This parrticular time I didn't quite have the necessary things required to bargain. Like an address. Or even the name of a place I was trying to go. I had a screenshot of a semi-blurry map and a telephone number to someone who spoke no English that the driver could call once we got closer... With only that I couldn't just be like 'oh, take me to this mysterly location for 100,000'. No, me and the guy had to look over the map and compare my photo to his spotty GPS. He offered to take me for 150,000. which I rightly knew it should've been around 80,000, but being overcharged here vs. being overcharrged in America are two different things. That's a three dollar differnce, not actually a big deal, plus he had to search for it.
On the way out of the airport the driver stopped to buy minutes for his phone in case we needed to call my host once we got closer to the location. I was AirBnBing it, but not the classy white girl staying in a treehouse or sailboat AirBnB. This was more of a 'I want a place for $10 a night in an hour' AirBnB experience. Which, I promise you, the range of class in AirBnB's out there is quite impressive. The drive took about forty five minutes despite how close it was. The reason being is we were headed to a village, I wouldn't even call it a town, and the roads were riddled with pottholes and huge gaps spanning the entire width of the road. I don't know if it was just shoddy workmanship or because of the earthquakes that frequent the area but the fact remains the roads were shit. On top of that every 100 meters there would be a huge dumptruck parked on the road picking up the sugarcane or whatever they happened to be harvesting. This made the road basically a one lane road and there was plenty of dodging, weaving, and negotiating that we had to do. It was no problem for the hundreds of mopeds and motorcycles whizzing by, but we had a tougher time of it. When we finally made it to the small town that I still don't know the name of my driver callled Lili and got the final directions. 'Follow the main road until it turns into not a mainroad and then keep going past the main mosque and the house is across from the next mosque'. I guess I hadn't realized this was an Islamic country until now. Not that it bothers me. Somehow, actually, I even miss the call to prayer blasted from minarets five times daily. It takes me back to my days in Turkey.
The house was not hard to find as Lili was standing outside waving at us. I got out, paid the man his 150,000, and met Lili and the younger of the two kids, a little girl of arround 2. Lili speaks very little English though, so she immediately put me on the back of a moped with a girl, whom I pressumed to be a friend of hers, and sent me down to the internet cafe where her husband works. He is a German man with a big white beard, but speaks English well, which is nice sometimes. We chatted for an hour and I met their son. age 3, before his nephew took over his post at the cafe and we walked back over to their house.
I have to say, during my time in that little villiage that I still don't know the name of I hadn't seen one person who wasn't a local. Not one white person other than this German man and he'd been living here for 6 years. The children and people still thought him a novelty. Imagine what they thought of a giant red bearded man suddenly appearing? This wasn't some tourist town where they were used to Europeans and Americans alike coming in and gawking at their lifestyles. They've only see a tourist, I'm sure, when one comes to stay at this AirBnB every so often. There were no shops with postcards or keychains, no western markets really and they sell gas in liter bottles on the side of the road. Nothing is written in English and nobody speaks over 10 words of it as far as I could tell. It was beautiful. Filthy and rugged, but beatiful. Don't get me wrong, the islands in Thailand had been beautiful too. I'd loved it there, but that wasn't why I travel. I don't fly all the way around the world to party with a bunch of bros on the beach no matter how much fun that can be. This was why I came here. This was why I travel. It's towns like that. Towns I never meant to be in and no one expected me to come near. Everyone stares at me because they're thinking the same thing, why are you here? It's the same thing the taxi driver asked me, 'why are you going here? There's nothing'. It's refreshing. The children come up and highfive me or wave. Most everyone says 'hello sir' while laughing because it's funny that I'm here and that's the only English they know. It cost $1 for more food than I can eat, and amazing food at that. It was a pleasant surprise as I'd come here by accident, on a spur, per usual, even if it was only for a night. It was a real night.
Nothing means more to me than having a child torn to see me leave. It was the case with Attila, the small boy. Somehow we had bonded despite speaking zero of each others language. Maybe it was all the candy we shared. But he held my hand as he walked me to the airport. There's nothing more confusing to the locals than me, the tall lanky redbearded stranger, holding the hand of a little local boy, no more than three years oldl. who's making me promise to come back and visit him as soon as I can. He turrned to say goodbye to me three times as he was leaving me in the airport. I wished I was staying, and briefly thought about canceling my flight... but I know I'll come back.
Be happy,
Beacon.
No comments:
Post a Comment