"Training Days and Doting Dads" Indonesia, Day 5

"Before me lay a bottomless darkness; behind me, a world of pale light. I stood there on the top of a mountain in a foreign land, bathed in moonlight. Maybe this had all been meticulously planned, from the very beginning."

To the doting dad sitting across from me in business class on the train from Bandung to Yogyakarta:

You were the cutest thing I've seen in the longest time.  I don't know how old you were, early 20's perhaps, definitely not older than me.  You were with your young  wife and new baby, so new it was probably her first time on a train.  Poor thing had to travel seven hours in a sticky and hot carriage with no air conditioning and stiff seats, but you were well prepared with a baby blanket, accordion style paper fan, and toy rattles.  Your wife, supple and voluptuous from motherhood, would nurse on the train seats while you would stand hovering over them, fanning.  

When night came, you let your wife and new baby lay sideways on the seats while you slept on the floor in the leg room space, sharing your makeshift bed with the many cockroaches and their families. The train bounced and grumbled, that old cranky thing, and people would board on and off. Every time your baby whimpered, barely breathed a sound, you were up off the ground and on your feet like a Jack-in-the-Box.  You'd re-adjust the baby blanket, start fanning, and she would quickly doze off again into baby dreams while your wife slept undisturbed. They must have slept well as you stayed constantly vigilant.
I think many people fall into parenthood like they fall into their 30's. It just eventually happens as you get older and you go with it, but I bet fatherhood called to you, a whisper started generations ago, past oceans and over dusty streets and into crumbling houses, into bedrooms and budding youth.

***

Photos from the train from Bandung to Yogyakarta:

A young man sleeping through the midnight train ride in business class. I am  petrified to see what the conditions of economy class would have been!

The seats are tough and feel like vinyl. There is no air conditioning except fans on the ceiling. Out of all the trains in every SE Asian country I have used, Indonesia by far ranks as the worst.

I use trains over planes when I can because you can see a snapshot image into the landscape you're passing through.

A common image in SE Asia are the patchwork patterns of rice paddy fields.

These kids were just chilling out on the tracks as our train stopped to pick up and drop off passengers. I had a box of German chocolates my traveling mate gave me and they were melting in my bag so I tossed them to the girl. 

Train toilet seats...yup, just shit into the ground.

My seat was way too hot and crawling with roaches so I escaped to the food carriage.  There I asked the cops if I could drink the beer I bought at the convenience store before boarding the train. Although it was Ramadan, they happily obliged me, gave me a glass, and talked to me in their little English for about an hour.  It was great fun and they wrote down useful Indonesian phrases in my travel book.

I met Tobing (middle) on the same food carriage. He tells me he is from Yogyakarta and offers to let my travel mate and I stay at his house and show us around for three days and two nights. It was great fun seeing their city through the eyes of locals.

***

After spending seven hours on a train, we spend the next full day touring downtown Yogyakarta. We visit the Kraton, take a look at Batik artistry, and then drive two hours north to a beautiful (but raging mad) ocean in the mountains in a town called Wonosari.

After visiting the Kraton, we walk through narrow alleys.

This Javanese artist shows us the process it takes to make beautiful Javanese cloth Batik designs.  Batik is a style of dying fabric by using hot wax in a process that can take months to complete.

Holding up a partially finished piece of work. His gallery was beautiful and everything was actually really cheap in western standards, but I was budgeting and couldn't indulge. 

We drive two hours north of Yogya and get off the beaten path to this amazing sea with waves so high nobody dared to test its strength.

Having a Bintang beer and chilling out with a local.

So I am not the brave water warrior in any way. I just wanted to collect sea shells for my co teachers' daughters. The water was nowhere near me, it seemed I was safe, but a huge wave came up out of nowhere, knocked me down in my dry clothes, cut up my arm, and made me lose my shells!