Vacation (from vacation)

Thursday marks the beginning of Idul Fitri (the end of the Islamic fasting month) and its a big holiday here in Indonesia. As you can imagine, if God woke you up at 3am every morning for a month with a loudspeaker and then wouldn't let you eat or drink (or smoke) thereafter until 5:30pm, you too might need a couple days off as well. Prices on everything are slashed--as my Indonesian teacher pointed out to me today, "to children Idul Fitri means 'time for new clothes'"--and everyone packs up the kids and heads back to their villages. This being Asia, such an event understandably creates mass chaos and great transportation bottlenecks. As it turns out, a good deal of people are from the part of Java where I presently reside. Moreover, my Indonesian school will be closed down for a week.

So, with nothing to occupy me, I have decided to head to Lombok, the island immediately east of Bali, with a nice Californian lad that I met at my language school (he is using the trip as a stopover on the way to Kalimantan where he will work for an Orangutan NGO). We will be going to the Gilli Islands, a spot noted for its beaches and diving (as well as a nifty right hander that works on high tides and supposedly breaks year round) for a little bit of R&R. A genuinely nice kid, he lacks that jaded and biting sense of irony and comes toting a suitcase filled with John Grisham books. In all seriousness though, I think we will make a pretty good traveling pair, especially because his Indonesian is a bit more polished than mine (and he likes borrowing my ipod). Hopefully there will be gin.

So, if I don't make my wan appearances in this space for a few days, don't worry, I will return, surely with some further droll observations (and self-flattery) with which to fill up the page.