Idul Fitri

It’s known that a lot of people go to big cities for their luck. They stay there, find a job – if they are lucky – or do something or anything to earn money. That’s why big cities are always crowded. Most of them go back to their village just once a year namely on Idul Fitri day.

Today is the last day of fasting for Muslims and tomorrow is Idul Fitri, at least for most Muslims in Indonesia. You hear lots of news about the trip people make to their village. Yes, this is the time to visit family in their village, time to ask forgiveness and to forgive. But also time to share stories and to show your success in big cities.

The rush starts already 7 days before Idul Fitri and ends or becomes less 7 days after. The crowd has moved from big cities to villages. Here in Malang it is visible. Actually I expect that Malang would be a bit more crowded than usual. Malang is not a big city. You can say, it is a big village. In history Malang was a resting place for pensioners, so it surprises me that a lot of Malang residents are apparently outsiders. Just like us.

It is quiet on the roads in Malang. Schools have holiday already and a lot of small stalls along the road are closed. The streets look wider and cleaner. It reminds me of the street in Holland when I lived there. Except in high ways it is mostly quiet there, at least for me who get used to the crowd and rush in Indonesia.

If Malang becomes quiet you can imagine how quiet Jakarta, the capital city will be. I think this is the best time for going to Jakarta. Normally you don’t have time in Jakarta now you have sea of it. Normally you just can ride around 30 km per hour now constant 50 km per hour is easy. People who have never been in Jakarta, maybe think, What? 30 km per hour? Don’t they have asphalt road? Yes, Jakarta has nice, wide asphalt roads. That’s not the problem. The problem is that there is much more people than area, much more cars than roads and much more rules than willingness to obey them.

The stillness is not just visible outside the house but also inside the house. This is the time that servants take holiday too. This has also happened with ours. We have two servants. Please, believe me, it doesn’t mean that I can sit the whole day peacefully and do nothing. Like to your children you also have to spend a lot of time and attention to them and you also get headache. Don’t get me wrong, you know what I mean in my story about it. The eldest went already this morning and the other stays at house till four o’clock after I pick up my children from school. So tomorrow and the day after tomorrow there are just three of us. Actually four of us, no, not with my husband. I forgot to say that he too went this morning. No, not to his village in Holland but to another country for his work. So the four of us are my 2 children, me and Browny.

In previous years I’d get short of breath just to think about this period. It means that I have to do almost everything by myself. Yes, the children could also help me but it was not the problem. The problem was because I was perfectionist. I demanded of myself that everything had to be like in normal period when the servants were in. It was not just about the house, laundry, food, and garden but also homework of the children and going out. The children must have enough time to do their homework and we had to be able to go out and having clean and neat house. Now I can say calmly, it is impossible. It takes time to have a change in your mind but I am happy that this has happened to me.

Now I am looking forward to get up lately together with my children, to make our breakfast together and doing other things without hurry. I also have plans to make cakes or cookies with them, to wash Browny, to play water. In short it means to spend nice time together.

Pelangi really wants to go to Jakarta this holiday to visit her Grand Ma, Aunties, Uncles, and cousins. But we cannot leave Browny alone. Beside we can do more at our home.

I just received an invitation via text on my hand phone from a friend, which lives not far from us. On Saturday we can go to her house and enjoy the day and the food they make special for Idul Fitri.

Idul Fitri is a day for family and friends. The last one can mean more than the first one especially if you live far away from your family and cannot visit them. Just like us. Read more!

Japan Cave

Finally we reached the water warm source in Cangar, Batu, East Java. It is in a forest and it took about 30 minutes from Malang. There are two swimming pools, the small and the big one. There were more visitors than we thought. There is also a pool special for women with walls built around it. They believe that the water is very good for the skin, so the women can wash their body there. But I saw that women here don’t dare to wear swimming suit or bikini. They always wear a pants or legging under their swimming suit. Even they don’t doubt to jump in the pool wearing their daily clothes.

