Back in Jogja

Days 76-77 – Yogyakarta, Indonesia

So I’ve been back in Jogja (Yogyakarta) for a few days. I’ve tried to be good and not spend too much, but I failed, especially since I’m in the active, shopping part of the city instead of being far on the south of the city center. The picture at the head of the article is of my street, taken from the terrace at my floor.

I’m in the sister hostel to the one I stayed in Jakarta, the Packer Lodge, with its comforts. I have a nice cubicle for my bed, 3 lockers for my stuff, and so on. I’m officially on the 5th floor, but since the numbers follow the American system, the 1st floor is the ground floor. That would put me on the fourth floor, except that the owner being Chinese (or a magician, but the reception staff said Chinese), there is no 4th floor: we go straight from the 3rd to the 5th. It seems that the number 4 is unlucky in Chinese culture, and they like to skip the 4th floor, the same way a hotel in Europe may skip the 13th floor.

The terrace on my floor

So in American/Asian counting, I’m on the fifth, In European style, I’m on the 3rd. I like how that reduces the number of stairs. When I checked in and the staff at the reception told me I was on the 5th floor, without an elevator, I was starting to feel worried, but three flights of stairs is no problem.

Anyway. Shopping. I went to a market famed for its batik, and fell prey to the terrible (or very good, it’s a question of point of view) saleswomen. (Of course, they all laugh when I’m passing by, I can’t wait to land in Australia and to feel normally-sized again.) I can’t get a hang of the prices, something that to me should be very expensive is cheap, and vice-versa. Of course, “expensive” means €18, while cheap may mean €6. And everything in between.

So, it was time I made a new package to send back to France. I bought a roll of packing tape, because I try to put individual items in a plastic bag to protect them and I tape it all to make it as small and as protected as possible (that’s how I reuse plastic bags when I can’t avoid getting new ones).

I bought a second roll of packing tape because I finished the first one. The hotel told me the post office wouldn’t sell me a nice box (which the post in Thailand did), but they had boxes they could give me.

The biggest one was still too small for the wayang puppets I may or may not have bought last week, so taking a leaf out of my mother’s book of how she stores paintings, I flattened a second box, slid the puppets inside, and tapped it flat.

Then I filled the first box with my shopping, went out to buy a third roll of tape since the second one was finished, and went to the nearest post office with the first box, the easy one.

The nearest post office is a small neighbourhood office, and the poor lady was overwhelmed by my needs. She directed me to a bigger post office (open 24/7, so a main one). So I went back to hotel, finished taping shut the box, took both of them and went in search of a trishaw to take the boxes and me to the correct post office.

Once there, I took a number, and was quickly called to a counter. The poor lady knew what to do with my packages this time though: she sent me to the customer services counter to check the contents and prepare the documentation.

To send a package abroad, I have to detail exactly what’s inside. They wanted, is possible, to check the contents also. Since I didn’t know by heart exactly how many packages of which items I had, I opened the box again (I had taken the packing tape with, foreseeing the possibility). It took two pages to detail content, quantity and value; then I had to report it on the customs declaration, and so on. The final value has to be converted in dollars (start by converting Malaysian ringgits in Indonesian rupias, then convert the total in US dollars… fun!)

Once tapped shut again, I went back to the first counter with my ream of paperwork. Then the clerk had to fill it, prepare the two different forms because it was different mode of shipping, while apologizing for taking so much time. I think I stayed an hour at the office. But finally it was done.

And my trishaw driver was patiently waiting for me, since we had negotiated that he would bring me back after.