I always like recounting the story of when I first found out my nenek (nanna) is in fact technically Indonesian, not Malaysian as I had always thought. This was when I was studying in Jogja back in 2002 and during a routine phone call with my mother, she casually mentions that my nenek was in Indonesia as well. What’s she doing here, I asked. Oh, she’s gone back to her kampung home village on Bawean island (or Boyan as the Boyanese like to call it), as if I already knew.
Pulau Bawean... Smack bang in the middle of the Java Sea, just north of Surabaya. Who would have thought? Didn’t actually get to go across to Bawean at the time but I had put it aside in my mind to one day visit. Five years later, I finally got the chance.
Now, I don’t know why but nobody seems to think that I’d be able to last a week in “kampong” conditions. As my nenek had pointed out on numerous occasions, there was “no sopping senter, no MacDonell’s” on Bawean. Yes nenek, I think I can handle a week without McDonald’s. I blame my parents for sewing this idea that I’m a five-star traveller. Sure, I enjoy comfort but I’m certainly not averse to living it a bit rough for a while.
So, what can I say about Bawean? Well, from the coral-lined coast and requisite sawah rice paddies to the thick tropical jungle and sheer mountains, it was like a window on what Indonesia’s like once you get past the hubbub of the big mega-cities. Friendly people, simple subsistence lifestyle and every second tree has coconuts, bananas or mangoes growing on it.
Despite only having cold mandi showers and no electricity during the day – and occasionally even sometimes at night – it was great to get back to basics and to marvel at the wonders of nature. Being ferried around on the back of a motorbike across well-worn roads to various water falls, mountains and the mystical crater lake Danau Kastoba. And, just to cap it all off, there was also the incredible full lunar eclipse, timed perfectly to coincide with one of those aforementioned blackouts.
With very few bulé white people visiting the remote island, it felt a little isolating being the only person who couldn’t speak bahasa Bawean. But the people were all very friendly, particularly those from my nenek’s kampong, who even put on an Indonesian-styled barbecue for me with grilled fish caught fresh from the ocean and coconut juice straight from the tree.
It was also good to travel there with my nenek. She has a couple of ongoing projects there, giving back to the community sort of thing, and I followed along to visit the school and Mosque she helped to build with funds from the Baweanese community in Singapore.
