Penis Gourds, bones through the nose, and tribal wars: just another day in Papua

I realize I am going out of order here and haven't written about the boat yet, but I will get back to this later. Papua was too fascinating not to write about

On the 16th of Oct. flew from Ambon Island in the Molukus (spice island area)to Jayapura (though the airport is actually in Sentani) via Sorong. The flight was a bit late (of course, i think indonesia would implode if any of there transport was ever on time), so I missed the last flight flying to Wamena. So spent the night in Sentani, which was ok b/c it was much more difficult to obtain my surat jalan (travel permit for areas outside of the cities in papua)than expected. I had read that you could just get it at the police station at the airport. But that was not the case, at least not today. Probably depends on who's there, how much money you're offering them, etc. I wanted to be on the first flight out--as I was on a bit of a time crunch before my visa ran out and I had heard it could be difficult to arrange a trek once in wamena and so I wanted a full day--so it was important for me to get the surat jalan that day. Hired a motor mike to take me to the police station that's a bit out of town. It was 8pm by this time and most of the police station was closed. The driver took me to several locked doors, then a policeman took me around and we finally found some guy playing video games in an office. Via a random bystanding translator, he said to come back tomorrow, but I said that it would not be open in time to get the early flights to wamena and asked if he could just do it there. He said yea, maybe. I was fully inclined to give a bribe if necessary. Eventually he called some guy that knew good english and he told me to wait an hour. So I did. Some random guy showed up, took my passport copies and passport photos, pasted them to a sheet of paper and said I was good to go. So the next day I showed up at 4:30 am when the ticket office opened to buy my ticket for the 6 am flight, which of course ended up leaving after 9...haha. Checking into the airport was a mess! It was basically a free for all to get checked in. And people were carrying bags and bags of stuff b/c wamena is only accessed by plane, so everything must be flown in. But finally got physical enough to get my bag checked in and to make it to the plane.

Stepped out of the plane into a beautiful green valley with steep green mountains all around. The town is Wamena, and the area is known as the Baliem Valley. According to my guidebook the Baliem Valley was discovered in 1945 when a plane crashed into the valley and the survivors were rescued. It apparently came as one of the last and greatest surprises to a world that had mapped, studied, and explored its remotest corners. Of course missionaries (dutch) were soon dispatched by 1954. Walked from the landing strip about 100 meters to my guesthouse. It was the most expensive place I had stayed yet at $16.50 with breakfast, but I had expected this as every single thing is flown into the Wamena. And wamena looks just like a normal town: banks, cars, trucks, busses, shops, big churches, etc. All amazingly flown in on huge military planes. The plane I flew in on would normally have about 30 rows of seats, but it only had 10 as the rest of the plane was stripped out for cargo. As an example of prices, mie goreng here cost $2.50 (most other places it's 0.50), a liter of water was 3.00 (and I usually get it for 0.20 to .50).

A guide soon found me and we walked around town a bit doing some of the necessary errands such as checking into the police station with my surat jalan. I really liked wamena and found it, I don't know, almost surreal or from a movie set. Set in this huge flat valley with beautiful mountains all around. And then it has this frontier town type feel and even more-so it was exactly how I have always imagined a say, african missionary station in the early to mid 1900's. Like Isaak Dinesen's Africa (Out of Africa) or any that you see in the movies. With lots of tiny planes flying in and out (the two main airlines flying here were missionary airlines and missionary air fellowship), beautiful churches, and a real slow feel to it. Also reminded me a lot of the Poisonwood Bible that we had to read as incoming freshman to ACI. The Papuans are the farthest things from Asians. Don't look like asians at all. Definitely a much more African look or probably like native australians. But they're still kind of short and very stout in stature. They have a real reggae type vibe too with lots and lots of bright colors, bob marley type hats, and dreds and cornrows. Their look reminds me a lot of Ernest Renfroe...or for those not learned in 1990's university of colorado backup forwards, they looked similar to Lebron James, except half the height. All the papuans were barefoot and only the indonesians wore shoes. One thing I learned really