Gunong Bromo, Indonesia: Conmen and Sulfur
(Ubud, Indonesia 22:54.25.5.2004)
“What you have done is made us hostages.” The French guy says.
There’s five of us, not counting the two Indonesian men whose faces we had first seen only ten minutes ago. It isn’t much of a room, not much bigger than a janitor’s supply closet. Pissed-colored walls. Two battered couches. A scratched desk. Warped and fading photos of a volcano and a rudimentary topographical map of the area.
The mini bus had dropped us here and promptly left. After an 11 hour bus ride through the congested two lane roads of central Java, I start to lose sense of things. Hours melt into each other and time flows, not continuously, but in bursts: It flies through naps and particularly exciting chapters of books; refuses to advance when we inch through traffic. But now, a quarter past 8pm, we had to gather our wits.
“Yes, you must decide – now.” One of the men responded to girl from Munich.
At 9am that morning, off a small street in Jogjakarta, we hopped into a mini bus as complete strangers to whom ascending an active rater seemed like a neat idea. When you know you’re in for a long ride, conversations are politely terse: Where from? How long in Indonesia? How much did you pay? And then we squirmed and twisted until our bodies found comfortable positions to settle in. Some fell quickly asleep, the French guy pulled out his map. I pulled out my copy of Bel Canto, a book a girl was going to leave on the airplane in Jakarta. Strangely, the novel is about a hostage situation in South America. Strange how life imitates art imitates life.
Bromo sits in the eastern part of Java and describes not just one volcano, but a collection of volcanoes and craters nested within a massive crater that spans 24 miles. The site is considered one of Indonesia’s most spectacular. The altitude, at 12,000 feet, also provides a much needed escape from the heat. Jakarta and Jogjakarta – the biggest cities of the island – are urban frying pans. At the pinnacle of the crater, however, the temperature promises to drop a refreshing 60 degrees, flirting with the freezing point.
“What you are doing is bad.” I attempt a pitiful emotional approach. “We were not told we had to pay for this when we bought the ticket.”
“It is up to you,” the older one said. “What we are doing now is only giving you an offer.”
The offer was simple, really. For the right price, a 4x4 would take us from the village to the top of the crater. The alternative was to climb at 2am. For 3 hours. Without a guide. Without foot paths. In freezing temperature. The duration of the hike would also make it impossible to catch the morning bus out of town. The consequence of this would have been arriving at our next bus terminal at 3am. There are few things more intimidating to a traveler than setting foot at a strange hour in a stranger place, with only taxi drives and thieves to celebrate your arrival. When they begin to flock around you, like vultures sensing a fading vitality, not one person there is sympathetic to your disorientation. Nobody is interested in easing you into the city.
I turn to the others. “They’re lying to us. They’re making it seem impossible for us not to pay them.”
The 3 Germans start speaking to each other frantically. The Frenchman and I are clueless.
“I wish we all knew one secret language.” I said. “Anybody know Spanish? Tagalog?”
Turns out the Frenchman understands German and I dig deep in my fuzzy brain to understand and speak a rudimentary French. It is the childhood game of telephone, but on an international level. But this game would probably not end in lighthearted laughter. Still, with the Indonesian men silenced during our conversation, we feel for the first time a sense of control.
The Frenchman tries to bargain with the men. We know we must pay. Bargaining is a matter of daily course in Indonesia, and a custom that many are uncomfortable to engage in: Deception is at its core. The vendor lies about value, the buyer about how much money he has. The vendor gives in a bit. The buyer lies about how another vendor has offered him the identical item for 20% less. Vendor says the buyer is his first of this long, hot, grueling day. The buyer pretends to lose interest and begins to walk away.
Except in our situation, we are cornered. We cannot walk away, and there are no phantom vendors whose pretend prices can be used to our leverage.
The negotiations end. We agree in Germans, French and finally English to the men. They win. We lose, but not as much as they wanted us to.
We are sitting, packed tightly in the jeep. At 3:30am the temperature hovers near 30 degrees. We begin the ascent up the steep edge of the crater. This could not have been done on foot. At the top, we discover hundreds of mainly Indonesian tourists who’ve staked out the best vantage points. Did they endure the same negotiations? Other foreigners, easily spotted by their fancier cameras and thicker jackets are there as well. Later, I would meet a German man who nearly came to tears as he described his experience. He was lied to and cheated every time he opened his wallet. He had traveled extensively. Trekking in Nepal, hiking South America and canoeing in the Yukon. But these past rites didn’t prepare him for Indonesia. “this I one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do.”
