Sunday, September 14th, 2003 – Day 208
I got little sleep last night because of the heat and my ineffective fan. I got bitten by god knows what all night. I had 15 welts on my right arm and similar on my left. I also got many bites on my toes.
Anyway I met the owner with his car and we drove 10 minutes to some rice fields. I had been out here walking yesterday. One by one they came. Two bulls pulling a chariot with a guy in it. What a site as many of the carts and bulls were decorated.
The Mekepung was originally held as a part of the harvest festivities. The carts and buffaloes were, until quite recently still used for transportation. The Mekepung consists of a race between two carts pulled by water buffaloes.
The colorfully decorated animals race on a two kilometers course. These days,
championship events are organized under the sponsorship of the local
government.
The Buffalo Race or Mekepung Attraction developed around the year of 1930, then the jockey dressed like palace soldiers. They were barefoot, wore head dress, a scarf, a vest, and trousers with a sword wrapped in checkered patterned cloth in the waist. Because the jockey got dirty after the mekepung in the muddy rice field, then they moved the attraction to the soil road near the rice field.
This developed in the year around 1960, and they formed two adverse mekepung groups. The one is called group “Ijo Gading Timur” with a red flag and the other group is named “Ijo Gading Barat” which chose green flag. Ijo Gading is the name of the river dividing the town of Negara, the capital of the Jembrana district. “Timur” means east and “Barat” means west. So the group “Ijo Gading Timur” means the group located in the east side of the river Ijo Gading, whereas the group “Ijo Gading Barat” means the group residing in the west side of the same river. Each group is fiercely defending the honor and the reputation of its own region.
They do not use lampit plough anymore, but a mini carriage decorated with
beautiful carving. The jockey dresses in a traditional uniform, a batik head
dress, long sleeve shirt, a vest, and a pair of trousers.
Each group has 100 pairs of water buffalos, each of which has a unique name
such as Batu Api, Emak Lampir, Hanoman, Gerandong, Nini Pelet, Raden Bentar, Sembara, Kalagondang, etc. These names are taken from legends made popular by tv films.
The race is held on a circuit similar to wet rice field. All cows on the track are beautifully decorated in pairs. They are yoked to one another by the neck with a piece of wood or bamboo.
For farmers, cattle are everything. They are partners to plow the field. But today they have a different purpose. There are about 30 pairs of ox with cart. They headed of on a time trail over a 2km course. I never saw bulls go so fast. So fast it is said, they can do 100m in 9 seconds which is faster than man. They headed off in pairs with an interval of 30 seconds between them and the next group of two. They all went in the same direction and came back home at the end of the same road they left.
It was a site but the bulls were severely whipped by the jockey. It took about 15 minutes for them to return. Most of the bulls were bloody but OK. One cart went off the track and it looked like one bull had a broken leg. I hope to catch a full race in Java soon. Full 2003 and 2004 schedules of Mekepung are available here.
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Negara – Bali – Indonesia – Mekepung (14-09-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Negara – Bali – Indonesia – Mekepung (14-09-2003)
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Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Negara – Bali – Indonesia – Mekepung (14-09-2003)
)
Click on the picture to see it in its original size
Negara – Bali – Indonesia – Mekepung (14-09-2003)
It was 9.00am now and the owner who waited drove me back to the hotel where I had breakfast. It was two toasted sandwiches and a hard boiled egg. I checked out and walked to the station. It was about an hour to the ferry port called Gilmanuk that would take me to Java. I got there with no hassle and spoke to the bus conductor who was cool and gave me good advice. It was only 5000 IR for the hour journey to Gilimanuk.
I walked the two km from the town to the ferry port. I do not know why as a moto taxi was only 2000 IR. Many people on the route gave me directions. Ferries go across every 30 minutes, 24/7. The price was 3,300 IR. It was an OK journey but I did not go on deck as I had to watch my bags. It was quite full of cars, trucks and motor cycles. Smoking is allowed so it was stuffy and dirty. Anyway it took about an hour to get across.
