Friday 29 April 2011

Over the Bridge


Exploring Madura's Backroads

Originally published in Venture Magazine, April 2011


It is 8am and Surabaya’s morning rush hour is going at full tilt. A turbulent maelstrom of bikes, bemos, buses and SUVs is grinding through the heart of the gargantuan East Java capital, Indonesia’s second largest city. I, astride my motorbike, am in the thick of it, and I’m looking for a way out. Fortunately I know exactly where to find one.
I weave between the wobbling commuters and head north along hectic streets. Soon I’m riding along a new highway. Two years ago this was a road to nowhere, petering out amongst the fishponds and kampungs, but now it’s a mainline to fresh air and green fields.
The Suramadu Bridge rises ahead, a great hump of concrete and reinforced steel vaulting across a five-kilometer-wide channel. I pause at the toll gate to hand over the Rp3000 fee, and then hit the throttle and blaze across the spans. To the left an expanse of pale water opens. I can see the great fleets of cargo ships at anchor off Surabaya’s Tanjung Perak port. The sky arcs overhead; I cross the apex of the bridge, the breeze whistling in the orange suspension cables, and drop down into Madura.
I whizz past the ranks of new gift stalls that line the approach road, make a U-turn to access a little side lane I discovered on my last visit, and am soon riding through rice fields. Glossy banana plants line the ditches and ranks of palms and bamboo march towards the distant ridge of limestone hills. The air is clean and full of the smells of fresh vegetation.
Beyond a small village in a shady grove of trees I park my bike at the roadside and scramble up a steep rise to the top of a stony outcrop where I sit back in the rough grass and breathe deeply. Insects whistle softly and birds are singing. A warm breeze carries with it a whiff of salt and freshly tilled soil, and green treetops expand in all directions around me. There is not another human being in sight. I smile and glance at my watch – 9.30am. Only an hour and a half has passed, but I am already deep in Madura’s tranquil countryside, and Surabaya is nothing but a distant smoggy smudge on the southwest horizon…
***
I first visited Madura more than four years ago. I was living and working in neighboring Surabaya at the time and it seemed like an obvious place for an out-of-town weekend adventure by motorbike. It was only when I told my Indonesian friends and colleagues my plan that I learnt about Madura’s atrocious reputation.
The island is Java’s closest neighbor, a 140 kilometer-long hulk of low hills, forests and fields riding offshore like a ship at anchor, but no other place in Indonesia has such a negative reputation. According to my friends Madura was hot, dirty and disgusting. The local specialties sate (miniature kebabs) and the soto (hearty soup) were tasty, but those were the only things that counted in its favor. The Madurese people, they said, were rough, rude, aggressive, and quite possibly dangerous. I’d be lucky if I made it back in one piece.
When I discovered that none of them had actually been to Madura, I was all the more determined to go and see for myself. And how glad I was that I hadn’t listened to the slanderous stories! I soon discovered that Madura was a beautiful island, a tranquil retreat from big city chaos, and a place where sandy back-roads through the palm trees led to deserted beaches. As for the local people, they were warmly welcoming and full of humor. The only thing my friends in Surabaya had been right about was the sate and the soto – they were delicious!
Before long this much-maligned island was my first choice for an escape whenever the heat and noise of Surabaya wore me down. I would ride my motorbike to the Tanjung Perak port, drive aboard the rusting car ferry to Kamal, and then blaze away for a weekend of exploring.
I tried to convince other people that they should cross the Madura Strait and see for themselves, but no one would listen. Negative prejudices about the place run deep in Java, where rebel princes and mercenary armies from Madura caused headaches for the rulers of the ancient Majapahit and Mataram kingdoms, and where Madurese migrant workers in modern cities are often viewed with suspicion.
But now it has become a whole lot easier to reach Madura, and for the first time a few other inquisitive explorers are discovering the truth about this misunderstood island…