quick (and I made sure to learn it by asking), is not to call the Papuans Indonesians. They clearly wanted to be separated. The Indonesian Province is actually called Irian Jaya (and that's how it would be on modern maps), but to the people who live there it's called papua. It's also sometimes known as west papua. Papua is another classic example of how european colonialism screwed up local populations and has continued to cause problems (mostly known in Africa...i.e. rawanda, uganda, kenya, zaire, zimbabwe, etc). The island of papua is made up of Papua New Guinea (it's own country) on the east and Irian Jaya owned by indonesia on the west. The people in Irian Jaya are obviously much more related in customs, beliefs, etc to the people of PNG than to indonesians. Irian Jaya should really be part of PNG (if anything at all) than indonesia. And actually this is a huge problem all over indonesia, though much more pronounced here. See the dutch used to control Indonesia (known as the dutch east indies) which was very prosperous for them b/c of all of indonesia's natural resources and slave labor. And especially the spice isles b/c there was a time when some of the major spices such as nutmeg were ONLY available on the tiny banda islands of the molukus. Of course when indonesia was given independence, it was kept all together in one big country. But all the islands are decidedly different in people, culture, beliefs, and often religion. And in fact, almost all of the islands want, and have fought for it at some time, independence from Java and Jakarta. The problem is, a place like sumatra (all the sumatrans despised the javans) is so so rich in oil, timber, and now oil palms, that jakarta would never give them freedom (I read that 60% of indonesians GNP comes from sumatra). The same is true for Kalimantan (where the people are more like the rest of the borneans) which has loads of resources in its rainforests and mines and off shore oil. Bali, another one which is completely different, especially with its hindu culture, is too valuable in tourism, not only for money, but for the name. The newest country in the world, East Timor, which used to be part of Nusa Tengerra, Indonesia finally fought and gained independence. This, of course, caused massive violence throughout indonesia as other provinces thought they could get the same fate. And this is a major reason why you (or lots of people back home in america) think Indonesia is so dangerous b/c of all the fighting for independence. The island, ambon, where my boat arrived in, was closed to tourists the whole of the 90's b/c of a huge independence struggle. Well, just like those other places, Papua is too valuable with its resources to give up. There was a big memorial in Sentani to all the Papuan freedom fighters who died in their latest war in the late 90's. And to me, the Papuans stand out even more than the rest of the places I visited from the Javan indonesians. It's so obvious they're not like indonesians at all. And in order to make sure places like papua can't get independence, jakarta has initiated a thing called transmigrasi where they are shipping javans (the most populated island) to these other places and giving them land or tax breaks or something for doing that. So in a place like Papua that makes up 22% of indo's territory, but only has 1% of its population, this is a big deal. And its very noticeable. The big cities on the coast had a fair amount of indonesians, and in wamena where it was mainly papuans, the indonesians had the better jobs like police, travel agents, bankers. And b/c of this there is definitely a lot of descrimination towards the native papuans which is quite sad. And of course there is a huge military presence and from what I've heard the army had no problem firing at papuans for the smallest thing. And to make things worse for poor papua, there are also foreign interests which are not so good for it. There's a US-based mining company, called Freeport, which has the 3rd largest copper mine in the world and the largest gold mine in the world in papua. This has caused thousands of papuans to be displaced (which is quite bad b/c in a place were tribal wars are still quite common, it's not easy to just pick up a move to a new place or enemy territory, so they are forced to the cities where they just become beggers usually b/c they aren't educated and often don't even know indonesian langauge) and many thousands more to be sick from mine tailings. Of course it's mostly indonesians employed there and according to what i've read, over a 10 year period the mines contributed us$40 billion to the jakarta economy as the mines make a PROFIT or US $1 million per day! Although it's no excuse for violence, this likely explains why 2 american teachers and 1 indonesian teacher were murdered in the town where the gold mine is recently after they decided to expand the mining operation and displace more people.

