Hotel Regulations: 6. No animal is allowed in the room. 7. Fruits with strong smell are strictly forbidden brought into the room 8. No permitted to occupy a room by 2 adult person which is different sexes, except both of them are family (identifications are known by receptionist). 9. Kindly let the door open if your room is visited by different sexes guest after 9:00 P.M. 10. Using the electric appliances are strictly prohibited except for shaving or hair drying. 11. No gambling is allowed in the room 12. The manager has right to have the guest bill paid any time.
13. The guest are requested to wear the polite dress at the time when leaving the swimming pool area. (Surprisingly Microsoft Word 97 found only one grammatical error in all of the above rules. Scared to think what it has let me get by with...) The call to prayer wailed at around 4:30 this morning and the sky began to glow eerily stars gleaming through the morning light. I stayed in bed in a half-sleep relishing the cool mountain air. An hour later I looked at my watch and crawled out from underneath the mosquito net to finish packing. Within a few moments of stirring, the houseboy came around with our morning tea which Andy and I shared on the balcony while eyeing the mountain rising above us.
Somehow we managed to be on the road by just after six. It was our earliest departure in some time. We rolled across the mountain foothills zooming down steep inclines and cranking up sharp rises. The scenery was the most beautiful of the trip. So much so that as we essed along it was difficult to stay on the road for the distraction. Smoking volcanoes rose out of the mist in the distance, ultra-green rice paddy stepped up the foothills, huge jungle-y trees carpeted craggy terrain; all of this competed for our attentions along with the demanding relief of our route.
When the sun finally crept above the mountains in the east and cast our shadows on the ground I was already sweating. For the first time in days I was beginning to feel in-synch with Indonesia again. It didn't hurt that the constant dry cough and runny nose I'd been fighting were finally waning. Add to that the obvious enthusiasm people expressed for our presence today; the sum of the two made me happy to be on my bike. We passed a pickup truck full of produce and people no fewer than ten times in the first part of our journey.
Each time the little overburdened truck that looked like a fruit bowl struggled by me as I pumped up a hill they'd shout encouraging words and make similar gestures. Soon the rolling-road gave way to a seldom-interrupted perilous brake-busting downhill. My hands were so tired from squeezing the levers when the road finally settled back into its rolling routine that I could no longer extend my fingers. Few stores or shops were open because of the holiday and it took some effort to find a restaurant to breakfast in. What we did find was a traditional Indonesian lunch counter. There the waitress was initially inattentive so we helped ourselves to the snacks laid out in bowls along the countertop.
Our first experiment was less than successful. It was a little lump of rice wrapped in a banana leaf and soaked in something that smelled like rancid rice wine. Soon ice tea and *nasi pecel* (white rice with vegetables smothered in a peanut and red pepper sauce) arrived and we were sated. Though Andy claimed he felt fine under the bright morning sun I was feeling its effects. Neither of us felt so strong as to refuse the unsolicited generous offer of a road work crew to haul our bikes and us up out of a deep and steep valley. They only conveyed us some hundred meters up and we continued to climb vigorously for another 100 at the same grade (marking the first time that we've had to push our bikes on this trip)and then 200 at a much more gradual pace.
By the time we reached Sukorejo at around eleven in the morning I'd had about as much as I could take. I eyed the map and found a town that would offer us a great launching point for our descent down to the coast and Pekalongan. Andy reluctantly agreed to the ride to Bandar. The hired truck demanded four dollars to take the bikes and us thirty-four kilometers, a price that seemed outrageous. We had to consider that the truck could take no passengers back and had to take a longer route to avoid the police due to the limitations of his permit.
The circuitous route wound us down canyons, over raging brown rivers, through passes and past new rice. I half-dozed through part of the trip, having difficulty distinguishing my dreams from reality. Our driver relished the trip as much as we did and described for us the trip we'd have down the mountain to Pekalongan as *enak*, delicious. And it was scrumptious. The smooth road's gradual incline and gentle curves whisked us down to the plain below. A glorious mistake put us on a quiet road to Pekalongan, avoiding the main road completely. We spilled into the flow of traffic dominated by people on shiny new blue bicycles and smattered with all types of human powered vehicles and the occasional motor vehicle.
The closer we got to the center of town the more effort we spent avoiding slow moving *becaks*. Pekalongan moved at a distinctly Javanese pace, purposefully serene and slow. Everyone in town had a different idea how to find our hotel. Following each recommendation dutifully we had a splendid tour of the center of the town. One mosque we passed deserved a moment's attention. Its minaret most closely resembled a lighthouse. After a late lunch near the spiritual beacon we set off to wander the Arab quarter's market. Arriving too late to shop for *batik* we walked the town. We sat in awe of full (and large) families crowded onto every form of transportation cruising the city.
Crossing the street by foot was difficult if one concentrated on the task. If I let myself hit the stride of a relaxed Javanese and the traffic seemed to part for me as the Red Sea did for Moses. I felt one with Java.