***
On 10 June 2009 the monumental Suramadu opened to traffic. Long planned, long delayed, and costing Rp4.7 trillion, it is the first major interisland bridge in Indonesia and a feat of engineering to boggle the mind.
The idea behind the bridge was to boost the economy in Madura, but the bridge has had another side effect. There is no more waiting at the ferry port, no more traffic jams; getting to Madura is suddenly quick and easy, and inquisitive Surabaya residents and travelers from further afield are starting to visit. Most don’t get much further than the end of the bridge where a mass of souvenir stalls and cafes has sprung up to serve this unexpected tourist trade, but there’s a whole island waiting to be discovered.
My own favorite Madura journey – one that I repeat whenever I get the chance – is a full circuit of the island. I ride first along the main southern road through the towns of Sampang and Pamekasan. In the dry season the countryside takes on an ochre-tinted dustiness, but after the rains it is overwhelmingly green. The road passes through open, airy forest, winds over the knuckles of the limestone hills, and bends along the stony foreshore.
The best place to be based for an exploration of Madura is its most easterly town, Sumenep. People in Java will tell you that the Madurese are uncultured and crude, but this little royal city is a refined, charming and friendly place. It was once the seat of a Sultan, and is home to a kraton, a palace, the last one still standing in East Java Province (of which Madura is a part). There are Dutch-era villas in the backstreets, a mosque with the most striking and unusual gateway I’ve ever seen (it looks like a pyramid of yellow and white icing), bustling covered markets, and a hilltop royal graveyard full of sacred tombs. The whole place has a sleepy charm, with the rattle of the becak (pedicab) still ruling over the roar of the motorbike once you leave the main roads.
But it is the countryside beyond Sumenep that shows Madura at its very best. Tobacco fields and dense forest give way to sprawling stands of palm trees and the road finally stutters to a stop at a huge, empty expanse of yellow sand backing a blinding blue ocean. This is Lombang Beach. On the weekends families from Sumenep drive out to drink fresh coconut juice and to dip a tentative toe in the ocean, but on a weekday you’ll have the place to yourself.
Beyond the beach the countryside is wilder and more rugged with stony fields running right down to the shore. This part of Madura looks more like the Mediterranean than Indonesia, and as I travel along the bumpy lanes here I can sometimes imagine that I’m on some sun-bleached Greek island.
There’s softer countryside and another beach at Slopeng, due north of Sumenep, and villages hidden in the trees where they still make traditional carved masks for wayang topeng dance performances. This is where some of the very best pieces on sale in craft shops in Bali and Yogyakarta are made.
I love to ride my bike along this north coast road, past fishing villages with brightly painted boats jostling in narrow inlets, empty beaches and white-walled settlements where they make fine batik. Eventually the hills on the left fall back to wider, broader rice fields with pale mosques standing knee-deep in the greenery, and the road turns south through Bangkalan, the main town in western Madura. And from there it’s just a short hop back to the bridge.
I’ve been doing my best to champion Madura as a travel destination ever since my first visit. It’s always been a hard sell, but thanks to Suramadu’s bridge over troubled waters there’s no longer any excuse not to make the journey along the island’s unbeaten tracks to empty beaches, quiet corners and warm welcomes. One day soon the world might catch on to Madura’s potential as a travel destination; you might want to get there first, before everyone else…
***
Today I have no time to make the journey east to Sumenep. This is just a spur-of-the-moment coming up for air, of the kind I’ve often been making since Suramadu opened. I scramble back down the hillside and climb back into the saddle, passing on through more shady villages and open fields where farmers are plowing with yoked brown cows, and then turning back onto the broad approach road to the bridge. But before I pay the toll and return to traffic jams and diesel fumes I have one more stop to make. It’s 11.30am, almost lunchtime, so I pull over at a roadside warung for a bowl of soto – it is delicious, after all… 