well, anyways, back to the blog. So the guide who was accompanying me around, Silas, and I walked a bit through the town. I was looking to do a 4day 3 night trek. I wanted to know what this guide had for plan and cost and such but he said he'd tell me tonight. I was looking for some other tourists to share the guide with, but there weren't really any at all as this was a very low season. Almost all their tourists come in july and august. Did find two italian guys, but their english wasn't the best and from what I understood from them, they had been here before and were just going to be doing day hikes by themselves. They did invite me a long to go for a few hours by car to a traditional village nearby called jawika. So I did that. Later that afternoon, silas finally told me his plan and cost. A whopping 750 dollars! for 4 days. Seemed quite rediculous to me considering that was about 1/2 the price I just paid for 12 days on a luxury sail boat with 4 dives a day, gourmet food, a long transfer, etc. So I told him no, but he said I wouldn't find anywhere cheaper and that it's just expensive here, but he would give it to me for 5 hundred. Still too much for me. I mean where could all the cost be going. I'd be staying in local huts, carrying my own stuff, so I didn't need a personal porter, and eating mostly local food with some cheap rice and noodles. So I went out looking for someone else. Someone told me the guy running the computer place, Mr. Fuji (a japanese expat), knew about prices and guides. I loved Mr. Fuji. He was quite funny and very nice and helped to hook me up with a guide named Kipenus who I was able to arrange a 4 day trek for 200 hundred, which I was definitely okay with. That night I felt a bit sick and got a little sharp stomach pain in my abdomen and a bit of numbness in my left leg and was feeling a bit lightheaded, so I was very worried it was the episode from the boat recurring. But after I lied down, drank lots of water, and fell asleep, I was ok.

The next morning, Kipenus, his son Kipe (who carried some of the food and was the cook), and some girl who was the daughter of Kipenus'friend and had never been to where we were going so wanted to come, and I set out to the market to buy some food. The market was very colorful and full of lots of people from the different tribes selling their vegetables. And at the market, same as in the town of wamena it was often quite funny to see the older men or older women just hanging around in their traditional garb. For the women, that's just a woven skirt and nothing else. For the men it's just a penis gourd and nothing else. In the town of wamena, most of the people are fully clothed, a lot b/c of the missionaries as I was told. Almost every papuan there, including the ones I would later meet on my trek are Christians (protestants they would tell me, though they never knew if they were presbyterian or babtist or whatever). The missionaries were mainly from holland, canada, and the us. From the market we took an impossibly overcrowded bemo to as far as the road went to the south which was near the village of Kilima. From here we got out and began the hiking. Crossed over a huge alluvial fan from a flood that had taken out the road as the road used to go about a mile further. Had to cross a very muddy river here which we were able to do without getting too wet as there were some logs thrown across it. Once in kurima I gave the heavily armed military (all the ak 47's they were toting were quite funny as the local papuan villagers used spears and bows and arrow still as their method of war) and the police my copies of the surat jalan. We walked for a bit along the Baliem river, which was an awesome river in force and power. It was quite wide but had huge rapids for as far as I walked along it, which during my whole trip was quite far. So that was pretty impressive. And we're talking big rapids on a big river. Class V's for sure. Reminded me of that one rapid on the Colorado that you bike by under the overpass of the highway when on the Glenwood Canyon bike path during the end of may when the river is going full blast. But the difference here was instead of that one rapid, it was that same rapid for miles on end. It would be an intense raft ride for sure. I mean there was just no calm water along the whole river. We eventually went straight up going through several villages and their "gardens" as they call them, which are little plots for growing things that are enclosed by rocks they have pulled out of the fields that serve as protection from the pigs as well. In the villages, it's quite cool b/c they have a crazy tangle of paths made by the rocks walls and some of them have little tunnels built in for the pigs to pass through. I really liked the villages. They are just made up by tiny (you have to squat down to go through the door)a little round huts with grass roofs and a couple rectangular huts which are the cooking huts. I really found the villages to be quite cute. Like something you imagine from the hobbit or some other fairytale land in the mountains. The villages were fun to go through b/c all the people were so friendly and would give huge genuine smiles and come over to shake your hands in a long, long handshake. They give each other long handshakes and will just hold the hands or arms for most of the conversation or even the waste. Men will be holding mens hands and women holding women's hands as they walk along. And as far as I can tell they would go over to shake everyone's hand and say welcome, not matter if they knew each other or not. On the passes or major foot byways it was long lines of people shaking hands as they passed by each other. Even the kids would come up to me to shake my hand, except for the really young ones, which kipenus said hadn't seen white people before and they would cry quite loudly. I just got the impression of such a friendly, welcoming, and loving culture. In the villages the people in their about 30's and younger would wear t-shirts and shorts (though still decked out in their normal jewelry and accessories) and the older people just chilling in their penis gourds and grass skirts. The older women were also missing fingers and I learned that before the missionaries came, they used to have a practice where when someone died, the women would cut off a finger at the 2nd knuckle and the men would cut their hair. (hmm...who gets the short end of the stick there?) The hiking was quite spectacular as well b/c the landscape was extraordinary and you had great views. You could see down to the valley and down the canyon to the rivers, and across to other villages and big mountains. I particularly loved this trek b/c of the great views. I realized I am truly a child of big sky country (I realize I'm not from montana, but all the west could have been given that similar nickname), and I love views and open space. The treks in the dense jungle cannot compare b/c you're lucky to see more than 10 meters in front of you and it can feel quite claustrophic and when you're moving at a good pace, it all seems to look the same (green, big trees, more green). Whereas here you could really see the landscape. The canyon was quite steep and I was impressed at how the villages hung to the sides and that they could even grow stuff in their gardens there.