Still the view is magnificent. It resembles a god-sized cauldron filled with mist; volcanoes and craters floating in this geologically rich soup. The primary crater emits a steady white smoke, while a volcano behind it puffs black smoke every 20 mins. As the sun rises, the mist slowly lifts, spilling out of the edge, quickly passing through the streets of a village before covering homes as well. Soon the villages disappears entirely.
We were to be taken to the active crater. That was part of our deal. Too steep to climb by jeep, the five of us begin the short hike, but immediately being choking. The air is thick with sulfur. A toxic yellow goo oozes from the ground, the liquefied form of the chemical. I wrap a bandana around my mouth and nose. I face away from the rim of the crater as even invisible particles sting my eyes and skin. Acid rain, I think. Nobody was told this tiny, hazardous detail. A long line of hacking foreigners trudging along this incline, climbing step by step like senseless lemmings eager to peer into a toxic spout. Tiny canals wind down the slope. This is what the moon must look like. Inside the crater, a deep ravine is filled with this same toxic yellow ooze. The white mist flows profusely from this crack.
I walk around the edge of the crater, past the tourists, past a sign that may have forbidden my exploration. But it wasn’t in English. One tiny slip would mean melting in the acid. Would I melt? Or suffocate first? Would my skin peel off to reveal a tortured skeleton, jaw slacked open in its final scream? Would tourists take pictures on their digital cameras and review it on their way down, still hacking and coughing?
It wasn’t only for curiosity’s sake that I ventured farther than I should have. I had to pee and had been holding it for hours. So I did it. Right in there.
What relief. Was this the first sense of relief in nearly 24 hours? The endless bus ride, the negotiations, waking up to freeze inside a small jeep, the acid in my eyes and throat. Relief. And then a slow, deep breath on the edge as my toxic yellow liquid slowly joined the crater’s.
(Ubud, Indonesia 22:54.25.5.2004)
“What you have done is made us hostages.” The French guy says.
There’s five of us, not counting the two Indonesian men whose faces we had first seen only ten minutes ago. It isn’t much of a room, not much bigger than a janitor’s supply closet. Pissed-colored walls. Two battered couches. A scratched desk. Warped and fading photos of a volcano and a rudimentary topographical map of the area.
The mini bus had dropped us here and promptly left. After an 11 hour bus ride through the congested two lane roads of central Java, I start to lose sense of things. Hours melt into each other and time flows, not continuously, but in bursts: It flies through naps and particularly exciting chapters of books; refuses to advance when we inch through traffic. But now, a quarter past 8pm, we had to gather our wits.
“Yes, you must decide – now.” One of the men responded to girl from Munich.
At 9am that morning, off a small street in Jogjakarta, we hopped into a mini bus as complete strangers to whom ascending an active rater seemed like a neat idea. When you know you’re in for a long ride, conversations are politely terse: Where from? How long in Indonesia? How much did you pay? And then we squirmed and twisted until our bodies found comfortable positions to settle in. Some fell quickly asleep, the French guy pulled out his map. I pulled out my copy of Bel Canto, a book a girl was going to leave on the airplane in Jakarta. Strangely, the novel is about a hostage situation in South America. Strange how life imitates art imitates life.
Bromo sits in the eastern part of Java and describes not just one volcano, but a collection of volcanoes and craters nested within a massive crater that spans 24 miles. The site is considered one of Indonesia’s most spectacular. The altitude, at 12,000 feet, also provides a much needed escape from the heat. Jakarta and Jogjakarta – the biggest cities of the island – are urban frying pans. At the pinnacle of the crater, however, the temperature promises to drop a refreshing 60 degrees, flirting with the freezing point.
“What you are doing is bad.” I attempt a pitiful emotional approach. “We were not told we had to pay for this when we bought the ticket.”
“It is up to you,” the older one said. “What we are doing now is only giving you an offer.”
