wedding | Josie's Travel Orange Blog

While in Brunei, I got a little sick. I assumed at the time it was from a/c in my room. I really hate a/c, especially sleeping in it. And although I turned it off, just the fact the building was a/c made me feel this was the culprit for my sore throat and cough and near complete loss of voice.

The trip to Brunei also included one night sleeping on the floor of the Kuala Lumpur Airport LCC terminal floor (you go from living it up in Singapore airport to sleeping on a dusty floor of a discount carrier airport.. how fast we can fall!). So, I thought this also didn’t help get me off to a healthy start, leaving me feeling a little crappy.

However, when I got back to Sumatra, it continued to get worse. Pretty bad. To the point of being on par with one of the sickest I’d ever felt before when I had pneumonia. I’m 90% confident I am now getting over a bout of pneumonia. I never ended up going to the doctor here, because, well, what on earth are they going to do about it?

Here, when people get sick, any kind of ache/ pain or sickness at all, if they have a little money, they will call the doctor and get an ‘injection’ or ‘tablets’, perhaps make it a whole family event to make sure everyone in a household is cured. I don’t really know why they do this, but I know most can never afford a hospital when they are seriously ill, and they know it. I think a lot of their dependence on the doctor and his magic injections is their way of trying to prevent ever needing an actual hospital.

I was asked many times why I wasn’t going to the doctor (like ‘what kind of weird freak are you?? why don’t you go to the doctor?? why don’t you want an ‘injection’ or ‘tablets’?)

I would always politely decline ‘no, no, just rest’ (‘pfft weirdo’ I could imagine them mumbling under their breath). Truth is, I’ve never gone to a doctor feeling ill and received an ‘injection’ and sent on my way. So I don’t plan to start now. Who knows what the ‘injection’ is, or the ‘tablets’. But people here are funny. They so want to believe in magic medicines without having to go the distance to the magic doctors.

For instance, I carry a stash of advils and various OTC remedies I might need when travelling. I gave a couple advils to someone who was having a bad toothache at one point. It worked like a charm – the man was so happy. But then, as news spread that I had some ‘stuff’, the “Josie’s pharmacy” was born.

I had a man come to my door with a sore leg… (‘sorry… do you have tablet? … my leg..), Then someone came with a litle itchy rash and I gave her some antihistamine… someone else was having trouble sleeping so I gave her a muscle relaxant (yikes, I told her just to take a half because she was so skinny, and I have no sleeping remedies, but it worked – and after two nights I cut her off! – yep at home totally not smart, but I’m not home!). Anyway, needless to say, most of my stash has been depleted, and not by me.

As for my predicament, I knew none of what I had would help me either, I knew I really could only fight it with rest. And having had pneumonia before, I knew it would take at least a couple of weeks. So I’ve spent most of the time since back holed up in my ‘maison of coughing’ resting, resting, resting. With all the coughing, I pulled a back muscle which then made it very difficult to cough OR breathe. My appetite was gone. wet/hoarse non-stop coughing, Fever, chills, disorientation, a head that felt like it was going to crack with pressure, squeaky bear voice and complete exhaustion and tummy troubles! good times.

In my bout of fever-induced disorientation, I made one super awesome decision! To join a caravan of local friends travelling to Aceh Province for a family wedding! Of course I want to go! I’m not THAT sick, and we’ll be in a car, I can rest, it’ll be GREAT!!…not like we’re taking the public bus or something!

So on the day of, woke up at 5 AM, probably should have realized at THAT point this was not going to work out well.. but, everyone met up, we fit all the bodies in 3 cars and we were off by 6 am. Then I realized once we were on the road that this probably wasn’t a great idea. I was extremely uncomfortable and tired and best of all for the other 6 people in my car, I was non-stop coughing.

Yes by about 6:30 am, I fully realized that awkward moment when you realize all the people trapped with you are all silently hoping to themselves that you would just drop dead! Yep, they listened to it for 5 hours on the ride there. I would get the occasional little shoulder tap offering me some oil to rub on my throat or candy to suck on. I would just shut up and do what they said, ‘thank you’ in my squeaky bear voice, wanting the ground to just swallow me up, because really, we all knew it was hopeless.

