And how do you eat it?

When do we eat?

I take a position that feels natural. There is a brief moment of silence, followed by some muffled giggling. What could it be about?

I think it looks great!

"You look like a farmer, sitting like that!" my friend Ami tells me. "Why can't you just sit normally?" She laughs. Miky smiles too.

The "rug" under me is actually just a plastic foam tatami. I've seen people sit with their legs crossed before, but never so casually as these guys do. Something in my physics prevents me from sitting like that. It's no big deal, I think. I would make a nice farmer anyway.

I change position regularly. I'm not used to sitting on the floor. Moreover I arrived three hours ago, and after a 25 hour flight across the globe and a 19 hour traintrip across the island of Java, I feel a bit worn out. Economy class in Indonesia truly means economy class.

Nasi Campur, rice with mixed toppings. Enak!

The food in Indonesia is delicious from the first taste. Some of the most basic dishes blow your tastebuds with intense flavours, often combining sweet and spicy. My first meal was tempeh (suspiciously looking fermented soybean chunk, sliced, soaked in marinade and fried crispy in hot oil), boiled vegetables, fried tofu and something that looked like Quail eggs (that was my special request in the pasar we visited an hour earlier). The combination is great, although like a chick that sees his mother hen for the first time, I immediatelly fell in love with tempeh.

"So, I just eat like this?" I pick up some invisible rice and place it in my mouth.

Quite wonderingly, she replies: "..yes, just like that..or would you like a spoon?" They dont use a fork and knife in Indonesia like we do.

I don't want to seem helpless so I just quite litterally dig in. And it works, eating with your right hand (since the left hand is meant for your "toilet activities"). I feel like a local, except that, after about a month here, people still laugh at my eating style.

The Indonesian food culture doesn't end in boiled vegetables and different forms of soy, although you would be astonished how far that can take you. Rice is the core of every dish, but there are plenty of other tastes to choose from. Some of the most common include: 

Kerupuk inside simething that looks like Moomin papas stormlight.

Sambal, chilli sauce, which is made often at home by cooking onion, tomato and fresh chilli in oil and mushing it all together in a stone bowl with some spices. Many variations exist. Sometimes sambal is an enjoyable experience of flavors dancing waltz on your tongue, sometimes it feels like dying three times and still feeling the burn, post mortem.

Kerupuk, a required topping for many dishes such as Gado-Gado, is a a rather tasteless crispy cracker often made of a mixture of starch with seafood, or something like that. Nevertheless there are many variations, and a krupuk comes in many colors and flavors, and it is impossible to avoid.

Tupac is all right. He lives in Indonesia and sells Satay

Bumbu kacang, a sauce made from a mixture of peanuts and sweet Kecap-soy sauce.. plus some other stuff I guess. This is the key ingredient of Satay, a delicious dish often bought from little stalls called "kaki lima" (five feet: two wheels, support leg and the feet of the seller) that are touring around the neighbourhood. I love Sate. They say that president Obama loves Sate too. I guess this verifies my theory that he, in fact, is my missing brother.

Chicken, an animal that tastes like chicken. There are also some other animals, that taste like theirselves.

Takeaway dog: Before.

In fact it would be easier to list the things Indonesians do not use for food. They eat it all. Few nights ago we, casually as anything, had some takeaway dog. Man's best friend is indeed not man's best meal.

"Don't think about it. If you start imagining him barking and wiggling his little tail, it feels awful. Just eat it, it's meat." My friend Putu said.

And after.

And what about the fruits? There are dozens of types fruit, many of which I've never heard of. I've heard of Jackfruit, but didn't know that it's a terrifyingly huge (up to 36 kilos) hard shelled killer that waits for you to walk under it so it could after ye`rs of waiting in anguish release all it's lethal potential energy on your head. 

Rambutan, the amusing little red berry-like fruit, that has its name from looking like a hairy ball. (You see, Rambut means hair.) 

White, but only on the outside.

Snakefuit, or whatever it is called, a fruit that looks like a fetus of some reptile-like alien species and tastes, once you peel the terrifying shell, quite nice and milky. 

In addition I am thrilled to see all the tropical fruits you normally only see pumped full of preservatives in supermarkets and fancy drinks here, fresh and inviting, holding on to their trees, waiting to be picked. 