Anugerah could not wait to swim but Pelangi didn’t have mood for it when she saw too much people just hanging around. When Anugerah swam in the pool, Pelangi and I just sat around the pool with our feet in the warm water. We sat there not long because the sun shone very warm. We didn’t stay long there and it’s no fun for Anugerah to swim alone with unknown people.

From the pool we went to Japan cave. It’s still in the forest but outside the swimming pool area. We need to walk about 500 meters upwards. Although there was a path we must be careful. The path is not maintained well and dry leaves make it slippery.

For me it was more difficult because I had to drag the bag with wet towels and sometimes Anugerah held my hand. But I like this adventure. I like to be outside in the nature with trees and not walls around me. I feel free.

Then we saw the cave. It’s very dark inside. There were 2 other people, a boy and a girl who visit this place just to be alone. I decided to go in. Anugerah wanted to go with me but Pelangi just stood outside. She would take pictures, she said. Then we walked in, the 2 teenagers were behind us. After about 3 meters we couldn’t see anything. The girl was afraid and went directly back to outside. Then it was just three of us. We need to stop and let our eyes adapt to the darkness. Then we walked further but after 1 meter we stopped again. The ground is not equal. The air became colder and very humid. We got an uncomfortable feeling so we went back to outside.

Not long after the first visit, we went there again. This time my husband also went with us. We brought flash lamp and went inside together. Again Pelangi just wanted to wait outside. This time we walked further than the first time. After a while the flash lamp didn’t come out in the darkness. But we could see another wall of the cave. It’s still further and again the uncomfortable feeling came again. So we just went back outside.

It is too bad that there is no story about the cave. From the name we know that the Japan soldiers have used it. But when? What for? What happened there? My children have also questions. How did they found the cave? Did they make it? If so, how? What have they done in the cave? How long did they stay there? How many people were there? Did they have to climb to get the cave like what we did? It must be very heavy since they also had to bring gun and other things and must do it very carefully so the enemy couldn’t hear or find them. Has somebody found his death there? Have Indonesian people also used the cave?

I think something horrible has also happened there. Maybe a murder or hara-kiri? It could be. It was after all a war. Honestly I was afraid when Pelangi took a picture of three of us inside the cave, that we would see four people on the picture. To my relief, there were just three of us, that boy, Anugerah and myself.

I think about the two teenagers. If they want just to be alone why don’t they go in the cave? I am sure that no people would disturb them. But I am not sure whether they would not be disturbed at all, ha..ha..ha.. Maybe this is their reason not to be there.

Sometimes people like darkness because they think they can do more there. They feel satisfied that they can hide things from others. Maybe people feel safe in the darkness but it’s just at the beginning. How deeper people go in the darkness how limited they can move. At one point, they don’t see any directions, shape, qualities etc. Doubt, uncertainty and even fear cover them. They will be stuck.

Light gives more. Everything is clearer. People see not only directions, shape, qualities, but also colors, expression and more. If you are stuck, you long to be released. People who are stuck in the darkness will long to see the light. I know, deep in their heart all people like to be free from doubt, uncertainty and fear. Read more!

Rafting

Wild Water Rafting. When I heard about it for the first time I couldn’t imagine sitting in a raft in the middle of a river with very wild stream with just an oar in my hand. I couldn’t imagine I could do that high risk activity. So when a friend asked me to do that in a place somewhere in Magelang, Central Java, I shook my head. No, thank you.

Several years later when we moved to Malang, I heard about rafting again. This time it was not from a friend but from a travel agent. Together with 2 friends, we booked a 3-day-2-night holiday. No fathers, only mothers and children.
We hired a bus during our holiday. First, we went to Taman Dayu, a small water park in Pandaan. From there we spent our first night in tree house. The next day we went to Probolinggo for rafting and the last destination was Bromo.

I still had doubts about rafting. Is it going to be ok? There were children of 4-6 years among us and we were all beginners. But our guide from the travel agent ensured us that we would enjoy it. There was just one danger about rafting, he said. We all looked a bit worried and listened carefully to him. Then he said, “Once you do that, you want to do that again and again. You’ll get addicted”. I was curious if it would happen to me.

