sign on the front of the bus demarcates the destination and as the driver thunders through villages, the "cowboy" hangs out the perpetually open door beckoning for customers. In the event of traffic or other slowdown, the "cowboy" jumps out of the bus, running along side to gather more people. On board, riders are not limited to paying patrons. Food and soda hockers clamber on along with guitarists trying to make a buck. It amounts to a rolling three ring circus.

Once we had this experience and found our way to Carita, we found a relaxed guesthouse haunted by the local lifeguards and Javanese surf bums. They invited us into their posse on account we help pay for our share of wine. One night we had a bonfire by the beach, the next night we kicked back in the expensive beach-side hotel that was empty of patrons on a sunday night. The non-existent guests did not mind if we used their swimming pool! Daytime found us reading by the water, swimming, surfing, and hiking into the mountains with our new Indonesian surfer friends. Today, as a send off, they cooked a traditional Javanese feast for 8 of us in a hut on a banana plantation, only condition being I paid for the fish and rice, totaling only $3; I can say it was worth it. The rice and fish were laid out on a line of large banana leafs with cucumber and tomato. We sat around this table and dined with our hands of the delicious barbecued fish and banana-leaf-steamed rice.

The friends were sorry to see us go, but we promised to return. As we left, another taxi full of Germans landed, and I am sure the whole process started over.

I am doctoring an old e-itinerary into a Chiang Mai to Yangon ticket that will hopefully pass inspection tomorrow in the Thai Embassy. We are also looking into where to go next in Indonesia! 7 more days to go.