We arrived in Kilise where I had some nice warm tea and then the rains came. That was something else I loved about here. It was higher up (wamena is at 5000ft and the villages I visited still higher) so it was cool and the weather was great. It was the season of the start of the wet season, so I was prepared for lots of rain (sumatra when I visited before the start of the wet season that apparently came early rained hard nearly all day everyday), but here it was clear til about 1, then you'd get an occasional drizzle after 1 that wouldn't get you wet, but then sometime around 4 to 6 it would start raining harder and then rain all night. So I never got rained on, and it's rather nice to sit in a little hut by the fire, drinking tea, and reading and listening to the cold rain. That first night, the chief invited me in to eat with them. They were having their typical sweet potatoes and sweet potato leaves, but then something a bit special which was sweet potato leaves soaked in this red fruit. It was delicious! Tasted a lot like artichoke hearts, except not quite as strong. But the entire diet here for 3 meals a day is just sweet potatoes and sweet potato leaves. On very rare occasions they have pig and some seasons they'll get some carrots and maize and cabbage, but that's it. A few fruits can be picked around such as bananas, passion fruit, and some unknown ones to me. In Kelise I slept in a little hut on the floor on some grass and a little mat they had for me. I quite liked the set up there. Sadly (to me), the chief was telling me quite proudly that they were going to build a place for tourists to stay that had an aluminum roof and beds that year. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to make sure I got to the baliem valley this trip b/c it's one of those places that as it become more and more known it becomes more and more touristy and less and less authentic. Just like how in thailand the hill tribe villages you can visit have motorbike access, satelite tv's, cell phones, etc. These people, though, are very much still living their traditional ways. Other than the younger people wearing t-shirts, there wasn't much difference. You'd be surprised how nice and soft the grass is. That night told me that the village we were staying with had had someone die so they would be doing one of their traditional festivities the next day. If we wanted to stay there one more day and join in and watch the festival we could and I would just have to give a donation. This was quite lucky for me b/c in the july-august tourist season, they will do these same things for the tourists, but for a nice fee of 300 bucks, which does also include a pig roast (they would not be roasting a pig here b/c they don't have many pigs as they're quite expensive and they save them for the tourist season).

So we decided to stay of course. During the day, everyone is in traditional garb. Women wearing only grass skirts and their woven bags on their heads and maybe some makeup. The men just wearing penis guords and often cassowary feathers on their heads and some wearing bones through their noses. The first thing they do is a mock tribal war out away from the village and then do a whole lot of dancing and singing and then walking to the village (I guess recounting the deceased man's life). They then start a fire using some mechanism they have build that's like rubbing sticks together (no lighters here). They build a huge huge bonfire and pile stones on top of if and then put wet grass on it to cover the stones and keep away big flames. This heats the stones up. While the fire is burning the women go out and pick sweet potatoes that they put in their colorful woven sacks and the men go and cut leaves and grasses. Nearby they dig this big pit and after all the wood has burned, they put stones on it using a big wooden tool that's like chopstix, but just one stick with two ends. They were quite impressed that I could carry a big rock without dropping it and clapped and smiled with glee. Then different grasses and leaves. Then sweet potatoes by the load, then more grasses, then more stones, then some sweet potato leaves, and then just keep repeating this process until they have a huge pile that they wrap in banana leaves and tie off with some bark. They let this cook for a while, then at some point they went back to the big pile and pulled away all the leaves and stones. We just sat down amongst all the leaves and feasted on the potatoes that were everywhere and the potato leaves. Everyone in the whole village was there just sitting on the leaves and picking at the food. Quite cool to see. And there were lots of babies and children being breastfed. It appears they breastfeed kids until at least 5. I asked Kipenus about the fake tribal war and how often they still have them. He said they have them much less since the tourists have started coming b/c it's more important to get money from tourists (who don't seem to visit warring tribes for some reason =) but still will have them frequently. The tribes go to war for things like stolen land, stolen grass for huts, stolen wives (the men can have as many wives as they can afford, much to the chagrin of the missionaries), etc. It's something you definitely check on the internet to make sure the tribes aren't warring before you go. The wars themselves are quite interesting b/c people actually rarely die and they fight using spears and very basic bow and arrows. That night, I joined the chief again and he made me two anklets. He loved my headlamp and wished to trade a penis gourd for it, but I told him, through my guide, that I needed a good headlamp for the rest of my trip, so I couldn't part with it. They tend to just do everything before dark and sit by the fire at nights. Back in wamena I had gone to a curio shop just to see the wares. Of course you can buy penis gourds. Each tribe has a different size from skinny to thick and short to long and straight to curved. I asked the person running the shop which was most popular. The answer: the long thick ones. Figures.
