In my time there I couldn’t find a helmet that fit my head. Some people say I have a big head, but the reality of the situation trumped the humor. I also couldn’t find shoes or sandals there when I got married and my sandals happened to both spontaneously combust. Note to self: Indonesia is not kind to 6′ 2″ tall goons with large craniums and big feet.

I made the trip to the Internet cafe almost daily. I needed to have the connection. I was slowly losing touch with reality, language, and who I was. The Internet provided me a 1 hour window where I could check email, check on my websites, and read some news articles. It made a nice break in my day, although I had my heart in my throat more than once when we were riding there. I learned that closing your eyes sometimes is the best thing you can do do escape.

Street view, Pamanukan

Street View Pamanukan

The outside of Jogja, the shopping mall of Pamanukan. The roads are packed with scooters.

The crew from CFC, which serves fried chicken meals like its arch enemy, KFC.

A view of the countryside from the highway.

The main store in Pamanukan, Jogja.

We were desperate to see my wife’s family in Indonesia because her mother wasn’t doing well in her fight with diabetes.  She was only about 58 years old at the time, but living in rural Indonesia had affected her struggle with the disease in a negative way.  The family lacked the financial resources and knowledge to manage the disease properly. She had already lost a toe and was experiencing advanced diabetes.

Tourist visas on arrival for Indonesia come with a maximum of 30 days so we decided to stay for nearly an entire month.  This way AC could spend some serious time with her family, Aliya could meet the Indonesian side of her family, and I could really experience my wife’s family.  I figured that if I had a way to keep busy photographing and making videos there I could pass the time in  productive way.

I bought a special device while still in Taiwan that is essentially a camera memory card reader and hard drive combined.  I have never owned a laptop computer, and this was the least expensive option to make sure I always had free space on my digital camera.  I didn’t know it at the time but being at my wife’s house for a month was going to be one of the weirdest mind trips I would ever go on.

Some of the highlights of the trip for me were seeing and documenting so much of the culture and countryside from where my wife grew up, quitting smoking cigarettes, inventing bamboo ball, allowing Aliya to see and experience Indonesian culture and her family.   I ended up taking over 60 Gigabytes of photos and videos while there.  I was armed and ready and shot nearly everything with my trusty Canon Powershot S5 IS.  It isn’t the sweet DSLR Nikon D90 that I have now but it was great for this trip.  If it weren’t for that camera, I would have gone off the mental deep end for sure.  AC spent a lot of time with her family helping out preparing for events, so for long stretches, I was basically alone, language-less, in a remote land.

After some consideration, we have decided to make a series of blog posts that will attempt to show what life is like in Indonesia and most specifically, Indramayu through the many videos and pictures that were taken.  The working title of the series is Faces of Country.