~ Sumemep? ~
“Sumenep, 53km north-east of Pamekasan, is a more refined, royal town and the most interesting on Madura. You can see Sumemep's 18th -century mosque, and the kraton with its water palace and interesting museum. Asta Tinggi, the royal cemetery, is only about 3km from the town center” [Attribution: South-East Asia On A Shoestring Lonely Planet Publications 2001:232].
Wed., March.17. Saint Paddie's Day, but no celebrations in the rice-fields 'round here! Up, do washing and shave...those mundane, time-consuming chores that one has to do even on the Irish national holiday tempering my sojourn feeling. I do my own washing not to save money but rather because it's a self-sufficient, independent thing to do. I change from room #21 to #58. It's $1.50 per day cheaper but has a shared bathroom. #58's in a quieter part of this quite large and popular hotel. All but a couple of the rooms are on the ground. #58 has no view of the road though which is a bit of a shame. But to compensate it's at the back where the friendly truckies overnight. There are at least half a dozen every nite...out from Surabaya for 'their' companies, supplying the retailers here on Madura.
Again I think about the one month visa I've got. It's half gone already...and only a single full page left in my passport. Accessible finances stand at about US$ 1,500. Maybe I'm slowing down in my old age because I fuck 'round all morning. Really! I told myself last night that I should be on my way to the beach this morning and here I am cutting my nails. It feels like I'm kill time...for some obscure reason. Eventually I make it out around 1pm...taking the Italian man the t-shirts from the washing line he forgot when he shifted rooms. Over at reception there's confusion about room payment. She's confused me with him! I guess it's true what they say. We must all look the same after all. I suppose it's understandable...he's balding too and little beard.
Brunch of soto ayam which is rice-chicken soup. Simple, but delicious. Then I walk to find the former Kraton of the Sultans of Madura. This palace has got to be photogenic. I want to check out it for the best time of day vis a vis the light ~ the morning or the evening? The entrance to the Kraton gets busy with local tourists. My friend Adi's office is in the building built by the Dutch to keep and eye on and control the movements of the Sultan. I run into Adi. He gives me a map and introduces me to his boss. He says he'll see me at my place at 6...with the bike. And when I ask him about going to the beach he tells me he thinks it's too late for that today. He's right. I'm thinking if the bike is a good one, I can ride to the beach in the coming days. It could be an ideal mountain bike, but I find out later. So it's not difficult to flag the beach idea for today. These days are hardly great for a beach. There's been cloud with rain in the middle part of the last few days. It's the tail end of the wet season here.
I wander instead to the historic mosque right in the town center. The Kraton from the outside, is a bit of an anti-climax, really. But I know that the mosque is terrifically photogenic and I need to check it out now too. Morning light for the front is a foregone conclusion...it faces east. What's round the back though? The light's very flat at the moment with thick cloud cover but interesting. Could be great in the evening sun. But today I'm too knackered and don't have the patience to wait to see if the sun breaks through late, as it often seems to in the tropics. So I saunter slowly down the main street towards the Wijaya. It's down a slight incline away from the hill behind the town. It's there where the “Royal Cemetery” is to be found...Sumemep's other wonderfully photogenic historic attraction.
Back to the Wijaya traffic lights where I ate earlier. I take an "intersection" movie from the footpath while sipping some iced tea. Somewhat refreshed again, I head to the day market, which is back towards Pamekasan, less than a kilometre on the left. More short movies and stills as it starts to rain. Interesting in the busy morning here. The sun does comes out just like I thought it would as I retrace my steps once again back to the hotel and rest before Adi calls round. There's been some pretty active days since arriving in Madura after resting up at Maninjau. I feel totally buggered. Wonder if it might be time for another HIV test? I'm turning 57 day after tomorrow. I must have walked...I don't know how many kilometers in the past month? Hundreds! So maybe that's all it is. Or maybe I'm gonna have another twinge of dengue symptoms. This tends to happen when I get worn out for too long. I've had two dengue fever episodes since leaving NZ in '96...part and parcel I suppose of living the way I do in the tropics. I do hope I'm not about to get full blown dengue again, that's for sure. The last one time was horrible! That was exactly 8 years ago in Jayapura, Irian Jaya just when I turned 7 times 7...49 years old. If it hadn't been for Coco looking after me...I might have died. It certainly felt like it. At the time, at first, I thought I had malaria and took massive amounts of meflequine. It's the anti-malarial drug that sends certain emotionally-sensitive individuals mad. I certainly felt like I was knocking on...that door in the floor. Had amazingly colorful but distorted, disturbing dreams. On top of dengue fever's regular symptoms I was a very sick boy. Dengue delivers a high fever, desperately painful throbbing headache up behind the forehead and strange aching sensations in the bones and bone-joints. A blood test in NZ for Hepatitus anti-body counts and HIV in 2002 confirmed that I'd had two dengue strains.
Adi shows like he said he would with the mountain bike and all. After looking at some pfotos we go out through the side gate about 5 metres and have some cheap and delicious street food. Sate ayam comes with a great peanut sauce and the special rice 'nuggets' of this vendor have been boiled for an hour in banana-leaf 'sacks'. They are thick, sweet and filling. They cook a very similar rice dish up the river from Kampong Cham, on the Mekong River, Cambodia. Probably in many other districts of South East Asia too. Delicious.
Adi informs me that his baby daughter had a vaccination shot today and has bad reactions. He leaves at about 8.30pm to get rightly home to his family. I'm bushed. I drink coffee...ah...listen to Jimi H. and write up. I might take the bike for a ride to Kalianget in the morning. And there's a bull selling market in the afternoon tomorrow. Maybe some mosque shots if the weather's appropriate in the evening. Hey...best turn out the light and get some rest. It could be a big, high-energy day tomorrow. This holiday business can become quite hard work!