The offer was simple, really. For the right price, a 4x4 would take us from the village to the top of the crater. The alternative was to climb at 2am. For 3 hours. Without a guide. Without foot paths. In freezing temperature. The duration of the hike would also make it impossible to catch the morning bus out of town. The consequence of this would have been arriving at our next bus terminal at 3am. There are few things more intimidating to a traveler than setting foot at a strange hour in a stranger place, with only taxi drives and thieves to celebrate your arrival. When they begin to flock around you, like vultures sensing a fading vitality, not one person there is sympathetic to your disorientation. Nobody is interested in easing you into the city.
I turn to the others. “They’re lying to us. They’re making it seem impossible for us not to pay them.”
The 3 Germans start speaking to each other frantically. The Frenchman and I are clueless.
“I wish we all knew one secret language.” I said. “Anybody know Spanish? Tagalog?”
Turns out the Frenchman understands German and I dig deep in my fuzzy brain to understand and speak a rudimentary French. It is the childhood game of telephone, but on an international level. But this game would probably not end in lighthearted laughter. Still, with the Indonesian men silenced during our conversation, we feel for the first time a sense of control.
The Frenchman tries to bargain with the men. We know we must pay. Bargaining is a matter of daily course in Indonesia, and a custom that many are uncomfortable to engage in: Deception is at its core. The vendor lies about value, the buyer about how much money he has. The vendor gives in a bit. The buyer lies about how another vendor has offered him the identical item for 20% less. Vendor says the buyer is his first of this long, hot, grueling day. The buyer pretends to lose interest and begins to walk away.
Except in our situation, we are cornered. We cannot walk away, and there are no phantom vendors whose pretend prices can be used to our leverage.
The negotiations end. We agree in Germans, French and finally English to the men. They win. We lose, but not as much as they wanted us to.
We are sitting, packed tightly in the jeep. At 3:30am the temperature hovers near 30 degrees. We begin the ascent up the steep edge of the crater. This could not have been done on foot. At the top, we discover hundreds of mainly Indonesian tourists who’ve staked out the best vantage points. Did they endure the same negotiations? Other foreigners, easily spotted by their fancier cameras and thicker jackets are there as well. Later, I would meet a German man who nearly came to tears as he described his experience. He was lied to and cheated every time he opened his wallet. He had traveled extensively. Trekking in Nepal, hiking South America and canoeing in the Yukon. But these past rites didn’t prepare him for Indonesia. “this I one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do.”
Still the view is magnificent. It resembles a god-sized cauldron filled with mist; volcanoes and craters floating in this geologically rich soup. The primary crater emits a steady white smoke, while a volcano behind it puffs black smoke every 20 mins. As the sun rises, the mist slowly lifts, spilling out of the edge, quickly passing through the streets of a village before covering homes as well. Soon the villages disappears entirely.
We were to be taken to the active crater. That was part of our deal. Too steep to climb by jeep, the five of us begin the short hike, but immediately being choking. The air is thick with sulfur. A toxic yellow goo oozes from the ground, the liquefied form of the chemical. I wrap a bandana around my mouth and nose. I face away from the rim of the crater as even invisible particles sting my eyes and skin. Acid rain, I think. Nobody was told this tiny, hazardous detail. A long line of hacking foreigners trudging along this incline, climbing step by step like senseless lemmings eager to peer into a toxic spout. Tiny canals wind down the slope. This is what the moon must look like. Inside the crater, a deep ravine is filled with this same toxic yellow ooze. The white mist flows profusely from this crack.
I walk around the edge of the crater, past the tourists, past a sign that may have forbidden my exploration. But it wasn’t in English. One tiny slip would mean melting in the acid. Would I melt? Or suffocate first? Would my skin peel off to reveal a tortured skeleton, jaw slacked open in its final scream? Would tourists take pictures on their digital cameras and review it on their way down, still hacking and coughing?
It wasn’t only for curiosity’s sake that I ventured farther than I should have. I had to pee and had been holding it for hours. So I did it. Right in there.
What relief. Was this the first sense of relief in nearly 24 hours? The endless bus ride, the negotiations, waking up to freeze inside a small jeep, the acid in my eyes and throat. Relief. And then a slow, deep breath on the edge as my toxic yellow liquid slowly joined the crater’s.