We would raft in Pekalen river for 12 km. We got our jackets, helmet and oar but small children didn’t get any. They would be seated in the middle of the adults for the safety. Then we got a briefing about the rules and instruction that we’d have to do during our rafting. They demonstrated how to hold the oar safely so it would not danger the other people, especially when the raft rides up a rock. Row forwards and backwards. If the raft sucks on a rock, we need to move our body so it will release the raft. Another important instruction is Boom, it means we have to hold vast the cord in the raft and move inside the raft to avoid being flung from the raft. We’d hear this instruction as an example when the raft was riding up a rock.

One raft can take 6 persons with 1 instructor who will sit at the back so he can have the control of the raft. To reach the river we went there first with an open pick up, and then we had to walk for about 20 minutes. Down there I could see the river, it was a beautiful scene. Too bad I couldn’t bring my camera there because it would be wet.


When I was in the raft I kept looking at the rock wall of 3-4 meters high. How would it be if it fell down? I’d have no time to run away. No one would survive. In compare with such enormous rock wall, we, people were just like the ants. But I know it will not collapse. It’s a bit scary but really is a beautiful product of nature.

We started to raft. There are lots of streams and they all have a name. There are 2streams with interesting names. The first is God bless. They call it so because the stream is high and dangerous. The other is Buttocks stream, because people from the village around the river use the river as a place of everything including the place where you do your daily need. Not only the people who get benefit from the river but also cows and motorcycles.

In the middle of our trip we took rest. The resting place was upstairs at the other side of the place where we stopped. We had to walk on a bridge to go there. The bridge is made of bamboo and it was 4 meters high from the river. The instructor told us an interesting thing about the bridge that you may jump from the bridge into the river. It’s safe.

Something in me began to fight, my desire and my fear. The bridge is just less than 30cm wide and it moves when you walk on it. To ensure the safety I asked one of the instructors to jump. He did. You have to keep your legs straight, otherwise I t would hurt you when you reach the water.

I stood on the side of the bridge. I was resolved on jumping but then I made a fault. I looked downward. I saw water so far away and I realized how high it was. My fear won. That was my first rafting. When we left the resting place I promised to myself, I would jump the next time I am there.
My second rafting was a year later. I was looking forward to jumping from the bridge. But too bad, I still couldn’t do that. This time we used another organization while the resting place with the bridge belongs to an organization we used the first time.

Lucky me I didn’t have to wait long. When our friends from Holland visited us, we went rafting again. It was just a couple of weeks after the second time. Not wanting miss the bamboo bridge again, we used the first organization. Hello Bamboo Bridge! I am coming!

So I stood again at the side of the bridge. My desire was strong but I still had doubt. I knew that I wouldn’t get this chance again, for sure not in a short time. I knew that I would regret if I didn’t do it. It’s safe and it’s my desire. What else? I am not the first one who would jump. I saw a lot of people did it and they were ok. Then I decided to conquer my fear. I jumped!

I felt flying and light like cotton blown by the wind. One second I thought, what am I doing? Before I could think further, I felt the water. I was alive again. The feeling was so nice that I jumped again for the second time. Later I heard about the same feeling from our instructor. First you felt like you were death and then the water woke you up. Indeed.

Do you see the picture of the bridge here? Nice, right? Noooo.. it is not the bridge where I jump from. No one took a camera while rafting so we do not have the picture of the bamboo bridge.

I am proud of myself. My desire has been fulfilled twice! But most of all, I am proud that I am a conqueror of my fear.

If you are interested in rafting, you can contact Regulo Rafting, jalan Pakis Argosari VIC-4 Surabaya. Telephone: +62-31-5669866. Email: regulorafting@hotmail.com or Songa Adventure, Jalan Nginden Semolo 34-40 Kav. A 11 Surabaya. Telephone: +62-31-5967467Email: info@songarafting.com – www.songarafting.com. The first one has the resting place with the bamboo bridge. Read more!