Very foreign

This has been a very intense and strange week for several reasons, but one of them is that I am in Indonesia for a few days. So exotic!  First a couple of days in Jakarta, then a domestic flight to Banyuwangi in East Java to be part of a geothermal site visit on the flanks of an active volcanic area.  This is pretty much a dream come true for me, I'll admit.

The site visit was great, and I was able to stay an extra day here in order to just work from my room and do a bit of sightseeing.  In reality, the emphasis was totally the reverse.  But anyway, today I had this great experience in the first part of my day and then spent the second half of the day working from my hotel room.  I spent quite a bit of time gazing out the window at the fields and houses and trees below.  I started to notice more detail, and one scene that I enjoyed was watching a bunch of boys jump into the river and play. I noticed more spots in the river that had people either washing themselves, washing their clothes, or just hanging out. It looked like such a happy and tranquil scene from my 7th floor hotel room, in this total eyesore of a hotel in a stretch of otherwise low lying tropical colorful houses and businesses.  I could see that on Google maps it would be possible to walk a circular route which led over the river and through some residential streets and the whole route looked to be about half a mile or something. Nothing. So then later in the afternoon (after a massage!), I started walking. 

I got about 100 feet into the first street and then did a U-turn. So many eyes on me!  Just staring at me and I felt so alien.  I went back to the main road and then around the other way - maybe the street would be slightly bigger and easier to casually walk along. Wrong! Two guys on a moped even stopped me to ask where was I going?  (in English).  I didn't have a very good answer and so they zoomed on, but that was when I turned around.  It didn't feel dangerous, just uncomfortable. I felt like I was totally invading other people's space and I didn't like it. Although when I smiled at someone, they immediately would smile back. But still.  I realized that I would never be able to just casually stroll through the neighborhood, so I headed back to my room to observe from a distance and get back to work.  It was a weird experience.