So as our cough-mobile trundled along to Aceh province, I at least looked forward to going somewhere new. I’d been to Aceh a coupke times before before, but not to where we were going today, and a wedding in Aceh would be a first! I’m not getting into the politics/religion of Aceh here, but it is an interesting entity in this orderless country. Aceh Province basically self-governs, has it’s own rights and rules separate from Indonesia as a whole. These rights along with the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, seem to have resulted in a less volatile relationship between Aceh province and the rest of Indonesia for now, although they are very noticeably considered ‘different’ and many are still somewhat wary. Let’s just say you won’t find a lot of Indonesians who can afford a little weekend holiday, choosing Aceh as their destination… unless they have to go for a wedding.

As we got closer to the border, there was a police stop. these are normal. These are where police supplement their income which they need to pay back the loans they owe that they needed to buy their job… If the policeman seems to think you might be guilty of some sort of traffic infraction that you will clearly see him trying to identify, you just open your wallet and give him a little something and you’ll be on your way.

So as we pulled up, the officer looked in, asked what we were eating (food was the answer) (honestly, has he ever seen a car pull up where the people hadn’t packed food for a week plus snacks for the drive?), asked where we were going, why is their a tourist here? where were we travelling from.. on an on. I was trying desparately not to break into a coughing fit, I was worried I’d be yanked out of the car and extorted for spreading bird flu or something to the crops. Our driver started getting frustrated and asked someone to get out some money. So the officer got 10,000 (less than a dollar for us, but 10,000 buys a big lunch here) and we were off!

I was thinking afterward, what if I was being kidnapped, and what if I motioned to the policeman to help me?… how would that turn out? No, here, if you’re kidnapped, I think you will be safer with your kidnappers than the police 😉 just a tip.

We finally got to the family’s home where I was welcomed to join the ladies for tea inside. They soon realized I was better off outside with all the coughing, so we packed up again shortly after and headed another half hour to the venue area.

Once their, I found an empty pondok in which to try and relax a bit whike we waited for the groom to get spiffed up. Once the groom Adi was ready, we all walked with him to meet the bride at the venue.

the groom on his wait to meet the bride

A great time was had by all (lots of coughing in the backgrounds on the videos though unfortunately!!#$^)

the ceremony...get as close as possible people

I’ve been to quite a few weddings here now. They always have the same general format, but I prefer the daytime events when the traditional dress is worn and the little ceremony takes place, as opposed to the evenings which are generally various ahem singers, and ladyboy snake dancers crawling through dirt with a very confused snake. Yes, the daytime events are just nice. Although the singing has already started! Nothing can ever just be quiet lol!

where all the amplified action takes place

the 'regular' guest area

I was also invited into the bride’s family’s house to partake in the family food (for family and special vip’s such as myself!), which is much more varied and over-the-top than the usual 3 or 4 dishes served to all the ‘regular’ guests outside. I went in, wasn’t hungry, tried to eat a bit out of politeness, started coughing, and excused myself to everyone’s relief!

the vip room

the vendors that set up selling stuff

buying a little sate snack

As we knew it was a long ride back, we left after a couple hours for the journey back. Only one person traded seats, and that was INTO my car, one couples’ kid who had ridden in a different car on the way. Bad, bad idea kid. So now we were 8.

On the way back, guess what, another police fundraiser road stop!

This time, this officer was much, much less pleasant. He got right to the point. He asked if we had drugs. The 3 little veiled ladies in the back were horrified! There was a lot of tongue clicking and disgust that he would suggest such a thing as they were chomping away on their snacks. And our driver had had ENOUGH by this point. He just shoved 10,000 at the policeman. But no, this guy wasn’t taking it. He wanted more. He called the driver out and they went behind the car. After some exchanges behind the car, the driver comes running to my door in a flustered panic “he wants more money and your passport”

Well, I don’t HAVE my passport (I never travel around with my passport on me. Some think this is stupid, but I don’t! I’m much more concerned about exactly this type of situation and having some cop try to extort money from me for holding my passport hostage. You are much better off in most cases, carrying just a photocopy or another good piece of ID. If they need your passport bad enough, they can go with you and get it, but they never will!) All I carry is my work ID, becuase if I lose that, who cares! Yep, I don’t even carry my driver’s licence around. My work ID looks somewhat legit, says Canada, has my name, my gov’t dept, and other than that, a lot less info than my DL (gotta keep the stalkers at bay). BUT, most importantly, it says I have a job, which you wouldn’t know by looking at me, and this is generally important in a country where you need a visa. So that’s what I carry.

