When tour's home away from home
JAKARTA (JP): A few months ago my neighbor, Ibu Etty, asked me to accompany her on a tour to Europe, all expenses paid, hotel, airfare, three meals a day and city tours.
It sounded like winning a lottery, so I immediately said yes. Ibu Etty sells cars for a living and for reaching a certain sales target she gets an all expenses paid tour for two to the destination of her choice.
So Ibu Etty has been to the States, Japan, China and even Russia, but this year she wanted to go to Europe again, and wanted to buy a diamond ring she had left behind last time.
Another friend advised me not to go. "You'll be exhausted when you come back," she said. "Every night packing and the next day you're off again to another destination. And the food! Terrible! No such holiday would be too stressful for her. But I was determined to go on tour with Ibu Etty.
Before the start of the tour, participants were invited to a seminar, where they discussed where they would visit. A vote was cast and a majority voted for shopping malls or at least department stores. Sightseeing is fine, they had said, after all, they need to see landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall and must be able to show photos of themselves standing on the Red Square or under Big Ben.
But visiting museums? Oh well, crown jewels are OK, but who cares about all those mummies and paintings? Nude paintings just make people giggle and the Mona Lisa is not as beautiful as Madonna.
But shopping is always interesting, especially when everybody at home can expect an oleh-oleh (a present).
From the start one could feel this going to be a different kind of tour. At a delay of two hours, nobody complained, peanuts and potato crackers were handed out and everybody was happy with the nyemil (snack).
On being delayed for another two hours, nasi bungkus (rice in parcels) were handed out, all tourists enjoyed the home cooking and the airline meal was skipped.
During European trip only Asian restaurants, that is Chinese, Indonesian or Vietnamese, were visited. If any tastes were funny -- no problem, bottles of acar and sambel where whipped out and was transformed into the spicy and refreshing. For breakfast some brought cooking utensils, instant noodles and could serve them up in a few minutes, complete with abon (shredded meat) on top.
The atmosphere was always gay and there was never a dull moment. We could always hear the cracking of peanuts and shrimp or potato crackers just like home. Best of all was during sight seeing bus trips, when somebody would pull your sleeve and offer you rujak (fruit with a hot-sweet sauce) or pickled fruit. Oh! they were so refreshing in that sultry weather.
But of course, nothing could beat the experience of the fire alarm going off. My roommate and I quickly dressed and left. But in the corridor people were laughing and having fun. Our neighbor was soaking wet. The manager appeared, shook his head, and then disappeared.
What happened? Our neighbor laughed heartily as she told the story: "Well, we wanted to have salted fish with our instant noodles tomorrow morning and we just fried them in the room without opening the windows. Instantly the smoke detector started sprinkling water and we were soaking wet. The fire alarm also went off, because they thought, there was a fire! Oh, was that manager mad!"
We all laughed with her and the next morning we were all invited to try the fried fish. A bit wet, but it still tasted good. I am now waiting for the next trip with Ibu Etty. Wherever she is going to take me, it will always be home away from home...
-- Myra Sidharta