FIRST-CLASS FERAL
Bad Odors and Great Rides On the Indonesian Frontier

Yeah, yeah, getting there is half the fun. After all, who doesn't like soaking in the scenery from the roof of a 4 wheeler, or a viper infested jungle trail?

peppered by IEDs, half-finished concrete buildings lined the main drag, and the ubiquitous spire of the mosque jutting out of the rudimentary skyline. When the police showed up, we took solace in the fact that we were Indonesia not Iraq. Maybe watching Syriana on the plane ride over wasn’t the best idea. Thankfully, the police’s appearance was more out of curiosity than concern. With Boss and Travis’s help, they put us in touch with the proprietor of an unfinished hotel, who in turn offered us rooms for the night. There weren’t exactly mints on the pillows and heart-shaped Jacuzzi-tubs in the suites; a scorpion crawled out of one of the dirty mattresses. Regardless, as the miles on the road caught up to everybody it may have well as been the Ritz.

At 4 a.m., the first of the day’s prayers crackled over the mosque’s loudspeaker. It felt as if our heads had just hit the weevil-ridden pillows. To the haunting chant, we got up to inspect the squalor that had been shrouded in shadow when we’d arrived. All things considered, the town wasn’t nearly as frightening in the daylight. Still, it was hardly Camelot. Loaded with coco beans, an ox-driven cart rolled past our creepy halfway house, flocks of swallows swarmed in and out of the top floor. A few children shyly trotted by and waved, and the police stopped in again, this time to inspect our passports.

“Let’s buy them all popsicles,” said Ben, referring to the seemingly ever-increasing group of kids that was amassing around us. “They’d be stoked.” Gathering up 50,000 rupiah, or about five bucks, we bought out a street vendor’s entire supply and passed popsicles out to everybody—even the police.

Being neither Stanley nor Livingstone, Nevins and I timidly poked around a nearby street market to see what we could find. We came up with baskets full of small fish heads, a tee shirt stand with a shirt for sale that simply said “fucker” on it, and several fruit stands trying to unload rancid smelling durian—a fruit that, inside its spiked outer shell, as Brandon explained, “smells like a monkey’s ass, has the consistency of snot and tastes like dog shit.” In this mysterious land for the first time, Conley was acclimating quickly. He buzzed by, jovially riding on the back of a local’s motorbike, a burlap bag full of durian, jackfruit, coconuts, bananas and coco beans slung over his shoulder.