i met up with sharon at the bus terminal shortly after leaving my becak friends. her teenage son was also with her to help carry bags and ward off any unfriendly overfriendly men. we crammed into a bus that already had people hanging out the doors. but the hustler (this is my name for the guy that takes people’s money and also hangs out the door screaming the destination of the bus to try to get people beside the road to jump on) made some guys move so we could sit down. i think we had 349863aidfh84382 people crammed in a bus meant for 20. yeah. it was tight. and hot. welcome to indonesia. the hustler was quite a player too, calling all the girls on the bus “neng gelis” (which became the first sunda words i learned), miss pretty.
anyways, about halfway to our coastal destination, we decided to get off the bus in a little town called banjarsari. there was a little fair thing going on that we thought we might get some nice pictures of. they must not get very many white people there, because people began following us, whispering and pointing and giggling. it was still early, so there wasn’t much going on at the fair. instead, we made our way to a kaki lima (little cart that people sell food and drinks out of – kaki lima means 5 legs. the cart has 3 and the person pushing it has 2!) and ordered some refreshing drinks from the lady working there. there were also some kids hanging around and we chatted with them. as it turns out, we were the first foreigners this lady had EVER served at her stand, and she was quite honored! she even asked to have her picture taken with us!
(sharon and the lady who made our drinks for us)
(looking at a picture they had just taken of me using someone’s cell phone. those are mostly all the children of the kaki lima lady.)
(her youngest child. a perpetually worried looking little boy.)
(some neighborhood boys hanging out, sharing a drink)
(a friend)
after chatting with them for half an hour or so, we went to catch another bus to our destination – pangandaran!
much to my surprise, we were staying ON THE BEACH! and in a REAL HOTEL! (as opposed to a hole in the wall dump like i seem to end up in all too often) and… i had my OWN ROOM! it even had a real toilet. and a shower. with hot water. and AC! these people know how to treat a guest ;) haha… i just read back over that. you can tell you’ve lived in a third world country for too long when you get SUPER excited about things like flushing toilets.
after arriving, settling in, showering, and getting dinner, we decided to call it a night. we wanted to be up in enough time the next morning to see the sunrise – this meant being up before 5! NOT my forte…
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