Sunrise over Borobudor Temple - Central Java, Indonesia
It's been a few months since I moved back to America from Qatar - I'm now reasonably settled into what will likely be home for the next five or six years. A year ago I had just returned from a weekend in Dubai and was getting ready to go to Egypt for Eid al Adha. Mongolia at this point seems like an odd adventure that somebody else went on, and one day Doha will be too . . . but right now I can still remember the richness of a daily zaatar croissant & cappuccino breakfast and the inescapable dust that I would wash off of my feet each night in my bidet.
In making pedestrian small talk with strangers I've found myself having to generalize the experience in such painfully trite ways - "It was a great opportunity to work abroad and we got to travel a lot during school holidays!" "My favorite trip was Syria and Lebanon - the food was great!" Ugh. Not that I don't want to share what I did, but sometimes putting it into words ruins the whole thing. Regardless, I regret not writing more about each of my trips. I wish I had taken better notes, not only to help my future self remember but also to better communicate what I lived when I had the great privilege of traveling the world.
Gunung Merapi, Central Java, Indonesia
Here's one corner of the world that I visited that has been making the news. This is a volcano that I saw while hiking to the overlook from which I took the first photo in this post. I was awestruck by this Real Live Smoking Volcano and paused to take at least twenty photos of it while my Indonesian friends, totally unimpressed, hiked onwards. Recently, Merapi erupted with serious consequences. All of the photos in this post are from just outside Jogjakarta, well within the limits of the volcano's effects. It got me thinking about my friends in Jogjakarta who were so generous and welcoming to me - a complete stranger - and I began recalling all the folks all around the world who befriended me and my traveling companions.
With my friend Suchiee. Outside Borobudor, Central Java, Indonesia. Photo credit Yasmi Setiwati
I made a list that went on for several pages - and eventually included all sorts of people. The gentleman at the furniture shop in Amritsar who fetched me a bicycle rickshaw after finding me wandering around in the dark with my new bicycle, getting cold and desperate to return to the hotel but too scared to ride the bicycle in the flow of rickshaws, trucks, donkeys, motorcycles, and cars. Guido and Rita, the couple in Medan who invited me to stay in their gorgeous home (even providing a pair of freshly laundered pajamas to sleep in. It was paradise after two weeks of solo backpacking), treated me to delightful pork barbecue (after finding out I was not Muslim), drove me all around Medan in an air-conditioned car - all on the pretense that I was a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (Actually). Hendra, my self-appointed personal tour guide in Medan who spent three days showing me the sights without once mentioning any personal obligations that may have taken precedence over helping this random traveler.
Remembering the selflessness and generosity of these folks made me want to record and share a few of these stories with you. These days I'm pretty sure my mother is my only reader (Love you mom!), but regardless. With gratitude as my motivation, I'm hoping to sustain this thing until I go on my next big adventure.
Taken from a motorbike after we watched the sunrise - Outside Borobodur, Central Java.