So I get out my super-duper laminated Gov’t ID, and now the driver, a second passenger the cop and a second cop are all behind the car. A minute later, they come running back, the driver literally jumps into his seat and puts the pedal to the metal and we are off!

“the police is scared of your ID! He says ‘oh?! immigrasi?’… and then shows his boss, and his boss tells us to just go! They didn’t even take the 10,000.”

So there you go, after all these years, my work ID came in useful and saved me a couple of dollars.

I have a feeling you can also beat your way out of a police ‘check-point’ and probably many other similarly ‘this-doesn’t-seem-right’ situations if you have any of the following keywords in your ID:

Government (of some other country)
Immigration (of some other country)
Irrigation
Police
Security
Authority
Enforcement
television
website
internet
youtube
Indonesian Idol
X Factor Indonesia
Manchester United
Magic

Ater that, it was a long, long drive I thought would never end, but made it home by 11 pm, completely exhausted and 3 steps behind where I’d been at 5 am in getting better. At one point at a rest stop (well a forced one because one of the cars broke down), One of the men in my car asked me how I was doing. I said I probably shouldn’t have come, as I felt worse than I had realized. And he, in true Indonesian ‘speak the truth’ style said ‘Ya, it’s better if you are sick to not come. Next time if you feel like this you can stay home’ LOL.

Learning Indonesian:

sick: sakit
house: rumah
hospital: rumah sakit
medicine: obat
head: kepala
headache: sakit kepala
headache medicine: obat kepala

Fun Fact: Tipping is not customary in Indonesia for food service and Indonesians rarely split tabs. When a group sits together to eat, someone usually pays for all and you’ll be expected to take your turn at some point.

Well now I’m almost back to 100% thank goodness. Just forcing myself up and outside really helps with the energy. I think a week or two out of commission every six months or so is pretty good for here! Because otherwise, I’ve felt pretty good most of the time.

Just one other little thing to report. Not really much to choose from except the wedding and stuff going on in my room, which consists of cats, insects, lizards and moths! BUT, there was one bit of excitement. As I was sleeping away in a coma one night, I awoke, very disoriented as per normal, and I immediately swiped at my neck and felt something (which must have been what woke me up). It was large and hard and crispy feeling. I swatted it away. But still confused and really out of it, I just lay there not putting the pieces together. Then I felt a hot searing pain in my neck, literally. ‘hmmm, this is weird’ I thought. ‘I haven’t felt such a bad pain in my neck like this before’…it started radiating out, the pain was pulsing and was spreading, to my jaw, earlobe, collarbone in an expanding circular area. My mind started putting the events of the last whole 2 seconds together and FINALLY I realized – OMG something huge and crunchy bit me and now I’m going to die in a sweaty mess on my bed!! How long until they find me???!!! But I was still too tired to move. I FINALLY realized this might be serious and got my butt out of my bed and waddled to the bathroom where I tried to see something in the dim light. And I finally saw it, what looked like a hole by a one-toothed vampire bleeding on my neck. And it hurt like hell.

ok, ok, what do I do? It was 1 am, it was dead, a quiet week, no one up or around, not even any tourists staying in my area. what do I do, yell in my squeaky bear voice for help from my balcony? Yell what? “i’ve been bit”?, who cares? is it poison? is this what poison feels like? is it going to go into my brain, it’s already at my earlobe for God’s sake!? is it going into my jugular? Will all my organs stop? will I die? will I be paralyzed? What the F*&^ BIT ME????? and where is it??? what will anyone do anyway? If they determine you are poisoned they can’t help you by this point, they’ll just tell you you’ll be fine so you shut the hell up.

I thought rather than wandering around like a sweaty crazy person with a bleeding neck, I’ll just lie down and wait, ..for something. Then remembering my attacker was still MIA and unidentified, there was also no way I could sleep with something trying to kill me likely still in my room.

needless to say, I didn’t die, I never saw what it was again. I still have a little scar. Apparently the consensus is that it was a large bee, like the darth-vader ones I’ve showed you before. Although, can’t say I remember seeing them flying around in the dark! but whatever! And after going to sleep with the lights on for two nights, I’m no longer scared to be in my room, once again.

And a few more pictures I have to share:

Do you know what this is??