© Tim Hannigan 2011

Thursday 14 April 2011

Wandering into the Past in Old Surabaya

Surabaya's historic quarters

Originally published in Venture magazine, January 2011


I pick my way through the puddles, step lightly over broken packing cases, and dodge a passing becak. The street is wet after the recent rain. Century-old shop-houses rise on either side with arched windows and narrow balconies. Shutters stand open to dark interiors full of bulging sacks. The red splash of a Chinese calendar shows in the gloom on a back wall.
I have made my way along this same street many times, camera and notebook in hand, hunting out historical relics and colorful photo opportunities, but there is always some side alley still to be explored. I duck down a likely one, and there right in front of me is a magnificent building that I have never seen before – two storeys raised on columns with intricate ironwork balustrades. A century ago it would have been the home of a wealthy Chinese trader. Today it is slowly crumbling; decades of traffic fumes have left a grey patina on the walls, and a ramshackle food-stall has sprouted from the façade. A limp “for sale” banner hangs over the entranceway. This is Old Surabaya, the historic quarter of what was once the most important city in the Dutch East Indies, and on every alleyway there are forgotten treasures like this, slowly giving way to dereliction with each passing wet season. This is why it’s a place where I love to wander, hunting out these melancholy reminders of a bygone age…
***
Surabaya, capital of East Java, Indonesia’s second largest city, and a swirling metropolitan mass of congestion and construction, is better known for traffic jams and shopping malls than for tangible history. But three kilometers north of the modern downtown is an area forgotten by more recent developments. This was the heart of the original city, a trading port that grew up on the banks of the Kalimas River. On the west bank a European quarter sprouted from the 17th Century, with Dutch-style, hipped roofs and sturdy walls. Across the water was Chinatown, a warren of steamy alleyways and red temples; to the north lay the Arab Quarter, built around the city’s oldest mosque, and along the river was the port, with its white schooners from Sulawesi and beyond. Though the whole place is slowly falling to pieces today, this is still one of the most extensive historical areas of any Indonesian city, with endless opportunities for wandering street photographers and history buffs.
***
Old Surabaya starts in Chinatown. The names of the roads here – Rubber Street, Tea Street, Chocolate Street – hint at past imports, and tucked between old shops and homes there are Chinese clan-houses with bowed rooflines, and temples built by the first settlers from the Chinese mainland, many centuries ago. The oldest – the Hok An Kiong – stands on the corner of Chocolate Street. It is dedicated to the Goddess of Seafarers. There is always a gaggle of old men hanging around here whenever I wander by, and they always call me in for a chat and a drink.
The biggest temple lies further north, on an alleyway of mechanics’ shops. The Kong Co Kong Tik Cun Ong is a complex of dark, smoky chambers where three-meter-high candles flicker in the incense-scented gloom and old women go quietly through their prayers. Dragons writhe on the roofs, and bug-eyed lions guard the gateways.
North of Chinatown there is a great maze of alleyways around Pasar Pabean, the biggest traditional market in Surabaya. Here ramshackle residential quarters sit cheek by jowl with ranks of fruit and vegetable stalls, and a massive, bustling fish market. But above the dust and noise and the Madurese women in bright bandanas hawking garlic and onions, there are the upper storeys of fine commercial buildings from the days when wealthy people did their shopping here.
***
I often pause here to take a photo or scribble a note, before hopping into a becak to carry me out to some other quarter. Becaks, the three-wheeled Indonesian version of the cycle-rickshaw, are the workhorses of Old Surabaya. Peddled by men with iron calf muscles, they carry both people and great bundles of produce. Many are spectacularly decorated, with metalwork painted in colorful patterns. A becak ride along narrow, potholed streets is the best ways to wend your way through the old city.
A becak often carries me to Ampel, the Arab Quarter. From the 16th Century onwards traders from the hard brown hills of Yemen settled here, opening shops to sell the produce of their homeland – dates, cloth, perfume and religious books. Their descendants are still here, and the atmosphere of a Middle Eastern Souk still lingers in the street that leads to the grand Ampel Mosque.
***
Much of the palpable history in Old Surabaya is fading slowly from the scene. Elsewhere – especially in Singapore and Malaysia – old quarters have been saved from collapse; Chinese-style buildings have been repainted in bright pastel colors, and one-time time colonial shop-houses have been turned into boutique hotels. As I wander through these alleyways, however, that kind of thing seems like a distant dream – though I hope that one day the authorities will realize the value of all this heritage before it is gone forever. For now, however, there is a gritty authenticity in these old streets, and the ever-present chance to stumble on some fresh surprise, some grand mansion abandoned to the ghosts, or some quiet family scene played out in halls that once must have echoed to the sound of accumulating coin, when Surabaya was a wealthy port mentioned in the same breath as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore…
And there is one part of the Old City where a direct link to that past still remains strong. Once I have toured the Chinese temples, ridden a becak, and bought a bag of dates from the great-grandson of an immigrant Yemeni, I cut west through quiet lanes until I reach the sluggish channel of the Kalimas. It is still a place for ships from other places to drop anchor, and on its final reaches, before the city gives way to the sea, I wander along a dockside lined with magnificent white schooners, still built to the lines of the original Bugis phinisi from Sulawesi. Here, a world away from the air-conditioned chain stores of the downtown shopping malls, barefoot sailors are padding up bouncing gangplanks, and tossing wrapped bundles down into dark holds, cargoes set for far off places beyond the Java Sea. Here, with the sun slanting away to the west and the becaks trundling homewards, the trade and the connections that first made this place a city continues – the original heart of Old Surabaya is still beating…  

© Tim Hannigan 2011