The next day we left kilise and continued for a bit along the same canyon with amazing views of course. Kipenus was busy showing me all the amazing ways they use the plants in the area. My favorite was a thing that looked a bit like a pea pod, but with a lot of fuzz. They use it to brush their teeth after a meal and at the end is a little hook that they floss with. Most indonesians in their older years are lucky to have teeth and if they do they are quite nasty, but I noticed the papuans had quite nice teeth (though stained red from all the betel chewing), so this thing must be pretty good. There was also a leaf that when heated and then put on the skin was like a band-aid, except that it stayed on much better and kept the dirt out much better as I made sure to try it on a cut I had. There were many many other things though. We eventually went down the steep canyon walls to walk along the baliem river again before crossing what they call a hanging bridge. Your typical hidden tribe indiana jones type bridge that you think of being in nepal or the peruvian andes. You definitely went slow over it and made sure to hold on b/c it wasn't the most stable thing, had broken boards at your feet, and the might, mighy baliem river with a definite class V rapid right below you was splashing up from below. There's actually a memorial at a different hanging bridge where a japanese tourist and his guide fell and drowned. After following the baliem river for a bit we turned to follow a smaller, but equally rushing tributary of the river. This water was clear instead of muddy, but still crazy. This led us to a village called sykosima where we rested and had some tea. From here we climbed steeply up this new canyon. We had to cross the river a couple times on trees thrown across the river as the bridges had been washed away. We then went up quite high with more great views everywhere including one of a large waterfall across the valley. I was really loving this trek. It felt much more wild, like the wild west. In most places in asia (not including my crazy 7 day rainforest trek in taman negara), everything seems so tamed and controlled. And you don't quite feel like you're out in the middle of the wilderness or some wild area like you do in the middle of the rockies or sawtooths or cascades or arizonan desert. But here it felt much more like that. 312 handshakes later, we arrived at hitugi. This village was a bit more developed in that it had a school with an aluminum roof (all carried in) and a church, but still the traditional houses. There was a little waterfall where took my shower and once in the shower found that a whole lot of people in the village had come over to watch the white guy shower. That afternoon the rain never came until well past dark, so I played catch with a couple kids from the village. Hadn't played catch in a long time. We of course used an un-ripe lime as a ball and our hats as mits. The kids loved it and I think found it quite amazing. I thought about teaching them a bit of baseball, but then wondered how the limes would hold up to a wooden stick. No so much myself, but I was imagining the jovial bison smashing the limes with a thunderous swing just like old robert redford in the natural.