There was a guy on a moto who wanted 10,000 IR to go to the bus terminal. I said no and he said OK, 2,000 IR without losing a second. It took 6 minutes. I checked out bus timetables for tomorrow as I wanted to visit Banyuwangi and also Ijen Volcano tomorrow. I got a Beano mini bus and it took me Banyuwangi. This was farther away than I thought. It took about 30 minutes. The driver had no idea (neither did I) where I wanted to go. I said my worst poorest Indonesian I wanted a guesthouse in Banyuwangi.
That was fine and he dropped in front of the Pinany Sari (JL. Basuki Rachmat 116). It was fine although their basic room at 27,500 IR were all gone. Had to take one with TV and it cost 50,000 IR (5.30 Euro). I watched dome Formula 1 in English but all the other channels had Bollywood musicals on. A lot of their stuff here on TV is Indian made.
I walked down town. This was worse than Negara. Everyone made a point of saying Hello and looking for reaction. I soon got sick of me and grunted. I know, I know but every 10 yards. I must have said hello back about 200 times. I know if I said hello to someone and they ignored me, I would be pissed, so try my best.
This is the first time I have been in a mainly Muslim country. I have been to secular turkey but this is different. You notice the massive differences with Bali straight away. All the women wear head shawls, men with hats. There are two soaring Muslim Shrine Domes on the main street and prayers are spoken out via the loud speaker the whole time. The primary school kids all wear white and the girls are covered head to foot in a shawl. Very different.
I head out to eat a lot here. I have grown to like SATE KAMBING. Basically lamb meat on skewers soaked on a peanut sauce. Very nice with plain rice. I also like the old iced tea here. It goes down a treat in this sweaty weather. You can all the above plus soup for about 10,000 IR.
I also found a great NET cafe for access for about 100 IR a minute. A bargain. I checked out how to get to Ijen tomorrow. The hotel staff say I need to rent a car as no motor bike will take me there. I check on the NET. Very little information is available as its not a tourist attraction and not in my guide book. I saw a snippet on it in the Bali Advertiser newspaper. It mentioned a old fashioned Mining operation there.
This is part of the article I saw that has inspired me to visit.
Ijen is the village where the famous sulfur mine is located. On the Eastern tip of Java, this sulfur mine and its deadly acid lake seem to be an extraordinary place to visit. I heard of legends, of couples going to visit and the husband coming back alone free of the wife he discretely pushed in the acid lake. Quite efficient and very discreet indeed, this method of murder would be very efficient for in the clouds of sulfur smoke,nobody can see the act nor see further than the end of their nose!! Seriously, the sulfur mine sounds quite impressive. I heard that you can go down to the lake and completely loose your bearings when clouds of smoke envelop you. It seems the best thing to do is not panic and wait for the cloud to pass before you continue. Then again, if you slip and fall down towards the lake, I guess a stick would be a good tool to have at hand to try and break or slow your fall and avoid the lake.
If you can take the strong sulfur smell and also bear to see the barefoot workers carry their 70 kilos load up the hill, youll have one of the most interesting visits of your travels through Indonesia. Aside from the fact those people are slowly killing themselves with the hard work and damage to their lungs, it is said that meeting the workers is one of the interesting parts of the visit. Impressive by the fact they will die at a young age with curved legs and also impressive for the mere Rp. 15,000 or so they will collect for their long and hard climb with the heavy load of sulfur.
Enough of that for now. I had two beers in the local hotel restaurant and heading off to bed early. I set my alarm clock for 6.00am. By the way, I see on the wires that eight tourists have been kidnapped in Colombia.
Thousands of troops backed by Black Hawk helicopters were headed to the snowcapped mountains of northern Colombia to hunt for eight foreign tourists kidnapped by leftist rebels, authorities said.
The four Israelis, two Britons, a German and a Spaniard were taken late Friday near archaeological ruins high in the Sierra Nevada, about 465 miles north of the capital, Bogota, Gen. Luis Alfredo Rodriguez, head of Colombia’s police operations.