Jalan Bagus Internet

A joint blog from Emily and Alex...

Tuesday and our second day of class in Yogya. Today we learned directions, time and numbers...all things that we still need to master given their apparent little use in the living, breathing world of Yogya.

Case and point: Trying to locate viable Internet Cafe within walking distance of Indonesia's largest university. One might think that there would be a plethora of internet options given the stature and sheer size of the Gajha Mada campus. Unfortunately, by our best reckoning, there is but one lonely, smokey internet cage...um...cafe within walking distance from our host homes. (editors note: we have since located another. Bagus!) Connections are slow but on the plus side an hour will run you less than .50 U.S.- just about enough time to load one or two pages of facebook given the sluggish connection. But with Banda just over a week away, beggars can't be choosers.

The rain here is unbelievable. During our walk over to post this blog, we were overcome in a deluge not seen since Noah piled all those poor critters into his kapal and peaced-out. The rain poured down in a sideways arks rendering even the largest umbrella useless. In fact, there was so much rain that at times it threatened to limit our visibility as we attempted to navigate both puddles and swerving vehicles. At one point, it was so strong that Emily and I felt compelled to join a gang of locals assembled in foyer of a large supermarket to wait out the storm. I wish we had a picture of that.

As we continued on our journey, we inquired with 7 locals regarding the location of a by-then mythic internet connection. All directed us to just one location- BLANGKONET. Alex had visited this location prior with mixed results so we were hedging our bets on other viable options- in particular one mentioned by Minda as being bagus. After a fruitless search to the four corners of the earth, (ok, really just Jalan KFC as we have taken to calling it) we threw up our then very wet hands and hired a becak coach to get us over to Blangkonet. We could have walked over but if you had seen the size of the lakes forming in the streets leading towards the cafe you would understand our hesitation. Mind you, both of us were wearing sandals and, as such, were already a bit concerned about the nature of the water pooling up around our ankles- this given that even the cockroaches seemed to be scurrying away from the buckets of rain. (we noticed several of them climbing building walls to escape) Luckily, our friendly becak driver knew exactly where to go and after a few minutes of Emily and I squeezing into the bicycle cab, we were off. Normally, having metal around you tends to inspire confidence when moving through traffic...this is simply not the case with becaks as for the first time in recent memory moving slowly through traffic was a BAD thing. YIKES! Still, we were out of the rain and no longer ankle deep in murky water so no one was complaining. Plus the trip was only a dollar...and Emily was able to speak to her beau in Texas at Blagkonet so...hey, not a bad afternoon after all.

From Yogya with Love,

Emily and Alex