The next morning we left hitugi early as I had a plane to catch at 1pm and was a bit nervous we'd make it in time, and I really needed to make it as I had a flight the next day to jakarta and then on to singapore as my visa was going to expire and my book says that in indonesia for an expired visa you can have consequences of anywhere from a small fine to a big one to 5 years in a lovely indonesian jail. I had allowed plenty of time between all flight connections knowing how timely indonesian transport tends to be. So we hiked a while along a ridge on the canyon wall with more and more stunning views before descending down to the river and crossing another hanging bridge. As we got closer to the road there were hundreds of papuans carrying nicely cut logs on their heads. They were carrying it to some distant village to build a school or church or something. Made it back to wamena by 12, plenty of time to catch my 1 o'clock plane that left at 3:30. Security in most indonesian airports is quite hilarious, as in quite weak. Here it was even more so (not that you really need that much security in a place where the airlines are run by missionaries and the longest flight is 45 minutes). They actually have an x-ray machine for your bags here (perhaps to make the tourists feel comfortable), but of course the worker running it was sleeping, so you just go around. There's also a x-ray machine for your person. Where you empty your pockets and go through. For me that just meant putting my ipod bag and camera case around and going through. For the papuan behind me it meant putting his spear and arrows around and then walking through (at least a pat-down for him would have been unnecessary as all he was wearing was his gourd). There was also a sign that said passengers only in the waiting area. My guide gave the policeman there a cigarette and then joined me. The nice thing here is that if you have a flight that truly leaves at 1pm, you can show up at 12:55 b/c you just dance through security, walk onto the tarmac carrying all your luggage and load it onto the plane yourself before climbing on. Of course, the time consuming part is all the long handshakes for the villagers who have jumped the small ditch separating wamena from the runway and come to say goodbye.

As I still had some daylight time when I got to sentani; and the hotel is a 2 minute walk from the airport there as well, I hired an ojek to take me to the top of one of the mountains there to tugu macarthur (a monument for general macarthur). It was on this mountain with a fantastic view of the huge and island studded Lake sentani that macarthur apparently devised his winning strategy to capture the philippines from Japan. He had a large base here and the indonesians apparently took the hint and have built a massive army base there. Had to give up my passport and sign in and all that and the drive through was a bit nerve wracking with so many guys toting big machine guns and me the very much american riding through. But most returned my smiles and waves. When we got to the monument, the fence around it was locked. I thought about climbing it and started too, but heard gunshots in the distance and I scared myself out of doing that. But shortly after some very friendly bankers from jakarta on business came up and they sneaked through a hole, so I did as well. Eventually lots of people came up and they opened the monument during sunset. Apparently the moto driver had gotten tired of waiting for me even though I hadn't paid him yet and had tried to illustrate in a drawing of a setting sun that I wanted him to wait until the sun set. But oh well, I caught a ride down with some teenagers coming back down. Back at the base of the hill I waited for my moto biker to come back so I could pay him the one way fare. You get cheated so much in this country that I try and show by example, how at least I think it should be done, instead of walking away with the owed money. One of the other ojek drivers was so impressed that he really wanted to take me all around the city for free. He was so happy to see me and must have told me a hundred times that he is indonesian and he is muslim but he hates terrorists and he loves america and thinks we should be best friends. So I let him take me to the market to get some water and to a local place for my last nasi campur. He was a very nice guy.

The next morning I got up at 4am to check in to my flight, that of course didn't leave until 8. It was a long day of flying. Going from sentani to sorong (still papua) to ambon (malukas) to makassar (sulawesi) to jakarta (java). My favorite was the loading at sorong, which was still part of papua. Anyone at the next airport would hear that the plane was delayed here not to weather or technical problems or fueling issues but to hand shaking. The papuans coming on the plane shook the hand of every other person on the plane as they made their way up the aisle, and in course in a briefer version of their normal handshake, but still quite long. I really loved how into warm welcomes and hellos the papuans were. Had to hang out in the jakarta airport for a long time as i had picked a plane that left at 10pm (in case my other flight was really delayed), but was still 2 hours before my visa expired. Arrived in singapore about 2am. Oh singapore! You really can have no idea what it's like to arrive into the singapore airport after beining in indonesia for the past 2 months and 3 of the past 3 and half months and papua the last week. Indonesia, the perhaps least developed country in asia to singapore, one of the fanciest cities and countries in the world. All of a sudden you could drink water from the tap, everything was bright and shiny. The airport has a swimming pool, free internet terminals (not just wifi but actual computers). As I was through customs by 3am, I decided to sleep and wait until the rest of the world woke up before going to the Carlisles. They have these special reclining benches and chairs just for such things at the airport here and it may have been the most comfortable bed I had had in 2 months (aside for being on the cheng ho). That tells you about singapore.

Of course the carlisles in all their generosity would not have me do the subway and bus routine to get to their house I had planned and instead got me a taxi. I showed up just in time to hug the girls goodbye to school and to have some big tasty waffles from Vivian and fresh milk. And thus ended my indonesian chapter of my trip.