saya mauw pisang.

yeah, that's right. i want a banana.

..

at 8:20 on friday evening, alex and boarded the plane from vietnam to indonesia. neither of us were very sad to wave goodbye to vietnam, but that's probably because we had spent so much time in saigon's backpacking district. though it was fun, and the cities are so convenient, the people weren't quite as friendly as cambodia. in fact, we were stubborn enough to rent our own motorbike the last day just to get to the market that was about a mile away. to get a ride out there often costs about $2-3 for tourists, so the $5 motorbike rental seemed logical in case we wanted to do more.

yeah, that didn't happen.

..

after driving the motorbike in ko samui and ko tao and loving the freedom and convenience of it, we were saddened that cambodia doesn't let tourists drive them. but, with the same vigor and grace as a month ago, we hopped on. they gave us no choice in the helmet matter. i gave alex the option: white or red?

"white. red will clash with my shorts."

yeah, red blood and the red helmet and the red on your shorts will all clash if we crash, too.

..

this would be a lot easier to understand if i could show you videos of the streets of saigon. they are filled with motorbikes by the bunch. however many can fit across the road at one time is how many there are-- very few rules apply. i mean, if we sat in traffic at a light for 15 seconds there would easily be 200-300 bikes in the intersection.

did i mention that asia's do not enter sign for one way streets doesn't look like ours in the us? and it certainly doesn't say do not enter...

i had looked at the map prior to leaving for the market, and it seemed easy enough. until we went straight onto a one-way street into oncoming traffic.

there really isn't much else to say about it. we're still alive. i realized a few seconds before alex did what i had just done, and though she actually grabbed onto my sides and appropriately screamed "we're going to die," she managed to keep the moto seat dry, which was nice. but i wanted to say, "alex those are love handles, not i'll-save-you-if-you-hang-on handles." i was expecting a worse reaction, but it wasn't so bad. "thank you for almost, but not, killing us."

i think the drivers of oncoming traffic were more upset. after all, their symphony of horns and waving hands and, no doubt, cursing in vietnamese was pretty tell-tale of their "stupid white person" attitude.

..

back to the more important details. alex and i were looking forward to indonesia, the last leg of the trip. we've officially been to six countries in less than 2 months, and from here we only go to singapore for our flight home. the two and a half hour flight from saigon to jakarta seemed rather quick. we purchased our visas, went through immigration and then through customs to come out on the other side to find jocean's driver, sunedi, waiting for us. traffic had been bad that day, so we waited a bit, but we met up in a short amount of time.

once we had been found, he called jocean. at this point, it's about 1am. instead of making the two hour drive out to the farm that night, jocean offered us to stay at his "guesthouse" in jakarta. we drove up to the gate which was opened by a security guard. sunedi pulled in and grabbed our bags. we stepped inside, our feet touching the cold tan marble floor. to our right was a winding staircase with a design in the railing. all sorts of artwork hung on the walls. we stood in the middle of the tv room and did a 360. the ceiling was open to the room above. the house was gorgeous.

sunedi took us up to our rooms. we were so spoiled. jocean called to make sure we arrived safely and tell us where a few things were that we may need. he asked about what time we thought we'd wake up, to which i replied "we're generally up by eight am, so we can be on the road by nine." sounded like a plan.

but 9:15 rolled around before we even realized we had fallen asleep.

..

when we woke up, i hopped in the shower and alex went downstairs. ayu (eye-you), jocean's wife, was downstairs getting ready for her class. i've got nothing to say about her except that alex and i are in love with her. and might consider going lesbian for her. twice. we agree that she's the most beautiful woman we've ever met. along with her, the cook was preparing breakfast for us. after we stuffed ourselves too fat, (surprise!) we finished repacking and hopped in the car.

the drive in the city was busy, with traffic everywhere. but eventually cars and buildings started to thin out, leading to the countryside. slowly and gradually, we made our way up a mountain. we soon came to the end of the road, where it split off into gravel. then that turned into less gravel and more grass that grew up between two tiremarks in the fields. as we climbed higher to the farm, it seemed that we'd be able to simply reach our hands up and touch the clouds.

we came to a circle lined with bungalows, the dead end of the street. we got out of the car and turned to our right to see jocean discussing plans with one of the workers. they walked up to us, introducing themselves. jocean was accompanied by alex, pronouced alek, ayu's brother. we grabbed our bags and walked along the buildings to the one on the very end-- jocean's house. it was recently finished, as he's only stayed here for just shy of a week and ayu's never spent the night. still, the house is gorgeous, built with old wood, cement, a ton of windows, and a touch of indonesian tiles.

just as we brought our bags into the house, the clouds broke and it started to pour. we watched and listened to the storm from inside, drinking tea. our view here is incredible.

so the story of portibi farms:

jocean and ayu are in the process of building an organic farm that does eco-tourism. as of right now, they do children's programs to teach kids about farming. though there is a good amount of farming in indonesia, the younger generation doesn't particularly want to be doing it. still, though they are in the process of building, we are told they are towards the end with just the finishing touches to be put on many of the buildings. he won't quite give us a timeline as to how long it will be before they house guests besides us, but i'd be excited to come back in a year or two when everything is complete. the land is gorgeous-- he has roughly fifty acres, with numerous plants in abundance. we haven't quite gotten the formal tour yet, but their biggest crop right now is arugala, a type of lettuce. alex and i spent some time yesterday walking around the buildings and marveling at what is to come of portibi farms.

jocean threw together an extremely delicious dinner in less than ten minutes, and we spent much of the evening learning bahasa indonesia with him and alex (whom im going to refer to as alek now because alex isn't exactly teaching me indonesian...). around one am, jocean left to head back to jakarta. he told us that alek would help us find things to do in the morning.

..

we woke up, and though tired, we were ready to work.

well, until i puked.

alex wasn't feeling too well herself either, but though we boiled the water for our coffee, something wasn't adding up this morning. it hit me in about two minutes. i ran upstairs, and for the details i know you all love, after i had nothing else to vom, and after the passionfruit was much less desirable the second time, i laid on the cement floor with a pillow. alex brought me a cold towel for my head, but nothing was helping. i was simultaneously sweating and shivering, breathing like i just finished a marathon, and the room was spinning.

what the hell, i'm not even drunk.

i absolutely hated my existence for the next sixty minutes until my body calmed itself down enough that i could stop breathing heavily and see somewhat straightforward. until then, i had to be a pathetic sight, crawling around the floor on my hands and knees are barely being able to tell alex much more than the fact that i didn't understand why there were two of her.

figures we'd get food poisoning in the last few days of the trip. screw you, passionfruit and coffee.
except i'll probably have them for breakfast again tomorrow.

..






Y rae. racho. d.