It´s fuckin beautiful. Terraces of ricefields above and below. Scarified valleys. Steep. Overtaking thicket. Opening the surprise of a brigth view again. Some of them look more like an unsuccessful hair transplantation, thin and clear, some thick and intensively, want to stretch out my arm, out of the train´s window, digg it deep into the fields, to feel the luscious wet of fertility. Brown and green pattern, outlined camouflage. Monitored by transmittering towers, breaking in red and white. White bridges, bonded grey. Between small villages. Its beggars and poorest bumming around the metals. I want to jump off the train, just, to go straight, down, and up, swerving the hills and green carpeted rocks – after the volcanos my knees are ruined, so maybe more floating down rivers, on a Go-Go-Gadget-o backpack, lying on my back, with a bamboo rudder leaning on, a kretek between my lips, tasting the sweet of the land. Escape.
It´s fuckin beautiful.
How wonderful movement is.
Passing field workers with their tight machetes. Seem to be like sooooo satisfied with their basic humble life, working with nature, in this beautiful surrounding. Of course, not. Just accepting the how-it-is, maybe the how-it-is-so-far. Because there is surely no way out. Remaining afterlife.
Kids playing soccer. “It´s hit the post!” How many soccer fields there are, every village not less then a lot of. How popular an activity gets, by marketing, call it sports, but this is dreaming of a career in a global acting company.
Kids throwing stones at the train, for fun, illustrating why there are so many cracked windows on the train.
Locals taking their evening after work bath in a littered stream of a waters run. Small cabines, built on stakes, covered with advertisement canvas, connected by bambooed bridges to their basic home, serving as a toilet, straight down the stream. Passing head by head, kneeing, relaxing, reading newspaper, amazing! – Some events seem to be a really adventure to follow, because it is here, not at home, in the culture you grown up. Commenting my minds with a head-wag.
All the houses the train passes are fronted to to railroad. Selling local products, like food and handcrafts. Children playing on the metals with their kites, footballs or stones, grands sitting on a bench, maybe thinking of the change of life, or maybe just sitting there. It´s appears to me western, that we always think we think, people think, men thinks. Maybe it is not possible that men don´t think, but it is a impossibly task to think all the time, reflect, create, recreate, discuss, crazy fuzz of a vision´s ignorance. I do it anyway.
Thinking about their minds, what is crossing them now. A “Look at this stupid crazy white guy” or “What the fuck is he doing here” or “What the fuck is he doing here, get back to the mainroad”. Maybe. But maybe they are only friendly, not less. Sometimes it appears that they would offer their last bite, which they actually and literally already do, facing me as a white european. Maybe a little bit striking, disregarding the brokers called governments, governments shading the industry and their own small capitalism named democratic development and all the other parameters and criteria, but most of the time I feel like this, because I am white, a european with a fall back plan, if I want or not, a tourist, and I can´t help everyone, even I enjoy to stay, wander, meet and greet by heart. I enjoy my life here, what I never did back home. Leaving me in these days cultureless, reverberated on myself. I is a vanishing me, arriving at myself. My inside is a mirror, in which the ouside taken its set. It feels like I don´t think, but… I is a ticking bomb. Have to get heavily drunken soon.
Impression: She looks at my facebook-profile, spotting a picture of me with my beloved and missed beard. “Ha! You look loke Osama!” Same said my mother, years ago. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, marketing of a prejudices is working fine and we all believe in the power of being reigned by hope.
Just because of this train trip from Bandung to Jakarta it was worth to make the stop-over, at a city, which reminds me to Athens, from upstairs of my accommodation. Widen, embraced by hilltops. No skyscrapers, rusty reflecting rooftops. Leaving the 24 hours jammed mainroads, entering the towns of districts in a city of millions, loosing myself again, literally, in a labyrinth of narrow corridors, short cornered walks, passing the frontdoors of the charming neighbourhood feels more like walking through their living rooms, not a district, jsut a huge living room. Sometimes feeling unsafe, without orientation, no maps working, no english speaking, but there are always smiles and invitation, greeting you from the far of a trash-dump. It´s dirty again, exhaling pollution, open-door designed garages, greasing the busy sidewalks, repairing preparing all different kinds of vehicles, constructions or whatever that is.
My feet are still a blistering raw mess. I wouldn´t mind a foot massage now, even I hate that intense touching, try to discover the structure and disstructure. Walking the daylight busting my pace, looking forward to have some relaxing days in Jakarta, 8 days, should be enough to catch the excitement in my heart, for an every day corner and look, maybe getting close to a daily life, just close, don´t wanna have it, no thanks.
Note: Have some bad writing and shooting days, too much work to do. Whether I want or not, the work keeps me on the road. Thank you, my beloved customers.
Tomorrow I will get some more tattoos, to keep menkind afraid, straight in your face, even though after a sign of smile in this part of the world, the frightened turn into friendly and curious people, ashaming me sometimes with their overwhelming hospitality. Some of them of them just keep on starring at me, appreciate their freezed categorizing do-not-know-what-to-do-or-how-to-react-and-why-the-hell-is-he-smiling loss. Makes me feel black again, human, let up the leashes, meeting my good old companion – “I am not a bloody Disneyland of hapiness and smiles!”
For me as a foreigners, I could have been tattooed all over my body – am I?, they wouldn´t look at me like a criminal. Being tattooed and local, similar to Europe, prejudices taking place. So I think, even if I don´t ike the idea, but my outside and the phobia is sometimes protecting me, a suit of armour. Not to bad at all.
“I love Indonesia.”
“Why?”
What a stupid good question.
“Describing differences… there they eat more sausages, more spicy food, there more soups or they deep-fry all kinds of creatures. This spot on the map has cooler areas… more humid climate, most beautiful beaches, rough or rocky, blooming or rainy… differences are global and all over.
So, it depends on. And you can find assholes everywhere. Haven´t found one yet.”