The rising and falling from the two tones of the street vendors bell wakes me. A little ropey seems like a first description of how I feel after yesterday’s travel, but it’s OK, cos I’m in Jakarta! My one and only mission today is to get to the city of Cirebon by train.

Local coffee and fruit are offered for breakfast, and it’s perfect and unhurried. I had different accommodation booked to where I ended up. While in Sydney, an old friend, Chris, from Jakarta, made contact and offered me a bed at his place. A very welcome welcoming.

The train departs Jakarta at 11, Chris advises I get a taxi at 9. We are some distance from the train station, Pasar Senen. It’s good advice. As it transpires, nearly the entire two hours are required … I get on the train with only minutes to spare.

Economy class is perfectly comfortable. The biggest relief, other than being onboard, is that each seat has a power point. This means the phone remains charged. It is the most essential piece of equipment. I am reminded again how much I like Google Translate.

I am also reminded of my näievity, and honest ignorance in being somewhere where daily interactions and engagements are beyond me. I am without local spoken language. I do not speak bahasa, Saya tidak barbicara bahasa Indonisia. I hope that people can make sense of my pidgin bahasa, my arm waving, and that I also encounter people who are gracious enough to help.  I have met nothing by kindness so far.  A serving of humility can go a long way.

The journey across land is flat.  Leaving the frenetic city and the business of its active inhabitants. The unfolding country shows no less sign of activity.  Every spare morsel of land I see seems to be in agriculture, mostly rice, I assume. Rectangular and flooded sections of earth to the end of what I can see. Fruit trees, banana palm, and dwellings in states of construction, habitation, and destruction. An earth in permanent transformation.

I ride the train longer than my ticket brought. I booked the wrong stop, and it is a long way from my accommodation. No one seemed to notice my freeloading, I disembark at Cirebon station. 

I must look like a windfall to the gaggle who facilitate taxis. The fourth person I met in this exchange was the driver. And ‘exchange’ is an exaggeration. They talk, I can not.  I let myself be sheparded into the nearest cab. It’s all plesant enough, fully at my expense, which is still actually not much. Tip for next time… Google Translate’s talk-to- text is very useful… must be online though.

Signing into the motel is more mutual. The back-and-forth of conversation via the app. While the paperwork is being completed. I show the young guy at reception a clip of me making a mushroom’ sing’. He asked if I was a scientist? A ‘strange musician’ said I.

Later, I met Wawan and friends Rinto and Alif. Wawan had been my contact for the show. We have met to eat, but first we must get two more performers the group Orqan from Italy, just arriving in the city from the train station. This maneuver is achieved from the spare room on scooters.

Later, still, somewhere near the middle of the city, perhaps, we are sitting streetside eating hot corn on the cob, and Docang, a spicy dish of vegetables and a fermented tempeh product made with coconut. It’s good.

The night ends with the others off to their accommodation and me back to mine. Alif takes me on his bike, and the streets seem quiet.  And I am sated. And sleep beckons.
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Other notes:
There is a young girl on the train who has a birth mark high on her left check, just under her eye, that has the striking resemblance to a butterfly.
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We pass a train graveyard nestled in between fields of rice. I was lucky enough to be standing between carriages looking out the window at the right place and at the right time. I caught a photo of the smallest portion.