We saw the Borobudur temple today. It is the largest in Indonesia. Jameelah went for the $30 sunrise entry. I opted for the regular price $12 entry at 8am. I had already seen Angkor Wat at sunrise, and that was good enough. I’ve seen enough temples at this point.
The internationals ticket area was in its own little building. It had clean white floors and walls, well-dressed staff members, and complementary tea and coffee. I’ve never seen internationals treated so well compared to the locals at a tourist site. The native Indonesians passed through regular ticket booths.
I walked up the temple and searched for Jameelah. I found her at the top. She had quite a following. At least ten Indonesians were clamoring to talk with her and get her picture. I could barely say hi to her before I had my own following–pulling my attention. Jameelah was loving the attention. She was teaching some girls how to dance. I decided not to bother her.
I sat down nearby to take in the sights. But I couldn’t get a free moment. Every family that walked by wanted to get their picture with me. And high school girls from Jakarta wanted to practice their English with me. I obliged on all counts. This was a taste of celebrity life. It was novel at first. But by the 20th picture taken, I was overwhelmed.
Jameelah and I agreed to leave the area and explore the temple more. No one followed us. But whatever Indonesians we passed would ask for our photo. And it was about 99.9% Indonesians at the Borobudur temple. We couldn’t walk 10 feet without someone asking for our photo or to talk with us. Seriously.
We would sometimes fake a deep conversation to ignore people. Or we’d walk really fast and look straight forward. Or we’d give in a few times and pose for photos.
We traveled to Jogja that afternoon. It was an hour trip. We took an excellent city bus, once inside Jogja, to the tourist hotel district. We checked out one hotel and left our bags there. It looked good, but we wanted to see if we could find a simpler, cheaper one. Timoti (a 6yr old boy) introduced himself and led us to our next hotel. We checked it out and declined. It wasn’t on our list, and it didn’t look like a good value.
We started walking to another hotel. And he darted out in front to lead us. Or so he thought. We weren’t following him. We knew where we were going. He was just trying to get a commission for acting like he led us to a hotel.
Once we got close to the next hotel, I ran around the corner to the front desk so the staff would see that I got there unaided. Timoti ran, too. I laughed so hard. It was funny seeing him fight for his commission.
We walked back to the original hotel where are bags were. That would do. Timoti walked in ahead of us, and tried to claim a commission for leading us there. But the hotel’s staff were smarter than that. An employee pulled out our bags, pointed to them, and shook his head no at Timoti.
But Timoti did not give up. He followed us to our room and sat outside. We thought he was cute, so we took photos with him and gave him a buck for his efforts. Then he left happy.
