Have you ever felt an absolute rage that you just couldn't do anything about?
I have...
My story started last night when I got on the bus from Bali to Malang in Indonesia... The bus set off at 6pm, I didn't think too much about it. I had my usual setup of 2 bags with me, one full of books, and the other containing miscellaneous stuff, as well as my laptop. There was some random guy sat next to me. I didn't think too much about him either, apart from wishing that I had a pair of seats to myself.
I set myself up for the journey, read my book for a while, slept a bit, and then woke up at about 10pm. I thought I'd write a few blogs while I had some time, so I got out my PC and got to work, typing away to myself. Then I watched Anchorman. I love that film...
I was always slightly weary about getting my laptop out on bus journeys at the start of my travels, but time, and repeated journeys without incident made me a bit laissez fare about the whole situation.
Anyway, we stopped at about midnight and had some food (free buffet... travelling in Indonesia is pretty cool), and then got back on the road again... I blogged a little more and then thought I'd get some sleep, so I packed all of my things away, including my laptop in its case into its bag, then tried to get some sleep. This was at around 1am.
The next thing I know it is about 3.30 and someone is shouting "Malang, Malang..", so I get up, using my superior sense of intuition to detect that we are at my destination, pick up my bags and get off the bus. I get my backpack from under the bus, and then start going through my bags to check that everything is there. As I'm doing this the bus is pulling away...
It doesn't take me long to discover that my laptop case, instead of having a shiny white laptop in it, has an old magazine...
To say the least I'm pissed off. The bus is driving a few hundred meters down the road... probably with my laptop still on board in someone elses bag, and here I am powerless to stop it.
My first thought is to call the police and get them to stop the bus at the next town somehow. This hope is dashed when one of the people I befriended on the bus informs me that the police are closed until about 7am....
I call my Malang contact and tell her the news. In the meantime I'm sorting out a taxi to my hostel, and saying goodbye to the acquaintance from the bus....
Eventually I get to the hostel, wake them all up because I'm 2 hours earlier then I thought I would be. And tell them what has happened. They tell me the same as the girl from the bus. The police are not available until 7am, and any thought I have of trying to track down the bus myself and exact some vigilante revenge are soon put to bed... as well as me, as I try to get a some sleep with all these thought of impotent rage flowing through my head...
Surprisingly I managed to get some sleep somehow, and woke up to the news that my friend was at the hostel (it is owned by a friend of hers). We plan out the day... including a visit to the police station and set off.
After the mornings activities it is time to go to the police station, so we head there, myself, my friend (Desy) and the owner of the hostel who is her best friend. The whole reporting the incident to the police turns into a bit of a circus... First of all it is just us 3 and 2 police guys, with my 2 friends translating for me...
Then, suddenly 2 guys turn up and start taking loads of photos of us, and especially of the laptop bag with the magazine in, which I kept for evidence... Then one of the new guys interviewed me, another guy showed up and also started taking photos... The upshot of all of this is that I am going to appear in a local paper... It seems that a foreigner in Malang is big news, especially when he has something stolen! I made sure to give the reporter my blog address, so hopefully I will get some publicity in Malang, and he has already commented in my cbox! (see left)
One of the police guys is clearly trying to get in the action, and we end up with lots of photos being taken of him and me and the magazine. Finally I decide to get my camera out and take a picture of everyone there... like it is some kind of family outing or something...
From left to right we have the main police-man, the reporter that didn't speak English, the reporter that turned up late, me, the police man that loved the camera, and the reporter that could speak English...
The only real tourist attraction in Ubud (apart from all of the art galleries) is the monkey forest. I went there, it was cool. Lots of monkeys running around. You could feed them bananas if you wanted. Lots of photo opportunities to be had. The atmosphere of calm in the forest was also quite touching. Even with the shrieks of the monkeys all around...
