It was a breeze. I was through customs in seconds and every officer along the way had asked to play my guitar. The Steward from the ship instructed each passenger to go through customs and get on the blue bus that would take us straight to Medan. It was part of the fare we’d paid coming from Penang, Malaysia.
Dozens of poorly clad men offered rides to Penang, Bukat Luwang, and other destinations on motorbikes, minibuses and tuk-tuks, the three-wheeled motorbikes. I listened to the Steward and got on the bus despite my hesitations as to whether he was the guy on our ship or not.
As the bus drove the poor roads from the port to Medan I saw dozens of rough looking young men walking down the streets. Most of them had guitars. The bus finally arrived at the Medan bus station. Getting off the bus all of the passengers were accosted by scores of men on bicycles, motorcycles, and tuk tuks. Being white, I was an immediate object of attention.
“Where you go now? Where you go now? Hey where you from? What you do?” No time to answer between the barrages of the inquiries. I tried to get a little distance between myself and the bus station, knowing that the other passengers would cause more distraction. It didn’t work, there were just too many of the taxi men as compared with passengers. The Indonesian problems had destroyed the tourist economy and left the Indonesians with little or no work. They saw me as an opportunity to make some money. I saw them as a threat to the little bit of money I had left in the world.
I had less than $300 dollars and no way to get back to the United States. It was foolish of me to have come to Indonesia in the first place with so little, but there was no way I was going to miss an opportunity to visit Sumatra when I was so close. It wasn’t like I had a great job at home, I had no job, I had no home. I had about $275 dollars. That was all. It translated to roughly three million rupiah…a huge sum in Indonesia…but I was terrified of what might happen to me if I lost it.
I had picked out a guest house from the newspaper a Malaysian friend had given me. It advertised dorm rooms for 6000 rupiah a night. About fifty cents. The taxi men followed me and continued demanding to take me somewhere. I stopped.
“No” I said firmly” I will walk to the Lucy guesthouse.” “Oh,” they all said at once,” Lucy, very far from here…very far..too far to walk..take taxi..motorbike..”etc etc.
Suddenly a young Indonesian in Sunglasses stepped from the crowd. “Come with me. I will take you there on my motorcycle.” There was something about him I trusted immediately and I followed him through the crowd as he spoke rapidly to them and they dispersed. Some of them laughed and taunted him good-naturedly.
I became suspicious “How much? Barapa hagris?”
“I don’t care” he said “You pay me and if its good for you, its good for me. You play guitar?” He motioned to my blue Thai guitar.
“Yeah, a little” I said. “You?”
“Of course, I’m Batak. Batak man and guitar are one.”
I got on his small motorbike wearing my big traveling rucksack and holding my guitar in one hand while I held onto the seat post with the other. He rode down either side of the street, on the sidewalk, and dodged traffic like a daredevil. It wasn’t too far to Lucy, maybe a couple of kilometers, but it was terrifying and exhilarating as I tried to keep my guitar from scraping the ground or the large trucks we whizzed between.
When we got there, I checked in. At first they refused to give me one of the cheap rooms, but Dagooze, my guide, communicated with the house girl and soon they were okay with the fact that I would sleep in the cheap dorms. The price remained at 6000 rupiah even though another guest I met later had paid the “new” rate of 15,000 rupiah.
I asked Dagooze if he wanted a coke and paid him 5000 rupiah for the ride. He told me it was twice what the ride was worth but I insisted he take it for pulling me out of the confusing situation and getting me to the guesthouse.
“Can I play your guitar?” He asked, picking it up. I nodded yes and sat down. He began to play and i n moments six or seven men came from outside, inside, and who knows where and suddenly I was introduced to Batak culture.
The melodies were strangely classical and the voices of the men rose in the most hauntingly beautiful harmonies I had ever heard. The guitar was passed from man to man and each played as well as the one before. I was astounded by the way their voices blended together.
Someone lit up a joint. Someone else passed a number of beers around the room. An old man I recognized from the bus station said to me “You buy beers…one round..and we provide mary jane…okay?” I agreed quickly.
We sat and played and sang until the early hours of the morning. “We are Batak” someone would occasionally explain to me. “Batak man and guitar they are one. Batak and music they are one.”
The Batak men played guitars until the sun was rising and my head was feeling like a million butterflies were fluttering somewhere behind my eyelids. The house girls Flora and Hotma had joined us and sang the traditional songs from Lake Toba, the homeland of the Batak people. Flora’s voice was raspy but her English was good. She carried an English/ Indonesian dictionary.
The men seemed uncomfortable with the women singing, but welcomed them. This after all was the city and not Lake Toba where the men would go to beach side bars and sing while drinking the coconut whiskey, tuak, until dawn or their wives came to lead them away.
Hotma and Flora expressed their undying love to me despite our new friendship and lack of actually knowing each other at all. It was the end of the first day I’d spent in Indonesia. It had been a wild day and though I was in a sort of musical heaven. I had to go to sleep. I stood up and everyone groaned their disappointment at my heading into the cot reserved for me in the dormitory.
Hotma called out “But Chris, I love you. Wait for me, I love you.” I was a bit drunk and naive and called back I love you too, at which point she gave the universal symbol of fellatio with her hand motioning toward her mouth and tongue pushing on her cheek. I hadn’t expected that and chose to take it naively. “I love you too…but am very tired.”
She was a beautiful girl and I rushed into the dorms to hide the erection that popped up instantly upon understanding her less than subtle insinuation. I went to bed elated and regretful. The paper-thin walls allowed me to go to sleep hearing the same wonderful songs I’d been so lucky to participate in.
In the morning I made preparations to go to Lake Toba, the home of the Bataks. Flora, a pretty girl with extremely large teeth flirted with me and kept Hotma at bay as the younger girl made more and more offers of sexual union to me.
At one point she said “Chris, I love you very good… very good” as she washed some of the other guests laundry in a large tub in the open courtyard behind the guesthouse. Flora quickly pushed her out of the way and said “She’s young, I’ll love you much better.” I laughed and Hotma quickly got up and left. I sat and talked with Flora for a minute asking her about her dictionary.
We spoke for a few minutes before I left for Toba.
“Chris,” she called, “Remember me and bring back mangoes.”
From Aceh to Medan
(A woman told me this tale minutes after she got off a bus in Medan, she walked up and sat next to me in a noodle shop and began to talk. Introductions came after she had found a small bit of relief telling her tale to another Westerner.)
Jan got on the bus, pleased to be leaving Aceh. It wasn’t that she’d had any bad experiences there; it was the sense that something bad could happen at any moment. The strife torn province of Indonesia was virtually paralyzed as rebel forces clashed with government troops on a daily basis. Casualties on both sides were mounting as gunfights occurred with more and more frequency.