Given that the long Christmas/Muslim New Year/Ordinary New Year holidays were falling from weekend to weekend this year I decided we’d spend the week down at our place in Anyer on the west coast of Java, and hope to God that Anak Krakatau (’Son of Krakatoa’, he’s a big lump of an adolescent now with all the temper tantrums and eruptions and emissions that that entails) wouldn’t be emulating his old man’s finest performance while we were down there.
I chose Anyer quite deliberately, it’s a quiet little resort and only two hours drive straight out of Jakarta and for most of the time you travel along a decent toll road, although it should be pointed out that once past the grim industrial town of Cilegon the road is pretty awful. Now when I say “resort” don’t imagine we’re talking about Pattaya or even Kuta here, we’re not, not in any meaningful sense of the word. It’s a place for local people and the night life consists of hanging around roadside sea food restaurants eating delicious freshly caught fish, but little else.
If you’re planning on going down be sure and take your companion(s) with you, as well as a couple of good books and whatever booze you need as you won’t be getting them on site. There’s a big hotel, the Sol Marbella but you’ll tire of it very quickly and the only booze is warm Bintang beers from the stalls, admittedly I have my favorite supplier who is always sure to throw a half dozen bottles in his fridge every day when I come down. But otherwise be prepared to make your own fun.
Anyer is nicer than its noisier neibour Carita a few miles up the road which is usually packed with hordes of families from Jakarta, with all the noise and general messiness that implies. The first time I went to Carita it was during the Idul Fitri holiday a few years back. The sheer mass of humanity descending on the place was reminiscent for me of one thing.
The dusty roads to the coast jammed solid with every sort of vehicle from buses to trucks to motor cycles and pushcarts all packed with passengers clinging to their overloaded sides, on the beaches there was nothing visible but thousands of people, some desperately seeking shelter where they could under trees, others wading into the sea, floating on rubber rings, old tires and planks of wood or piling on to any available boats, yes of course, Dunkirk 1940. Interesting as it was to observe it was about as enjoyable as a virulent outbreak of herpes.
For me Anyer is just the place for a family break away from the hustle and bustle of Jakarta. It’s cheap and cheerful and generally harmless although I’ve had a couple of narrow squeaks due to problems in translation.
There are nice massage ladies down there, they are mostly matronly women in jilbabs (Muslim head scarves) who stroll around offering massages and in truth they do give bloody good rubs but, as I safely assumed, without the tug bit that makes massages so much fun elsewhere. I may have assumed incorrectly however. My favorite lady was a woman in her mid thirties, she too wore the scarf but had a not unattractive face and a well proportioned figure as could be seen by the tight jeans and t-shirts she wore.
Anyway there I was getting a good hard working over when she told me to turn around and as she did my front she looked at me, smiled, caressed my cheek and said “you handsome”. “Hang on a mo here”, I thought, “am I getting a signal?” I wasn’t sure, the jilbab is usually a fairly certain indicator that no signals are forthcoming and anyway my wife was next door in the kitchen making lunch, so I just smiled awkwardly, she smiled back and shrugged in that “up to you” way Indonesian women are so fond of and got on with the massage.
Afterwords I couldn’t help thinking about it and finding the whole thing extremely arousing but I was still able to dismiss it as a communication error on my part. When I came back a few months later and I asked around for her to give me a massage again I discovered she’d been banned from the resort area. Apparently some woman came into the room where her husband was getting his massage and discovered him and my friend in the middle of an extremely compromising “communication error”.
So it was that during this break I was enjoying the first of my evening Bintangs after a good swim and watching the sun set out in the Sunda Strait when along should bounce the cutest girl of about eighteen; all five feet four of perky pulchritude and a smile that could light up the surrounding shipping lanes. “Would you like to try my sweet young coconuts?” she asked shyly. Well, I nearly sprayed my beer over her but regained my composure in time to remember my previous encounter,
“Would I like to try your pert young, erm sorry, sweet young coconuts my dear? Well now that’s a very kind offer and indeed that would be most lovely but I wonder whether it would be possible for you to come back tomorrow afternoon when my wife will be out?”
Just at that point my missus herself came out to chat to the young lady and I rapidly discovered that she was in fact selling sweet, young, um, you know, coconuts.
Communication errors, they’ll get you every time.
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