IN 15 years of traveling to Asia, I have seen and done a number of strange things. I have eaten writhing octopus tentacles in Seoul, and I’ve been shepherded into a Phnom Penh nightclub by a Cambodian dwarf in a tuxedo. At this point, little surprises me. But when I arrived in the city of Malang, in the cool hills of inland East Java, I discovered something I never imagined existed.
It lay, as most wonderful things in Asian cities do, down a narrow lane — this one near the town center, across from the squall of a bird market. At first, I didn’t realize what I’d found. It seemed like a tidy middle-class neighborhood, some houses gaily painted in yellows and greens, others with a kind of Arizona desert-chic design. A bakery called Mega Aussie sold sweet rolls, and in the midmorning light people were stretching laundry to dry. Then I stopped in my tracks and listened. This was odd: The tinnitic buzz of Honda scooters had fallen away, as had the honking of truck horns, the calls of noodle vendors, and the general bustle of Malang’s 800,000 people. All that was left was silence.
Silence! In my urban Asian experience, peace and quiet were as rare as white elephants, and yet here I’d found them — and on Java, no less, the world’s most heavily populated island. Some 136 million people live in a place the size of Florida, occupying every conceivable corner, from city slums to the perilous slopes of 44 volcanoes. And still, somehow, there was room for silence. Why hadn’t I heard about this before?
Because, alas, I’d never thought much about Indonesia. Oh, I’d kept the country in the back of my mind, aware of its volatile post-colonial history, conscious of its reputation as a coffee producer and familiar with its panoply of sambals, or hot sauces. But the opportunity to visit never arose. Indonesia, along with the Philippines and Brunei, remained the only parts of East Asia I hadn’t explored.
But then, while planning a trip to visit my wife’s family in nearby Taiwan, I realized that this was my chance. With my superficial knowledge of its geography (some 18,000 lush, volcanic islands) and culture (mostly Muslim, with Hindu, Buddhist, animist, Chinese and Dutch inflections), wouldn’t Indonesia — and specifically Java, its cultural and political center — be the perfect spot to plunge blindly into for a week, without guidebook, map or personal contacts?
And, at first, it was. Luck was with me when I landed, one night in early April, in Surabaya, the island’s second largest city, at the northeastern tip of Java. Following advice from the airport’s information office, I hopped a taxi into town and headed for the Tunjungan Hotel — a big, generic, modern building for which I could find no affection. Instead, I walked across the street and happened on a travel agency, still open at 9 p.m. But when I tried to explain to Ari, one of the agents, what I wanted — something atmospheric, maybe a converted villa? — he stared at me, confused. Ah, right. Language barrier.
WHICH is, I guess, why I’d been studying Lonely Planet’s Indonesian phrase book on the plane. “Is there an old-house hotel?” is what I asked, more or less, and Ari’s eyes lighted up. He swung around a computer monitor and showed me photos. “Hotel Majapahit,” he said, triumphantly.
A five-minute walk later, I arrived at the Majapahit, a 101-year-old colonial relic, all whitewashed walls and arcaded passageways. This was, according to a brass plaque, where the raising of the Dutch flag after World War II sparked street protests against colonial rule. The Majapahit was not just historic but affordable: $80 a night for a huge suite with antique furnishings, a swimming pool, a breakfast buffet with 10 fresh juices (starfruit! guava! rock melon!) and a front desk savvy enough to direct me to Surabaya’s best warungs, or street-food stalls. In fact, the kind women at the desk told me, such a warung was one street away: Rawon Setan, which sold a local variety of oxtail soup that was almost black with spices (hence the name: “Setan” is Satan: this was the Devil’s rawon). Delicious, especially with a glass of es soda gembira, a neon-pink mix of condensed milk, strawberry syrup and club soda over ice.
I relate this anecdote to explain my state of mind that first night. Here I’d shown up in a strange city in an unknown country and, almost by accident, found myself in a fantastic hotel, with my belly full of fiery new food. The possibilities seemed endless. I was euphoric.
But then things got muddled. The next morning I didn’t know what to do. I ran errands. I bought a local SIM card. I tracked down a laundromat (after my week in Taiwan, I had no clean clothes). I had a halting but friendly conversation over coffee with Sudargo, a Javanese man overseeing the opening of a franchise of the Ijen Cafe, an Indonesian chain, at a local university. On the banks of the Kalimas River, in the heart of the city, was an old Soviet submarine that had belonged to the Indonesian Navy; I walked through it. Then I walked through a shopping mall to escape the heat and humidity and found a KFC, an ice-cream parlor (noodle ice cream! satay ice cream!), cheap fashions and, near a stairwell, a collage of more than 100 celebrities, from Jesus and Steven Spielberg to Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, and the mall’s marketing manager. Finally, I sought out Surabaya’s synagogue — said to be the only one in Indonesia — but when I located it, the groundskeepers refused to let me past the gate.