I love my live, because on one hand I have shot with a bazooka, and on the other hand picked a coconut myself. It was raw, and I scratched myself climbing the tree, got bitten by approximately one million ants, and looked like an idiot anyway, but I did it myself.

“White monkey!” She was laughing again, but managed to capture my awkward technique on camera.

Can a Rambutan have a bad hair day?

Let's get back to food. Of course in Indonesia we mustn’t forget about insects, sea creatures and the s**t of a palm civet. Actually it’s only the beans in the animal’s poo they are after, to produce the most expensive coffee in the world. Kopi Luwak sells for about 40€/100g and it is said to have a specific taste because of the lactive acids and the charming glams in its anus. Check out how it tastes like here. I’m not fine enough of a coffee taster to describe myself.

It is a wonderful country for food, as long as you don’t think too much what you are eating, and are prepared to get dirty hands and a sore bum. It’s worth the trip. In fact, I declare the food in Indonesia as the tastiest in the world. Just to make you curious.

Bakso, so basically just meatballs served in onion soup. I know it doesn't look like meatballs but it is.

My story about Indonesia

Kids of Sanggar Sahabat Anak, Bandulan, Malang.

Little learner.

"Here, help her. She's having difficulties with roman numbers."

My friend walks away, leaving me alone with the six year old indonesian muslim girl with a wide smile on her face.

"Bule!" She says, and bursts out laughing. She means me, the tourist. The other kids join the laughter, apparently the idiotic/surprised expression on my face is particulary amusing.

The beginning is nearly always baffling. I mean I don't even know how the roman numbers work myself. Reliefingly it's not very hard to do the quick study from her worn out book, but then, how do I explain anything to a six year old indonesian muslim girl?

Luckily we both spoke body language.. with a good sense of humor.



I am in Malang, East-Java, Indonesia. I first came here four weeks ago, white as a sheet, with a bunch of useless just-in-case stuff in my backpack, after an announcement "voluntary help wanted"  in the web page of The 7 Interchange. I came from Finland, where I left behind a starting career in key client management just to make a dream come true and jump out of the ordinary life.

"Are you sure?"

I was expecting that question when I first declared I would quit my job. Instead I was encountered with encouragement.

"You haven't been yourself lately. I think you have to get back on your own path."

My sister has been a great source of innovation for my life. Her numerous travels have inspired me to follow. I mean, how often do you hear that a political history major takes a break in studies to do some gardening work for the city of Tórshavn, Faroe Islands? When I watched her ferry depart from the dock in Norway for the journey towards the-middle-of-nowhere, I realized thats just how she is. That's just how we are.

My sister in Faroe Islands.

That we are one of them.We are travelling in the search or purpose. And what a great thing it is that we have the essentials for it: enough health, wealth and a home to return to. And one day we will find that the best next adventure is settling down, once we find the place and company and purpose that we love enough.

I had to raise some funds to make it possible to travel here. I was surprised how much the different costs pile up once you start planning a life in a tropical country.

"I really recommend you take the vaccination against the The Japanese encephalitis virus, not to mention typhoid fever. You already have hepatitis, tetanus and MMR-vaccine, that's great, but you still need anti-malaria drug just to be sure. Oh, and don't let the mosquitos bite you. There is no drug against dengue fever. That would be 550€, thanks."

It was January 2012, about one month after the initial decision to go, and I was walking back home from the vaccination clinic. I felt dizzy, with japanese encephalitis vaccination in my veins, and I started calculating. The whole idea started to seem silly and impossible. I took a stupid risk, and now the enrollment date for masters studies was already over. I'm on nothing, I realized, and there is no way I can save enough money to live this dream.

Snowdropper and the plentitude of gear.

Then it started snowing.

It must have been a miracle. I mean, it seems odd how everything tied up: sudden need for snowdroppers, the idea coming to my mind, me being fully qualified for the job because of climbing experience, and the luck of getting into the team of the most hardcore high place workers in the city. We worked - quite literally - day and night, which for me meant faster departure to Indonesia, and for the rest of the team, well, a very nice payroll.

I guess it's true: "Once you start reaching for your dreams, as through a miracle, the whole universe will help you achieve it." But it doesn't come without one's own determination and hard work.


I'm still on the way now. I'm moving. I try my best to report from the way while the ideas are still fresh in my mind.

Without losing any more time.. Matur nuwun (thank you in Javanese) for reading, and see you next time.